In his famous work, The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, Edward Gibbon tackled a tremendous subject. It is an expansive work, reaching back to the very birth of the Empire under Augustus in the fine line between the first century B.C. and the first A.D. and then progresses through the ages, right past the infamous 476 A.D. and right up to the fall of Constantinople to the Turks in the fifteenth century. True to his title, Gibbon’s epic drama recounts in views both wide and narrow the incidents and personalities that influenced that span of history. But Gibbon was also a product of his time, and as a child of the Enlightenment, he passes severe judgment on the morals and actions of the Empire throughout his work, as well as expressing his own curious partialities and easing, through judgment, his own irritations.
The copy of Gibbon’s Decline and Fall that is subject to this review is the Penguin Classics abridged edition. Therein lies the inherent weakness with the book, where whole chapters have been cut out or reduced to a page or two, accompanied by the editor’s commentary. The reader is thus left at the mercy of Mr. Womersley, who might have edited whatever bits pleased him and that he deemed the least important. But to be fair, the editor has included some abridged entries that seem to reflect a willingness to represent Gibbon’s own views as faithfully as possible.
Part I: Empiricism
Naturally, Gibbon leans a great deal upon those writers contemporary to the events. Tacitus, Pliny, and others make repeated appearances, and some, like Ammianus and Procopius, are used a great deal within the chapters that deal closely with those authors’ areas of interest. Many of Gibbon’s own contemporaries and luminaries of Europe make an appearance in his footnotes, such as Le Clerc and Le Comte. Though Gibbon tends to like certain sources in particular and relies heavily on a few names when addressing complex subjects – he turns often to Mosheim to discover the history of the early church – he does display sufficient knowledge in other areas to make comment, such as the Hungarians on Attila.
One major shortcoming of Gibbon’s is that he is hardly objective and does falter somewhat when using sources with which he closely agrees. When he turns to Procopius to discover the truth of Justinian’s court, Gibbon does a credible job of warning the reader that Procopius is beyond biased, but argues that by reading between the lines, one might discern the truth of the matter. That being said, Gibbon launches into a series of chapters that seem to rely heavily upon Procopius’ opinions – perhaps due to Gibbon’s own strongly held beliefs in virtue and manly decency that are antithesis to the court at Constantinople. Tales of such corruption play a central role in Gibbon’s evidence for decline.
In the last chapter of the book, Gibbon helpfully lays out the four key reasons for the decay of the Roman city: “I. The injuries of time and nature. II. The hostile attacks of the Barbarians and Christians. III. The use and abuse of the materials. And, IV. The domestic quarrels of the Romans.” Although this list is intended to address the decay of the city itself, some circumstances regarding its fall are applicable to the empire at large.
The first argument is weak with regards to the fall of the Empire: the authority and eminence of Rome long survived the symphonic conflagration of Nero, and the swelling of the Tiber merely kept Augustus busy during his tenure as the first emperor. There is one outstanding exception, that of the dramatic sandstorm that undermined the defense of Jerusalem in A.D. 636 against the Muslims, whose capture of that city was supposedly reflective upon the poor morals of Emperor Heraclius. The fall of the imperial holdings from the Levant to Iberia followed shortly.
More worthy of Gibbon’s topic, warfare and strife is a combination of Barbarians thrashing both the frontiers and later the interiors of both the East and the West, as well as the dissentions among the Christians. There are many factors here, most appreciably those of corruption at home and failures at arms – and these are often closely interrelated. The Battle of Adrianople in 378 is an excellent example, wherein the corruption of the nobility led to martial disaster. The declaration of liberty by the Goths while in Thrace was effectively the first successful invasion. Following that war, and due to the constant perils that threatened everyday life, the morals of the Empire declined as a spirit of “eat, drink, and be merry” superceded the more temperate Roman virtues. In this climate of resignation and stagnation, the actions of Attila in the following century are easily seen as aiding in the destruction of Rome. In the midst of the horrors of Hunnish raids, one martially motivated town that successfully fought back against the Huns showed how the regular government and arms of the Eastern Empire had deteriorated.
Our author waxes eloquent on his dialogues regarding the use and abuse of resources. If armies may be called resources, then they earned the just ire of Gibbon. Loss of freedom and patriotism were the results of the legions becoming more and more mercenary in nature, thus starting a vicious cycle: as the legions threatened the Empire, the fearful emperors moved to weaken the army, thus sabotaging any attempts to overthrow the barbarian enemies that plundered the countryside at will. Finances were another frequent abuse, best put on display by Justinian’s riotous spending campaigns in the Sixth century, wherein the prodigal emperor engaged in building and lavishing moneys onto his favorites and leaving naught for his successor but debt, and what defenses he did build Gibbon deems pointless.
The domestic quarrels of the Romans were the final weakness that allowed for the avalanche of state to begin tumbling. Court intrigues abound, from the jealously of Canstantius II to the murder of the worthy general Aetius – fresh from his victory over Attila – by his liege. The problem was summed up well as Gibbon gravely pronounced that the Empire appeared “every day less formidable to its enemies, more odious and oppressive to its subjects.” As the first blows were succeeded by a storm of invaders, the imperial division into East and West allowed the factions that crippled any attempts to unify forces against common foes. Even after Rome was reduced to the seat of barbaric authority in Italy, further division is explored with regard to the Greens and Blues in the East, athletic-turned-quasi-political factions that haunted Justinian’s reign, leading to the Nikan Revolt.
Though whimsical and sprinkled with appreciated irony, Gibbon’s view of the fall of Rome is a gloomy one, well suited for comparison with The Fall of Rome and the End of Civilization, by Bryan Ward-Perkins. The differences of opinion are largely in focus: where Gibbon the epic historian examines the leadership and humor of the populace, Ward-Perkins the archeologist reads between the lines of ancient texts when not examining pottery kilns in Briton and Latin graffiti on the walls of Pompeii. Some of their conclusions are certainly different, at least in the means to the same end. The toppling of Rome was, for Gibbon, largely founded upon the abuse of power and the loss of the macho drive that invigorated the Republic and early Empire. In his view the coming of Christianity was a good marker for the decline, supposing that the religion “preached the doctrines of patience and pusillanimity” leading the once-manly Empire into a “servile and effeminate age,” as public wealth was redirected to the ecclesiastical institutions – though he does allows that the mollifying effects of Christianity helped to cushion the fall of Rome to the Barbarians. This is in contrast with Ward-Perkins’ largely religion-free opinion that Rome had long survived only precariously, as its legions liked to play defense and, while undisputedly superior to the swarming Gothic hordes, never enjoyed an edge so definite as that of the Gattling gun over African natives. In the composition of the military, too, Gibbon is more leery of mercenary loyalties than Ward-Perkins, who views mercenaries as a reasonable expenditure – as apparently did the Romans. Further differences arise when it comes to the decline and fall, since Ward-Perkins sees a government over-burdened with military upkeep – as opposed to the bellicose barbarians – and a society suddenly devoid of a tax base right when it needed one. Though Gibbon does address the social problems associated with monasticism and religious diversity, pollution of the army by mercenaries, and certainly the oppressive taxes, he usually sticks with the Great Men school of history, putting the blame of said diversity, pollution, and taxation upon the heads of the Roman elite, most often the emperor.
As one might suspect of these dour authors, Gibbon and Ward-Perkins agree on the level of violence that characterized the fall of Rome. But where Ward-Perkins focuses upon the Germanic invasions, Gibbon produced graphic depictions of Hunnish atrocities under Attila. But once hostilities subsided, these two historians also agree on the matter of Barbarian reverence – however imperfect – of the Roman tradition. The Germans were not necessarily bent on carnage and destruction for its own sake. But, having seen the glories of Rome and being trained in her armies, savvy with her weaknesses, they were able to turn that to their advantage and lay hands upon those portable spoils that suited them. That being said, much as Gibbon reminds us that the physical buildings were often spared, so too does Ward-Perkins offer the consolation that the institutions of Rome prevailed in some barbaric guise. But all means aside, the result of the fall is a point on which both men echo each other’s assessments of the contemporary implications. Writes Gibbon, “The Romans were ignorant of the extent of their danger, and the number of their enemies.” Ward-Perkins finishes the thought thusly: “Romans before the fall were as certain as we are today that their world would continue for ever substantially unchanged. They were wrong.” Though writing from different periods, they both agree that the threat of decline and overthrow at the hands of barbarians is a risk applicable to all great civilizations.
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