After his death resistance and order were no more

[ewx]

Late last year I decided to spend 2004 reading Edward Gibbon's The History Of The Decline And Fall Of The Roman Empire, a monumental work of history written in the late 18th century. Last night I finished it.

Gibbon picks up the story of the Empire at roughly the time of the recent film Gladiator. (Indeed, he mentions a Maximus who achieved victories over the Germans, and who was murdered by Commodus.) We see the partition of the Empire, the introduction of Christianity as a state religion, the establishment of Constantine's New Rome on the Bosphorus. The West falls under the control of a succession of Germanic strong-men, who ultimately discard the thin fiction of imperial loyalty and call themselves kings. Gibbon argues that Christianity weakened the Empire and thus contributed to the fall of the West; but allows that its introduction among the barbarians softened the fall. I am not so convinced by the former; the latter may have something to it.

The eastern part of the empire survived for another millenium, according to Gibbon "in a state of premature and perpetual decay"; a rather less positive view than is popular today, and Gibbon does not emphasize the successes of the Macedonian emperors as strongly as does (for instance) John Julius Norwich. We see endless religious argument, both internally and with the western Christians; and from this and the disaster of Manzikert the end seems inevitable.

The twilight of the Empire was an embarassment compared to the past; the Ottoman Sultan called himself Caesar and the last Greek Emperors were de facto vassals. Only the final defence of Constantinople redeemed; after a seige of over fifty days, a battle in which muskets and cannon were used alongside swords and greek fire, the walls were breached, and Constantine XI Palaeologus cast off the purple and died in the hopeless struggle.

Gibbon is very readable indeed. While there are archaisms to modern eyes his language has not aged in any important way in the last two centuries. He is a master of sarcasm and wit, and his legendarily numerous footnotes are routinely worth the interruption (something modern devotees of the style all too rarely achieve). I cannot accuse him of needless verbosity, but must note that the Decline And Fall is very, very long.

Comments

[kjaneway.livejournal.com]

Somewhat shorter, but another important stepping stone in the history of Europe is this (http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/0140285342) book about the Reformation.

THose who have already seen me recommend this book once, may roll their eyes at this point. Tough. It's *still* a good book. ;-)

[beingjdc.livejournal.com]

This is fair comment about the style not ageing - I read it on summer holiday when I was little and never realised it was an old book until much later.

[juggzy.livejournal.com]

Like the title. May nick it for a sig, if that's OK.

[ewx.livejournal.com]

You'd have to ask Mr Gibbon, if you can contact him, not me l-)

[juggzy.livejournal.com]

Oh, well. Mr Gibbon can eat my arse. It's nicked, then.

[ewx.livejournal.com]

...I liked it not only as a nice turn of phrase, but also as a good example of the general quality of Gibbon's writing. Gibbon thus draws the connection between the end of Constantine and the end of the Empire (the fall of an empire is a process, not an event, but if we are to choose an event to mark its demise, no better candidate seems available), but to me it is also a good marker of the termination of my own project to read Gibbon's great work.

[juggzy.livejournal.com]

It's just one of those phrases which has a specific meaning in context, and out of context has a rhythym which hints at all sorts of contexts, none of them necessarily accurate. If he had interposed rhythym and order, it would have none of the sonorance. If that's a word. Wibble.

[juggzy.livejournal.com]

D'oh. I meant resistance not rhythym. Suprised I can spell that right. If I can. The rhythym would have been different, and less resonant, if he had not put resistance and order in the order that he did. Slaps self. I know what I mean.

[pjc50.livejournal.com]

On the subject of turns of phrase, there is an excellent book called "Power and Glory" on the making of the KJV Bible, which talks about how much effort went into choosing turns of phrase so that it would be sonorous and dignified when read out.