A	>>	B	>>	C	>>	D	>>	E
F	>>	G	>>	H	>>	I	>>	J
K	>>	L	>>	M	>>	N	>>	O
P	>>	R	>>	S	>>	T	>>	U
V	>>	W	>>			X	>>	Z

Walter Pater - "The Renaissance"

James J. Davis - "The Iron Puddler"

Thomas Carlyle - "The Life of John Sterling"

Henry James - "The Beast in the Jungle"

The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire

E >> Edward Gibbon >> The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire




[Footnote 5: See Daniel, ii. 31 - 40. "And the fourth kingdom
shall be strong as iron; forasmuch as iron breaketh in pieces and
subdueth all things." The remainder of the prophecy (the mixture
of iron and clay) was accomplished, according to St. Jerom, in
his own time. Sicut enim in principio nihil Romano Imperio
fortius et durius, ita in fine rerum nihil imbecillius; quum et
in bellis civilibus et adversus diversas nationes, aliarum
gentium barbararum auxilio indigemus, (Opera, tom. v. p. 572.)]
The rise of a city, which swelled into an empire, may
deserve, as a singular prodigy, the reflection of a philosophic
mind. But the decline of Rome was the natural and inevitable
effect of immoderate greatness. Prosperity ripened the principle
of decay; the causes of destruction multiplied with the extent of
conquest; and as soon as time or accident had removed the
artificial supports, the stupendous fabric yielded to the
pressure of its own weight. The story of its ruin is simple and
obvious; and instead of inquiring why the Roman empire was
destroyed, we should rather be surprised that it had subsisted so
long. The victorious legions, who, in distant wars, acquired the
vices of strangers and mercenaries, first oppressed the freedom
of the republic, and afterwards violated the majesty of the
purple. The emperors, anxious for their personal safety and the
public peace, were reduced to the base expedient of corrupting
the discipline which rendered them alike formidable to their
sovereign and to the enemy; the vigor of the military government
was relaxed, and finally dissolved, by the partial institutions
of Constantine; and the Roman world was overwhelmed by a deluge
of Barbarians.
The decay of Rome has been frequently ascribed to the
translation of the seat of empire; but this History has already
shown, that the powers of government were divided, rather than
removed. The throne of Constantinople was erected in the East;
while the West was still possessed by a series of emperors who
held their residence in Italy, and claimed their equal
inheritance of the legions and provinces. This dangerous novelty
impaired the strength, and fomented the vices, of a double reign:
the instruments of an oppressive and arbitrary system were
multiplied; and a vain emulation of luxury, not of merit, was
introduced and supported between the degenerate successors of
Theodosius. Extreme distress, which unites the virtue of a free
people, imbitters the factions of a declining monarchy. The
hostile favorites of Arcadius and Honorius betrayed the republic
to its common enemies; and the Byzantine court beheld with
indifference, perhaps with pleasure, the disgrace of Rome, the
misfortunes of Italy, and the loss of the West. Under the
succeeding reigns, the alliance of the two empires was restored;
but the aid of the Oriental Romans was tardy, doubtful, and
ineffectual; and the national schism of the Greeks and Latins was
enlarged by the perpetual difference of language and manners, of
interests, and even of religion. Yet the salutary event approved
in some measure the judgment of Constantine. During a long
period of decay, his impregnable city repelled the victorious
armies of Barbarians, protected the wealth of Asia, and
commanded, both in peace and war, the important straits which
connect the Euxine and Mediterranean Seas. The foundation of
Constantinople more essentially contributed to the preservation
of the East, than to the ruin of the West.

As the happiness of a future life is the great object of
religion, we may hear without surprise or scandal, that the
introduction or at least the abuse, of Christianity had some
influence on the decline and fall of the Roman empire. The
clergy successfully preached the doctrines of patience and
pusillanimity: the active virtues of society were discouraged;
and the last remains of military spirit were buried in the
cloister: a large portion of public and private wealth was
consecrated to the specious demands of charity and devotion; and
the soldiers' pay was lavished on the useless multitudes of both
sexes, who could only plead the merits of abstinence and
chastity. ^* Faith, zeal, curiosity, and the more earthly
passions of malice and ambition, kindled the flame of theological
discord; the church, and even the state, were distracted by
religious factions, whose conflicts were sometimes bloody, and
always implacable; the attention of the emperors was diverted
from camps to synods; the Roman world was oppressed by a new
species of tyranny; and the persecuted sects became the secret
enemies of their country. Yet party spirit, however pernicious
or absurd, is a principle of union as well as of dissension. The
bishops, from eighteen hundred pulpits, inculcated the duty of
passive obedience to a lawful and orthodox sovereign; their
frequent assemblies, and perpetual correspondence, maintained the
communion of distant churches; and the benevolent temper of the
gospel was strengthened, though confined, by the spiritual
alliance of the Catholics. The sacred indolence of the monks was
devoutly embraced by a servile and effeminate age; but if
superstition had not afforded a decent retreat, the same vices
would have tempted the unworthy Romans to desert, from baser
motives, the standard of the republic. Religious precepts are
easily obeyed, which indulge and sanctify the natural
inclinations of their votaries; but the pure and genuine
influence of Christianity may be traced in its beneficial, though
imperfect, effects on the Barbarian proselytes of the North. If
the decline of the Roman empire was hastened by the conversion of
Constantine, his victorious religion broke the violence of the
fall, and mollified the ferocious temper of the conquerors.
[Footnote *: It might be a curious speculation, how far the purer
morals of the genuine and more active Christians may have
compensated, in the population of the Roman empire, for the
secession of such numbers into inactive and unproductive
celibacy. - M.]

This awful revolution may be usefully applied to the
instruction of the present age. It is the duty of a patriot to
prefer and promote the exclusive interest and glory of his native
country: but a philosopher may be permitted to enlarge his views,
and to consider Europe as one great republic whose various
inhabitants have obtained almost the same level of politeness and
cultivation. The balance of power will continue to fluctuate,
and the prosperity of our own, or the neighboring kingdoms, may
be alternately exalted or depressed; but these partial events
cannot essentially injure our general state of happiness, the
system of arts, and laws, and manners, which so advantageously
distinguish, above the rest of mankind, the Europeans and their
colonies. The savage nations of the globe are the common enemies
of civilized society; and we may inquire, with anxious curiosity,
whether Europe is still threatened with a repetition of those
calamities, which formerly oppressed the arms and institutions of
Rome. Perhaps the same reflections will illustrate the fall of
that mighty empire, and explain the probable causes of our actual
security.

I. The Romans were ignorant of the extent of their danger,
and the number of their enemies. Beyond the Rhine and Danube,
the Northern countries of Europe and Asia were filled with
innumerable tribes of hunters and shepherds, poor, voracious, and
turbulent; bold in arms, and impatient to ravish the fruits of
industry. The Barbarian world was agitated by the rapid impulse
of war; and the peace of Gaul or Italy was shaken by the distant
revolutions of China. The Huns, who fled before a victorious
enemy, directed their march towards the West; and the torrent was
swelled by the gradual accession of captives and allies. The
flying tribes who yielded to the Huns assumed in their turn the
spirit of conquest; the endless column of Barbarians pressed on
the Roman empire with accumulated weight; and, if the foremost
were destroyed, the vacant space was instantly replenished by new
assailants. Such formidable emigrations can no longer issue from
the North; and the long repose, which has been imputed to the
decrease of population, is the happy consequence of the progress
of arts and agriculture. Instead of some rude villages, thinly
scattered among its woods and morasses, Germany now produces a
list of two thousand three hundred walled towns: the Christian
kingdoms of Denmark, Sweden, and Poland, have been successively
established; and the Hanse merchants, with the Teutonic knights,
have extended their colonies along the coast of the Baltic, as
far as the Gulf of Finland. From the Gulf of Finland to the
Eastern Ocean, Russia now assumes the form of a powerful and
civilized empire. The plough, the loom, and the forge, are
introduced on the banks of the Volga, the Oby, and the Lena; and
the fiercest of the Tartar hordes have been taught to tremble and
obey. The reign of independent Barbarism is now contracted to a
narrow span; and the remnant of Calmucks or Uzbecks, whose forces
may be almost numbered, cannot seriously excite the apprehensions
of the great republic of Europe. ^6 Yet this apparent security
should not tempt us to forget, that new enemies, and unknown
dangers, may possibly arise from some obscure people, scarcely
visible in the map of the world, The Arabs or Saracens, who
spread their conquests from India to Spain, had languished in
poverty and contempt, till Mahomet breathed into those savage
bodies the soul of enthusiasm.

[Footnote 6: The French and English editors of the Genealogical
History of the Tartars have subjoined a curious, though
imperfect, description, of their present state. We might
question the independence of the Calmucks, or Eluths, since they
have been recently vanquished by the Chinese, who, in the year
1759, subdued the Lesser Bucharia, and advanced into the country
of Badakshan, near the source of the Oxus, (Memoires sur les
Chinois, tom. i. p. 325 - 400.) But these conquests are
precarious, nor will I venture to insure the safety of the
Chinese empire.]

II. The empire of Rome was firmly established by the
singular and perfect coalition of its members. The subject
nations, resigning the hope, and even the wish, of independence,
embraced the character of Roman citizens; and the provinces of
the West were reluctantly torn by the Barbarians from the bosom
of their mother country. ^7 But this union was purchased by the
loss of national freedom and military spirit; and the servile
provinces, destitute of life and motion, expected their safety
from the mercenary troops and governors, who were directed by the
orders of a distant court. The happiness of a hundred millions
depended on the personal merit of one or two men, perhaps
children, whose minds were corrupted by education, luxury, and
despotic power. The deepest wounds were inflicted on the empire
during the minorities of the sons and grandsons of Theodosius;
and, after those incapable princes seemed to attain the age of
manhood, they abandoned the church to the bishops, the state to
the eunuchs, and the provinces to the Barbarians. Europe is now
divided into twelve powerful, though unequal kingdoms, three
respectable commonwealths, and a variety of smaller, though
independent, states: the chances of royal and ministerial talents
are multiplied, at least, with the number of its rulers; and a
Julian, or Semiramis, may reign in the North, while Arcadius and
Honorius again slumber on the thrones of the South. The abuses of
tyranny are restrained by the mutual influence of fear and shame;
republics have acquired order and stability; monarchies have
imbibed the principles of freedom, or, at least, of moderation;
and some sense of honor and justice is introduced into the most
defective constitutions by the general manners of the times. In
peace, the progress of knowledge and industry is accelerated by
the emulation of so many active rivals: in war, the European
forces are exercised by temperate and undecisive contests. If a
savage conqueror should issue from the deserts of Tartary, he
must repeatedly vanquish the robust peasants of Russia, the
numerous armies of Germany, the gallant nobles of France, and the
intrepid freemen of Britain; who, perhaps, might confederate for
their common defence. Should the victorious Barbarians carry
slavery and desolation as far as the Atlantic Ocean, ten thousand
vessels would transport beyond their pursuit the remains of
civilized society; and Europe would revive and flourish in the
American world, which is already filled with her colonies and
institutions. ^8

[Footnote 7: The prudent reader will determine how far this
general proposition is weakened by the revolt of the Isaurians,
the independence of Britain and Armorica, the Moorish tribes, or
the Bagaudae of Gaul and Spain, (vol. i. p. 328, vol. iii. p.
315, vol. iii. p. 372, 480.)]
[Footnote 8: America now contains about six millions of European
blood and descent; and their numbers, at least in the North, are
continually increasing. Whatever may be the changes of their
political situation, they must preserve the manners of Europe;
and we may reflect with some pleasure, that the English language
will probably be diffused ever an immense and populous
continent.]
III. Cold, poverty, and a life of danger and fatigue,
fortify the strength and courage of Barbarians. In every age
they have oppressed the polite and peaceful nations of China,
India, and Persia, who neglected, and still neglect, to
counterbalance these natural powers by the resources of military
art. The warlike states of antiquity, Greece, Macedonia, and
Rome, educated a race of soldiers; exercised their bodies,
disciplined their courage, multiplied their forces by regular
evolutions, and converted the iron, which they possessed, into
strong and serviceable weapons. But this superiority insensibly
declined with their laws and manners; and the feeble policy of
Constantine and his successors armed and instructed, for the ruin
of the empire, the rude valor of the Barbarian mercenaries. The
military art has been changed by the invention of gunpowder;
which enables man to command the two most powerful agents of
nature, air and fire. Mathematics, chemistry, mechanics,
architecture, have been applied to the service of war; and the
adverse parties oppose to each other the most elaborate modes of
attack and of defence. Historians may indignantly observe, that
the preparations of a siege would found and maintain a
flourishing colony; ^9 yet we cannot be displeased, that the
subversion of a city should be a work of cost and difficulty; or
that an industrious people should be protected by those arts,
which survive and supply the decay of military virtue. Cannon
and fortifications now form an impregnable barrier against the
Tartar horse; and Europe is secure from any future irruptions of
Barbarians; since, before they can conquer, they must cease to be
barbarous. Their gradual advances in the science of war would
always be accompanied, as we may learn from the example of
Russia, with a proportionable improvement in the arts of peace
and civil policy; and they themselves must deserve a place among
the polished nations whom they subdue.
[Footnote 9: On avoit fait venir (for the siege of Turin) 140
pieces de canon; et il est a remarquer que chaque gros canon
monte revient a environ ecus: il y avoit 100,000 boulets; 106,000
cartouches d'une facon, et 300,000 d'une autre; 21,000 bombes;
27,700 grenades, 15,000 sacs a terre, 30,000 instruments pour la
pionnage; 1,200,000 livres de poudre. Ajoutez a ces munitions, le
plomb, le fer, et le fer-blanc, les cordages, tout ce qui sert
aux mineurs, le souphre, le salpetre, les outils de toute espece.

Il est certain que les frais de tous ces preparatifs de
destruction suffiroient pour fonder et pour faire fleurir la plus
aombreuse colonie. Voltaire, Siecle de Louis XIV. c. xx. in his
Works. tom. xi. p. 391.]

Should these speculations be found doubtful or fallacious,
there still remains a more humble source of comfort and hope.
The discoveries of ancient and modern navigators, and the
domestic history, or tradition, of the most enlightened nations,
represent the human savage, naked both in body and mind and
destitute of laws, of arts, of ideas, and almost of language. ^10
From this abject condition, perhaps the primitive and universal
state of man, he has gradually arisen to command the animals, to
fertilize the earth, to traverse the ocean and to measure the
heavens. His progress in the improvement and exercise of his
mental and corporeal faculties ^11 has been irregular and
various; infinitely slow in the beginning, and increasing by
degrees with redoubled velocity: ages of laborious ascent have
been followed by a moment of rapid downfall; and the several
climates of the globe have felt the vicissitudes of light and
darkness. Yet the experience of four thousand years should
enlarge our hopes, and diminish our apprehensions: we cannot
determine to what height the human species may aspire in their
advances towards perfection; but it may safely be presumed, that
no people, unless the face of nature is changed, will relapse
into their original barbarism. The improvements of society may
be viewed under a threefold aspect. 1. The poet or philosopher
illustrates his age and country by the efforts of a single mind;
but those superior powers of reason or fancy are rare and
spontaneous productions; and the genius of Homer, or Cicero, or
Newton, would excite less admiration, if they could be created by
the will of a prince, or the lessons of a preceptor. 2. The
benefits of law and policy, of trade and manufactures, of arts
and sciences, are more solid and permanent: and many individuals
may be qualified, by education and discipline, to promote, in
their respective stations, the interest of the community. But
this general order is the effect of skill and labor; and the
complex machinery may be decayed by time, or injured by violence.

3. Fortunately for mankind, the more useful, or, at least, more
necessary arts, can be performed without superior talents, or
national subordination: without the powers of one, or the union
of many. Each village, each family, each individual, must always
possess both ability and inclination to perpetuate the use of
fire ^12 and of metals; the propagation and service of domestic
animals; the methods of hunting and fishing; the rudiments of
navigation; the imperfect cultivation of corn, or other nutritive
grain; and the simple practice of the mechanic trades. Private
genius and public industry may be extirpated; but these hardy
plants survive the tempest, and strike an everlasting root into
the most unfavorable soil. The splendid days of Augustus and
Trajan were eclipsed by a cloud of ignorance; and the Barbarians
subverted the laws and palaces of Rome. But the scythe, the
invention or emblem of Saturn, ^13 still continued annually to
mow the harvests of Italy; and the human feasts of the
Laestrigons ^14 have never been renewed on the coast of Campania.

[Footnote 10: It would be an easy, though tedious, task, to
produce the authorities of poets, philosophers, and historians.
I shall therefore content myself with appealing to the decisive
and authentic testimony of Diodorus Siculus, (tom. i. l. i. p.
11, 12, l. iii. p. 184, &c., edit. Wesseling.) The Icthyophagi,
who in his time wandered along the shores of the Red Sea, can
only be compared to the natives of New Holland, (Dampier's
Voyages, vol. i. p. 464 - 469.) Fancy, or perhaps reason, may
still suppose an extreme and absolute state of nature far below
the level of these savages, who had acquired some arts and
instruments.]

[Footnote 11: See the learned and rational work of the president
Goguet, de l'Origine des Loix, des Arts, et des Sciences. He
traces from facts, or conjectures, (tom. i. p. 147 - 337, edit.
12mo.,) the first and most difficult steps of human invention.]
[Footnote 12: It is certain, however strange, that many nations
have been ignorant of the use of fire. Even the ingenious
natives of Otaheite, who are destitute of metals, have not
invented any earthen vessels capable of sustaining the action of
fire, and of communicating the heat to the liquids which they
contain.]

[Footnote 13: Plutarch. Quaest. Rom. in tom. ii. p. 275. Macrob.
Saturnal. l. i. c. 8, p. 152, edit. London. The arrival of
Saturn (of his religious worship) in a ship, may indicate, that
the savage coast of Latium was first discovered and civilized by
the Phoenicians.]

[Footnote 14: In the ninth and tenth books of the Odyssey, Homer
has embellished the tales of fearful and credulous sailors, who
transformed the cannibals of Italy and Sicily into monstrous
giants.]

Since the first discovery of the arts, war, commerce, and
religious zeal have diffused, among the savages of the Old and
New World, these inestimable gifts: they have been successively
propagated; they can never be lost. We may therefore acquiesce
in the pleasing conclusion, that every age of the world has
increased, and still increases, the real wealth, the happiness,
the knowledge, and perhaps the virtue, of the human race. ^15
[Footnote 15: The merit of discovery has too often been stained
with avarice, cruelty, and fanaticism; and the intercourse of
nations has produced the communication of disease and prejudice.
A singular exception is due to the virtue of our own times and
country. The five great voyages, successively undertaken by the
command of his present Majesty, were inspired by the pure and
generous love of science and of mankind. The same prince,
adapting his benefactions to the different stages of society, has
founded his school of painting in his capital; and has introduced
into the islands of the South Sea the vegetables and animals most
useful to human life.]





End of

Copyright (c) 2007. fullstories.net. All rights reserved.