What I Took from Gibbon

 

Just some ideas here, none really fully fleshed out or truly deep. Some observations I had while reading The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, when I took the time to write them down. Something to review should I ever take up and finish the book, which I probably won’t do unless I suddenly become independently wealthy. (😊)

 

* I started The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire on January 18, intending to finish my two-volume “Great Works of the Western World” set by May 18. This was to be while my oldest daughter was studying abroad in Italy. To do this I would have to read ten double-columned pages a day (there are something like 1,270 of these pages to get through.)

 

* This turned out to be a bit too ambitious. The work is divided into six volumes, and I managed to get through the first two, 435 double-column pages, before eye strain kicked in hard. Head-ache hard. So I stopped one-third of the way in, and believe me, I didn’t like giving it up. But better to live to read another day; this was not a hill I was ultimately willing to die on. Or, rather, go blind on.

 

* The theme of the work, to me: The history of mankind is one of never-ending warfare. Peace is an anomaly. Such is the nature of this fallen world.

 

* Gibbon calls Genghis Khan “Zingis”. I love the throwback spelling. Much like the 18th- and 19th century term “Hindoo” for Hindu, and like Lovecraft referring to Eskimos as “Esquimaux”. Oddly-spelled wyrds fascinate me.

 

* Names of the various Roman territories, such as Scythia, Dacia, Sarmatia, and others, gave the whole work a “fantasy world feel.” Not sure if it’s ever been done before (maybe by Turtledove or Saberhagen), but man is the Roman Empire a setting ripe for fantasy fiction.

 

* The first few chapters ended with some variation of the words “… the downfall of the Roman Empire.” I thought this a neat literary device, very modern for a work written near the end of the 18th century. Would every chapter end in such a manner? But this was soon to be not the case as I quickly discovered. Oh well.

 

* Gibbon, at least Gibbon the historian, is not a Christian. He struck me as a solid proto-Nietzschean. I wonder if Friedrich read The History of the Decline as a young man. Gibbon has mad love for emperors traditionally reviled by Christians, such as Julian “the Apostate” and Diocletian, to name the most prominent.

 

* Even though Gibbon is noted for being one of the earliest historians to rely solely on primary sources (the History has an extensive, exhaustive footnote section – 425 of those double-space pages), modern historians consider it rife with error and subjective opinion. I chuckled realizing that one could go so far as to refer to it as “fan fiction.”

 

* Lots of new words, but the only one I (sadly) jotted down was “animadversion.” Dictionary.com defines it as “an unfavorable or censorious comment” or “the act of criticizing.” Synonyms include “accusation,” “faultfinding”, “slur.” A lot of animadversion was slung between the emperors, co-emperors, and their senators.

 

* Trivia tidbit: the epoch of the Roman Empire was the only time in history that the entire shore of the Mediterranean Sea was ruled by a single entity.

 

* Christianity owes a lot to the reign of Constantine (the whole making Christianity the state religion and all), but he was no saint. The most egregious of his crimes was having his eldest son, Crispus, murdered.

 

* No political correctness here: “To these real terrors they added the surprise and abhorrence which were excited by the shrill voice, the uncouth gestures, and the strange deformity of the Huns. These savages of Scythia were compared to the animals who walk very awkwardly on two legs, and to the misshapen figures which were often placed on the bridges of antiquity. They were distinguished from the rest of the human species by their broad shoulders, flat noses, and small black eyes, deeply buried in the head … a fabulous origin was assigned, worthy of their form and manners, that the witches of Scythia, who, for their foul and deadly practices, had been driven from society, had copulated in the desert with infernal spirits, and that the Huns were the offspring of this execrable conjunction.” Sounds like orcs.

 

* More trivia: two elite Legions frequently mentioned were called the Jovians and the Herculians.

 

* The period which the first two volumes of The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire cover is from the reign of Marcus Aurelius to that of Valentinian, AD 180 to 375.

 

* It’s best to read with one’s interior voice mimicking that of Sir Winston Churchill. Slow, yes, but so much more entertaining and rewarding.