The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire

“The various modes of worship which prevailed in the Roman world were all considered by the people as equally true; by the philosopher as equally false; and by the magistrate as equally useful. And thus toleration produced not only mutual indulgence, but even religious concord.”

This is one of the more famous declarations from The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire. Gibbon suggests that religion works best for society when it is a tool for social order, rather than disagreement and discord, and encourages rather than represses diversity of belief and opinion. His assertion that the philosopher regards all religious creeds “as equally false” while the magistrate regards them “as equally useful” reveals Gibbon’s religious cynicism, which attracted some controversy in his own day.

“The aspiring genius of Rome sacrificed vanity to ambition, and deemed it more prudent, as well as honourable, to adopt virtue and merit for her own wheresoever they were found, among slaves or strangers, enemies or barbarians.”

Gibbon argues that one of the reasons Rome rose to become a great empire was that, unlike the Greek city-states, it freely offered citizenship to many different peoples, even the peoples they conquered. This view has been vindicated by later historians of ancient Rome.

“But the obedience of the Roman world was uniform, voluntary, and permanent.”

Gibbon calls attention to how successful Rome was in incorporating conquered territories into its empire. An important point that Gibbon argues is that Rome did not just keep the provinces in line through force, but by incorporating conquered territories through promoting Rome’s own culture and language, making “obedience” something that was “voluntary” and, therefore, more robust.

“The masters of the Roman world surrounded their throne with darkness, concealed their irresistible strength, and humbly professed themselves the accountable ministers of the senate, whose supreme decrees they dictated and obeyed.”

One of Gibbon’s key points is that, while the emperors had the powers of a monarch, the perceptions and self-presentation surrounding their office were more complex than that. Following Augustus’s reforms, the emperors presented themselves as being the executives of a republic, publicly professing obedience to the Senate in a way that maintained the illusion of its old authority. As Gibbon will show, however, over the centuries the emperors become more openly like monarchs.

“If a man were called to fix the period in the history of the world during which the condition of the human race was happy and prosperous, he would, without hesitation, name that which elapsed from the death of Domitian to the accession of Commodus.”

If ancient Rome represented a golden age for humanity, the peak of that golden age was the period from 96 CE to 177 CE. Specifically, this is the period of the emperors traditionally known as the “Five Good Emperors”: Nerva, Trajan, Hadrian, Antoninus Pius, and Marcus Aurelius. In emphasizing the prosperity and peace of the Empire during this period, Gibbon also creates a more dramatic and striking contrast with the centuries of decline, violence, and corruption that will soon follow.

“Such formidable servants are always necessary, but often fatal, to the throne of despotism.”

Here, Gibbon describes the praetorian guard. They served an important function in protecting the emperor and the city of Rome, but because of that very importance, they were also dangerous and had to be kept in check by paying them well and keeping them loyal. As the authority of the Emperor weakened, the praetorian guard became more volatile and dangerous, leading them to foment and resolve succession crises only to provoke yet another one within a short period of time.

“Till the reign of Severus, the virtue, and even the good sense of the emperors had been distinguished by their zeal or affected reverence for the senate, and by a tender regard to the nice frame of civil policy instituted by Augustus.”

Gibbon argues that the model of being emperor established by Augustus depended on the Senate, even though the emperors had also largely weakened the political power of the Senate. This sets the stage for the Crisis of the Third Century, when the Senate tries to reassert its authority over the choice of emperors, while the policies of Septimius Severus and Caracalla enlarged the role and influence of the military over imperial politics.

“The tears of the empress Julia interrupted the negotiation, the first idea of which had filled every Roman breast with surprise and indignation. The mighty mass of conquest was so intimately connected by the hand of time and policy, that it required the most forcible violence to rend it asunder.”

Throughout this first volume, Gibbon is looking forward to later developments in Roman history and European history in general. This is one such passage. The proposed division of the empire between Geta and Caracalla was unthinkable at the time of the late second century, but it eventually does happen temporarily under Diocletian and then permanently at the end of the fourth century, reflecting the fracturing of Rome’s former centralized unity.

“The grave Senators confessed with a sigh, that, after having long experienced the stern tyranny of their own countrymen, Rome was at length humbled beneath the effeminate luxury of Oriental despotism.”

Gibbon’s stereotypical views of “the East”—including the societies of the Middle East, North Africa, and India—deeply shape his arguments throughout the book. In this passage, Gibbon is describing the reign of the emperor Elagabalus, whose personality combines a number of Gibbon’s stereotypes about “the East,” including effeminacy, religious superstition, and tyranny. Gibbon regards the gradual adoption of “Eastern” values and practices as fatal to traditional Roman culture.

“The sentiments of honour and gallantry have introduced a refinement of pleasure, a regard for decency, and a respect for the public opinion, into the modern courts of Europe; but the corrupt and opulent nobles of Rome gratified every vice that could be collected from the mighty conflux of nations and manners. Secure of impunity, careless of censure, they lived without restraint in the patient and humble society of their slaves and parasites.”

This passage is an example of how Gibbon admires ancient Rome, but also, like many Enlightenment thinkers, viewed his contemporary Europe as another positive era for civilization. In this passage, Gibbon explains why the elites of Rome were so thoroughly corrupted by luxury, but the upper classes of Europe in Gibbon’s day were apparently not.

“In a great empire like that of Rome, a natural balance of money must have gradually established itself.”

One of the reasons The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire is a landmark of modern history is that Gibbon focuses not only on political developments and the personalities and actions of prominent rulers. He also discusses economic, social, and cultural matters as well, such as this passage, when he gives an overview of taxation and trade in the Roman Empire.

“The superior prerogative of birth, when it has obtained the sanction of time and popular opinion, is the plainest and least invidious of all distinctions among mankind. The acknowledged right extinguishes the hopes of faction, and the conscious security disarms the cruelty of the monarch. To the firm establishment of this idea we owe the peaceful succession and mild administration of European monarchies.”

Like his earlier discussion of luxury in ancient Rome versus his contemporary Europe (147), here Gibbon considers the question of why the kind of instability that plagued ancient Rome has more or less not bothered the Europe of his day so extensively. Gibbon’s solution is to argue that the principle of a strictly hereditary monarchy provides the legitimacy needed for governments to remain largely stable and unchallenged, as succession crises become rarer.

“Had Zoroaster, in all his institutions, invariably supported this Power of the exalted character, his name would deserve a place with those of Numa and Confucius, and his System would be justly entitled to all the applause which it has pleased some of our divines, and even some of our philosophers, to bestow on it. But in that motley composition, dictated by reason and passion, by enthusiasm and by selfish motives, some useful and sublime truths were disgraced by a mixture of the most abject and dangerous superstition.”

This passage is interesting because it sees Gibbon break from his usual negative stereotypes about “the East.” Instead, he expresses admiration for the religion of Zoroastrianism, even if he still suggests that Zoroastrianism and ancient Persia were corrupted by despotism and superstition. It also expresses Gibbon’s own views about religion and superstition, with superstition representing a corruption of religion’s main purpose: preserving important moral and social truths.

“The most civilized nations of modern Europe issued from the woods of Germany, and in the rude institutions of those barbarians we may still distinguish the original principles of our present laws and manners.”

Gibbon’s views of the “West” versus the “East” also lead him to express admiration for the Germans. In fact, here he implies that modern Europe inherited its respect for liberty and distaste for autocracy from the ancient Germans, whose militarism and simplicity of lifestyle serve as a useful foil to the decadence and corruption of Rome’s later centuries.

“During that calamitous period, every instant of time was marked, every province of the Roman world was afflicted, by barbarous invaders and military tyrants, and the ruined empire seemed to approach the last and fatal moment of its dissolution.”

This passage summarizes the chaos of the Crisis of the Third Century. Namely, it refers to the quick succession of emperors picked by the army, the “barbarian” raids into imperial territory, and the breaking away of entire provinces under new governments.

“It was easier to vanquish the Goths than to eradicate the public vices.”

Although modern historians usually steer clear of value judgments of the past like “public vices,” one of the ways Gibbon is a modern historian is that he presents historical figures, even emperors, as in some ways largely powerless against broader forces in history. In this case, an emperor might successfully lead his forces into military victories, but they could be much less successful in bringing about social and cultural change.

“The arms of Aurelian had vanquished the foreign and domestic foes of the republic. We are assured that, by his salutary rigour, crimes and factions, mischievous arts and pernicious connivance, the luxuriant growth of a feeble and oppressive government, were eradicated throughout the Roman world.”

In this passage, Gibbon praises the emperor Aurelian for restoring a semblance of order to the Roman empire. Gibbon credits Aurelian’s success in eliminating the “crimes and factions” and the atmosphere of constant political intrigue and deceit to his “salutary rigour,” suggesting that Aurelian succeeds because he embodies the traditional Roman values of militarism, discipline, and firm resolve.

“Such was the unhappy condition of the Roman emperors, that, whatever might be their conduct, their fate was commonly the same. A life of pleasure or virtue, of severity or mildness, of indolence or glory, alike led to an untimely grave; and almost every reign is closed by the same disgusting repetition of treason and murder.”

This passage sums up the chaos of the Crisis of the Third Century, in which emperors were rapidly installed and murdered. Gibbon also expresses his view that certain historical actors, even emperors, are sometimes helpless before historical forces.

“[N]or, indeed, was it possible that the armies and the provinces should long obey the luxurious and unwarlike nobles of Rome.”

One of Gibbon’s arguments for the decline and fall of the Roman Empire is that Rome was tainted in some way by the “effeminacy” of the Eastern provinces and their luxurious culture. Also, fewer Italians were joining the military by the third century, preferring instead positions in the government. In rendering themselves “luxurious and unwarlike,” Gibbon suggests that the Roman elites abandoned the values that had made Rome great in the first place, causing them to lose authority in the eyes of their subordinates.

“The feeble elegance of Italy and the internal provinces could no longer support the weight of arms.”

This passage further illustrates Gibbon’s argument that one of the causes of Rome’s decline was that Romans increasingly abandoned service in the military, leaving the military to both the peoples of the provinces and to German tribes allowed to settle in Europe. This turn toward “feeble elegance” fatally weakened the empire from within.

“The dislike expressed by Diocletian towards Rome was not the effect of momentary caprice, but the result of the most artful policy. That crafty prince had framed a new System of Imperial government, which was afterwards completed by the family of Constantine, and, as the image of the old constitution was religiously preserved in the Senate, he resolved to deprive that order of its small remains of power and consideration.”

In Gibbon’s view, Diocletian is the third emperor after Augustus and Septimius Severus to invent or overhaul the office of emperor. In response to the problems emperors had faced throughout the Crisis of the Third Century, Diocletian got rid of the last vestiges of republicanism in the imperial office and made the figure of the emperor a distant, semi-divine monarch.

“The knowledge that is suited to our Situation and powers, the whole compass of moral, natural, and mathematical science, was neglected by the new Platonists, whilst they exhausted their strength in the verbal disputes of metaphysics, attempted to explore the secrets of the invisible world, and studied to reconcile Aristotle with Plato, on subjects of which both these philosophers were as ignorant as the rest of mankind. Consuming their reason in these deep but unsubstantial meditations, their minds were exposed to illusions of fancy.”

This passage sets the stage for Gibbon’s arguments about Christianity and its rise in the next volume. He argues that the third century experienced the development of a new kind of philosophy that focused more on spiritual and metaphysical matters than on moral and social ones. Given Gibbon’s views on religion and superstition, this is, in his view, a negative development for the empire.

“The balance of power established by Diocletian submitted no longer than while it was sustained by the firm and dexterous hand of its founder. It required such a fortunate mixture of different tempers and abilities as could scarcely be found, or even expected, a second time; two emperors without jealousy, two Caesars without ambition, and the same general interest invariably pursued by four independent princes.”

Diocletian tried to solve the problem of civil wars and emperors quickly being overthrown by creating a system of four co-emperors. However, as Gibbon points out, this system did not long outlive Diocletian. It did, however, illuminate the problem with one emperor being responsible for the entire empire, as Rome’s centralized authority had been seriously weakened. Eventually, this situation would lead into the empire dividing permanently into western and eastern halves.