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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 *: Minorca was lost to Great Britain in 1782. Ann.
Register for that year. - M.]

[Footnote !: The gallant struggles of the Corsicans for their
independence, under Paoli, were brought to a close in the year
1769. This volume was published in 1776. See Botta, Storia
d'Italia, vol. xiv. - M.]

[Footnote !!: Malta, it need scarcely be said, is now in the
possession of the English. We have not, however, thought it
necessary to notice every change in the political state of the
world, since the time of Gibbon. - M]

This long enumeration of provinces, whose broken fragments
have formed so many powerful kingdoms, might almost induce us to
forgive the vanity or ignorance of the ancients. Dazzled with
the extensive sway, the irresistible strength, and the real or
affected moderation of the emperors, they permitted themselves to
despise, and sometimes to forget, the outlying countries which
had been left in the enjoyment of a barbarous independence; and
they gradually usurped the license of confounding the Roman
monarchy with the globe of the earth. ^88 But the temper, as well
as knowledge, of a modern historian, require a more sober and
accurate language. He may impress a juster image of the
greatness of Rome, by observing that the empire was above two
thousand miles in breadth, from the wall of Antoninus and the
northern limits of Dacia, to Mount Atlas and the tropic of
Cancer; that it extended in length more than three thousand miles
from the Western Ocean to the Euphrates; that it was situated in
the finest part of the Temperate Zone, between the twenty-fourth
and fifty-sixth degrees of northern latitude; and that it was
supposed to contain above sixteen hundred thousand square miles,
for the most part of fertile and well-cultivated land. ^89
[Footnote 88: Bergier, Hist. des Grands Chemins, l. iii. c. 1, 2,
3, 4, a very useful collection.]

[Footnote 89: See Templeman's Survey of the Globe; but I distrust
both the Doctor's learning and his maps.]

Chapter II: The Internal Prosperity In The Age Of The Antonines.

Part I.

Of The Union And Internal Prosperity Of The Roman Empire, In The
Age Of The Antonines.

It is not alone by the rapidity, or extent of conquest, that
we should estimate the greatness of Rome. The sovereign of the
Russian deserts commands a larger portion of the globe. In the
seventh summer after his passage of the Hellespont, Alexander
erected the Macedonian trophies on the banks of the Hyphasis. ^1
Within less than a century, the irresistible Zingis, and the
Mogul princes of his race, spread their cruel devastations and
transient empire from the Sea of China, to the confines of Egypt
and Germany. ^2 But the firm edifice of Roman power was raised
and preserved by the wisdom of ages. The obedient provinces of
Trajan and the Antonines were united by laws, and adorned by
arts. They might occasionally suffer from the partial abuse of
delegated authority; but the general principle of government was
wise, simple, and beneficent. They enjoyed the religion of their
ancestors, whilst in civil honors and advantages they were
exalted, by just degrees, to an equality with their conquerors.
[Footnote 1: They were erected about the midway between Lahor and
Delhi. The conquests of Alexander in Hindostan were confined to
the Punjab, a country watered by the five great streams of the
Indus.

Note: The Hyphasis is one of the five rivers which join the
Indus or the Sind, after having traversed the province of the
Pendj-ab - a name which in Persian, signifies five rivers. * * *
G. The five rivers were, 1. The Hydaspes, now the Chelum,
Behni, or Bedusta, (Sanscrit, Vitastha, Arrow-swift.) 2. The
Acesines, the Chenab, (Sanscrit, Chandrabhaga, Moon-gift.) 3.
Hydraotes, the Ravey, or Iraoty, (Sanscrit, Iravati.) 4.
Hyphasis, the Beyah, (Sanscrit, Vepasa, Fetterless.) 5. The
Satadru, (Sanscrit, the Hundred Streamed,) the Sutledj, known
first to the Greeks in the time of Ptolemy. Rennel. Vincent,
Commerce of Anc. book 2. Lassen, Pentapotam. Ind. Wilson's
Sanscrit Dict., and the valuable memoir of Lieut. Burnes, Journal
of London Geogr. Society, vol. iii. p. 2, with the travels of
that very able writer. Compare Gibbon's own note, c. lxv. note
25. - M substit. for G.]

[Footnote 2: See M. de Guignes, Histoire des Huns, l. xv. xvi.
and xvii.]

I. The policy of the emperors and the senate, as far as it
concerned religion, was happily seconded by the reflections of
the enlightened, and by the habits of the superstitious, part of
their subjects. 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.

The superstition of the people was not imbittered by any
mixture of theological rancor; nor was it confined by the chains
of any speculative system. The devout polytheist, though fondly
attached to his national rites, admitted with implicit faith the
different religions of the earth. ^3 Fear, gratitude, and
curiosity, a dream or an omen, a singular disorder, or a distant
journey, perpetually disposed him to multiply the articles of his
belief, and to enlarge the list of his protectors. The thin
texture of the Pagan mythology was interwoven with various but
not discordant materials. As soon as it was allowed that sages
and heroes, who had lived or who had died for the benefit of
their country, were exalted to a state of power and immortality,
it was universally confessed, that they deserved, if not the
adoration, at least the reverence, of all mankind. The deities
of a thousand groves and a thousand streams possessed, in peace,
their local and respective influence; nor could the Romans who
deprecated the wrath of the Tiber, deride the Egyptian who
presented his offering to the beneficent genius of the Nile. The
visible powers of nature, the planets, and the elements were the
same throughout the universe. The invisible governors of the
moral world were inevitably cast in a similar mould of fiction
and allegory. Every virtue, and even vice, acquired its divine
representative; every art and profession its patron, whose
attributes, in the most distant ages and countries, were
uniformly derived from the character of their peculiar votaries.
A republic of gods of such opposite tempers and interests
required, in every system, the moderating hand of a supreme
magistrate, who, by the progress of knowledge and flattery, was
gradually invested with the sublime perfections of an Eternal
Parent, and an Omnipotent Monarch. ^4 Such was the mild spirit of
antiquity, that the nations were less attentive to the
difference, than to the resemblance, of their religious worship.
The Greek, the Roman, and the Barbarian, as they met before their
respective altars, easily persuaded themselves, that under
various names, and with various ceremonies, they adored the same
deities. ^5 The elegant mythology of Homer gave a beautiful, and
almost a regular form, to the polytheism of the ancient world.
[Footnote 3: There is not any writer who describes in so lively a
manner as Herodotus the true genius of polytheism. The best
commentary may be found in Mr. Hume's Natural History of
Religion; and the best contrast in Bossuet's Universal History.
Some obscure traces of an intolerant spirit appear in the conduct
of the Egyptians, (see Juvenal, Sat. xv.;) and the Christians, as
well as Jews, who lived under the Roman empire, formed a very
important exception; so important indeed, that the discussion
will require a distinct chapter of this work.

Note: M. Constant, in his very learned and eloquent work,
"Sur la Religion," with the two additional volumes, "Du
Polytheisme Romain," has considered the whole history of
polytheism in a tone of philosophy, which, without subscribing to
all his opinions, we may be permitted to admire. "The boasted
tolerance of polytheism did not rest upon the respect due from
society to the freedom of individual opinion. The polytheistic
nations, tolerant as they were towards each other, as separate
states, were not the less ignorant of the eternal principle, the
only basis of enlightened toleration, that every one has a right
to worship God in the manner which seems to him the best.
Citizens, on the contrary, were bound to conform to the religion
of the state; they had not the liberty to adopt a foreign
religion, though that religion might be legally recognized in
their own city, for the strangers who were its votaries." - Sur
la Religion, v. 184. Du. Polyth. Rom. ii. 308. At this time,
the growing religious indifference, and the general
administration of the empire by Romans, who, being strangers,
would do no more than protect, not enlist themselves in the cause
of the local superstitions, had introduced great laxity. But
intolerance was clearly the theory both of the Greek and Roman
law. The subject is more fully considered in another place. -
M.]

[Footnote 4: The rights, powers, and pretensions of the sovereign
of Olympus are very clearly described in the xvth book of the
Iliad; in the Greek original, I mean; for Mr. Pope, without
perceiving it, has improved the theology of Homer.

Note: There is a curious coincidence between Gibbon's
expressions and those of the newly-recovered "De Republica" of
Cicero, though the argument is rather the converse, lib. i. c.
36. "Sive haec ad utilitatem vitae constitute sint a principibus
rerum publicarum, ut rex putaretur unus esse in coelo, qui nutu,
ut ait Homerus, totum Olympum converteret, idemque et rex et
patos haberetur omnium." - M.]

[Footnote 5: See, for instance, Caesar de Bell. Gall. vi. 17.
Within a century or two, the Gauls themselves applied to their
gods the names of Mercury, Mars, Apollo, &c.]

The philosophers of Greece deduced their morals from the
nature of man, rather than from that of God. They meditated,
however, on the Divine Nature, as a very curious and important
speculation; and in the profound inquiry, they displayed the
strength and weakness of the human understanding. ^6 Of the four
most celebrated schools, the Stoics and the Platonists endeavored
to reconcile the jaring interests of reason and piety. They have
left us the most sublime proofs of the existence and perfections
of the first cause; but, as it was impossible for them to
conceive the creation of matter, the workman in the Stoic
philosophy was not sufficiently distinguished from the work;
whilst, on the contrary, the spiritual God of Plato and his
disciples resembled an idea, rather than a substance. The
opinions of the Academics and Epicureans were of a less religious
cast; but whilst the modest science of the former induced them to
doubt, the positive ignorance of the latter urged them to deny,
the providence of a Supreme Ruler. The spirit of inquiry,
prompted by emulation, and supported by freedom, had divided the
public teachers of philosophy into a variety of contending sects;
but the ingenious youth, who, from every part, resorted to
Athens, and the other seats of learning in the Roman empire, were
alike instructed in every school to reject and to despise the
religion of the multitude. How, indeed, was it possible that a
philosopher should accept, as divine truths, the idle tales of
the poets, and the incoherent traditions of antiquity; or that he
should adore, as gods, those imperfect beings whom he must have
despised, as men? Against such unworthy adversaries, Cicero
condescended to employ the arms of reason and eloquence; but the
satire of Lucian was a much more adequate, as well as more
efficacious, weapon. We may be well assured, that a writer,
conversant with the world, would never have ventured to expose
the gods of his country to public ridicule, had they not already
been the objects of secret contempt among the polished and
enlightened orders of society. ^7

[Footnote 6: The admirable work of Cicero de Natura Deorum is the
best clew we have to guide us through the dark and profound
abyss. He represents with candor, and confutes with subtlety,
the opinions of the philosophers.]

[Footnote 7: I do not pretend to assert, that, in this
irreligious age, the natural terrors of superstition, dreams,
omens, apparitions, &c., had lost their efficacy.]

Notwithstanding the fashionable irreligion which prevailed
in the age of the Antonines, both the interest of the priests and
the credulity of the people were sufficiently respected. In
their writings and conversation, the philosophers of antiquity
asserted the independent dignity of reason; but they resigned
their actions to the commands of law and of custom. Viewing,
with a smile of pity and indulgence, the various errors of the
vulgar, they diligently practised the ceremonies of their
fathers, devoutly frequented the temples of the gods; and
sometimes condescending to act a part on the theatre of
superstition, they concealed the sentiments of an atheist under
the sacerdotal robes. Reasoners of such a temper were scarcely
inclined to wrangle about their respective modes of faith, or of
worship. It was indifferent to them what shape the folly of the
multitude might choose to assume; and they approached with the
same inward contempt, and the same external reverence, the altars
of the Libyan, the Olympian, or the Capitoline Jupiter. ^8
[Footnote 8: Socrates, Epicurus, Cicero, and Plutarch always
inculcated a decent reverence for the religion of their own
country, and of mankind. The devotion of Epicurus was assiduous
and exemplary. Diogen. Laert. x. 10.]

It is not easy to conceive from what motives a spirit of
persecution could introduce itself into the Roman councils. The
magistrates could not be actuated by a blind, though honest
bigotry, since the magistrates were themselves philosophers; and
the schools of Athens had given laws to the senate. They could
not be impelled by ambition or avarice, as the temporal and
ecclesiastical powers were united in the same hands. The
pontiffs were chosen among the most illustrious of the senators;
and the office of Supreme Pontiff was constantly exercised by the
emperors themselves. They knew and valued the advantages of
religion, as it is connected with civil government. They
encouraged the public festivals which humanize the manners of the
people. They managed the arts of divination as a convenient
instrument of policy; and they respected, as the firmest bond of
society, the useful persuasion, that, either in this or in a
future life, the crime of perjury is most assuredly punished by
the avenging gods. ^9 But whilst they acknowledged the general
advantages of religion, they were convinced that the various
modes of worship contributed alike to the same salutary purposes;
and that, in every country, the form of superstition, which had
received the sanction of time and experience, was the best
adapted to the climate, and to its inhabitants. Avarice and
taste very frequently despoiled the vanquished nations of the
elegant statues of their gods, and the rich ornaments of their
temples; ^10 but, in the exercise of the religion which they
derived from their ancestors, they uniformly experienced the
indulgence, and even protection, of the Roman conquerors. The
province of Gaul seems, and indeed only seems, an exception to
this universal toleration. Under the specious pretext of
abolishing human sacrifices, the emperors Tiberius and Claudius
suppressed the dangerous power of the Druids: ^11 but the priests
themselves, their gods and their altars, subsisted in peaceful
obscurity till the final destruction of Paganism. ^12

[Footnote 9: Polybius, l. vi. c. 53, 54. Juvenal, Sat. xiii.
laments that in his time this apprehension had lost much of its
effect.]

[Footnote 10: See the fate of Syracuse, Tarentum, Ambracia,
Corinth, &c., the conduct of Verres, in Cicero, (Actio ii. Orat.
4,) and the usual practice of governors, in the viiith Satire of
Juvenal.]

[Footnote 11: Seuton. in Claud. - Plin. Hist. Nat. xxx. 1.]
[Footnote 12: Pelloutier, Histoire des Celtes, tom. vi. p. 230 -
252.]

Rome, the capital of a great monarchy, was incessantly
filled with subjects and strangers from every part of the world,
^13 who all introduced and enjoyed the favorite superstitions of
their native country. ^14 Every city in the empire was justified
in maintaining the purity of its ancient ceremonies; and the
Roman senate, using the common privilege, sometimes interposed,
to check this inundation of foreign rites. ^* The Egyptian
superstition, of all the most contemptible and abject, was
frequently prohibited: the temples of Serapis and Isis
demolished, and their worshippers banished from Rome and Italy.
^15 But the zeal of fanaticism prevailed over the cold and feeble
efforts of policy. The exiles returned, the proselytes
multiplied, the temples were restored with increasing splendor,
and Isis and Serapis at length assumed their place among the
Roman Deities. ^16 Nor was this indulgence a departure from the
old maxims of government. In the purest ages of the
commonwealth, Cybele and Aesculapius had been invited by solemn
embassies; ^17 and it was customary to tempt the protectors of
besieged cities, by the promise of more distinguished honors than
they possessed in their native country. ^18 Rome gradually became
the common temple of her subjects; and the freedom of the city
was bestowed on all the gods of mankind. ^19

[Footnote 13: Seneca, Consolat. ad Helviam, p. 74. Edit., Lips.]


[Footnote 14: Dionysius Halicarn. Antiquitat. Roman. l. ii. (vol.
i. p. 275, edit. Reiske.)]

[Footnote *: Yet the worship of foreign gods at Rome was only
guarantied to the natives of those countries from whence they
came. The Romans administered the priestly offices only to the
gods of their fathers. Gibbon, throughout the whole preceding
sketch of the opinions of the Romans and their subjects, has
shown through what causes they were free from religious hatred
and its consequences. But, on the other hand the internal state
of these religions, the infidelity and hypocrisy of the upper
orders, the indifference towards all religion, in even the better
part of the common people, during the last days of the republic,
and under the Caesars, and the corrupting principles of the
philosophers, had exercised a very pernicious influence on the
manners, and even on the constitution. - W.]

[Footnote 15: In the year of Rome 701, the temple of Isis and
Serapis was demolished by the order of the Senate, (Dion Cassius,
l. xl. p. 252,) and even by the hands of the consul, (Valerius
Maximus, l. 3.) ^! After the death of Caesar it was restored at
the public expense, (Dion. l. xlvii. p. 501.) When Augustus was
in Egypt, he revered the majesty of Serapis, (Dion, l. li. p.
647;) but in the Pomaerium of Rome, and a mile round it, he
prohibited the worship of the Egyptian gods, (Dion, l. liii. p.
679; l. liv. p. 735.) They remained, however, very fashionable
under his reign (Ovid. de Art. Amand. l. i.) and that of his
successor, till the justice of Tiberius was provoked to some acts
of severity. (See Tacit. Annal. ii. 85. Joseph. Antiquit. l.
xviii. c. 3.)

Note: See, in the pictures from the walls of Pompeii, the
representation of an Isiac temple and worship. Vestiges of
Egyptian worship have been traced in Gaul, and, I am informed,
recently in Britain, in excavations at York. - M.]

[Footnote !: Gibbon here blends into one, two events, distant a
hundred and sixty-six years from each other. It was in the year
of Rome 535, that the senate having ordered the destruction of
the temples of Isis and Serapis, the workman would lend his hand;
and the consul, L. Paulus himself (Valer. Max. 1, 3) seized the
axe, to give the first blow. Gibbon attribute this circumstance
to the second demolition, which took place in the year 701 and
which he considers as the first. - W.]

[Footnote 16: Tertullian in Apologetic. c. 6, p. 74. Edit.
Havercamp. I am inclined to attribute their establishment to the
devotion of the Flavian family.]

[Footnote 17: See Livy, l. xi. [Suppl.] and xxix.]

[Footnote 18: Macrob. Saturnalia, l. iii. c. 9. He gives us a
form of evocation.]

[Footnote 19: Minutius Faelix in Octavio, p. 54. Arnobius, l.
vi. p. 115.]

II. The narrow policy of preserving, without any foreign
mixture, the pure blood of the ancient citizens, had checked the
fortune, and hastened the ruin, of Athens and Sparta. The
aspiring genius of Rome sacrificed vanity to ambition, and deemed
it more prudent, as well as honorable, to adopt virtue and merit
for her own wheresoever they were found, among slaves or
strangers, enemies or barbarians. ^20 During the most flourishing
aera of the Athenian commonwealth, the number of citizens
gradually decreased from about thirty ^21 to twenty-one thousand.
^22 If, on the contrary, we study the growth of the Roman
republic, we may discover, that, notwithstanding the incessant
demands of wars and colonies, the citizens, who, in the first
census of Servius Tullius, amounted to no more than eighty-three
thousand, were multiplied, before the commencement of the social
war, to the number of four hundred and sixty-three thousand men,
able to bear arms in the service of their country. ^23 When the
allies of Rome claimed an equal share of honors and privileges,
the senate indeed preferred the chance of arms to an ignominious
concession. The Samnites and the Lucanians paid the severe
penalty of their rashness; but the rest of the Italian states, as
they successively returned to their duty, were admitted into the
bosom of the republic, ^24 and soon contributed to the ruin of
public freedom. Under a democratical government, the citizens
exercise the powers of sovereignty; and those powers will be
first abused, and afterwards lost, if they are committed to an
unwieldy multitude. But when the popular assemblies had been
suppressed by the administration of the emperors, the conquerors
were distinguished from the vanquished nations, only as the first
and most honorable order of subjects; and their increase, however
rapid, was no longer exposed to the same dangers. Yet the wisest
princes, who adopted the maxims of Augustus, guarded with the
strictest care the dignity of the Roman name, and diffused the
freedom of the city with a prudent liberality. ^25
[Footnote 20: Tacit. Annal. xi. 24. The Orbis Romanus of the
learned Spanheim is a complete history of the progressive
admission of Latium, Italy, and the provinces, to the freedom of
Rome.

Note: Democratic states, observes Denina, (delle Revoluz. d'
Italia, l. ii. c. l., are most jealous of communication the
privileges of citizenship; monarchies or oligarchies willingly
multiply the numbers of their free subjects. The most remarkable
accessions to the strength of Rome, by the aggregation of
conquered and foreign nations, took place under the regal and
patrician - we may add, the Imperial government. - M.]

[Footnote 21: Herodotus, v. 97. It should seem, however, that he
followed a large and popular estimation.]

[Footnote 22: Athenaeus, Deipnosophist. l. vi. p. 272. Edit.
Casaubon. Meursius de Fortuna Attica, c. 4.

Note: On the number of citizens in Athens, compare Boeckh,
Public Economy of Athens, (English Tr.,) p. 45, et seq. Fynes
Clinton, Essay in Fasti Hel lenici, vol. i. 381. - M.]

[Footnote 23: See a very accurate collection of the numbers of
each Lustrum in M. de Beaufort, Republique Romaine, l. iv. c. 4.
Note: All these questions are placed in an entirely new
point of view by Nicbuhr, (Romische Geschichte, vol. i. p. 464.)
He rejects the census of Servius fullius as unhistoric, (vol. ii.
p. 78, et seq.,) and he establishes the principle that the census
comprehended all the confederate cities which had the right of
Isopolity. - M.]

[Footnote 24: Appian. de Bell. Civil. l. i. Velleius Paterculus,
l. ii. c. 15, 16, 17.]

[Footnote 25: Maecenas had advised him to declare, by one edict,
all his subjects citizens. But we may justly suspect that the
historian Dion was the author of a counsel so much adapted to the
practice of his own age, and so little to that of Augustus.]


Chapter II: The Internal Prosperity In The Age Of The Antonines.

Part II.

Till the privileges of Romans had been progressively
extended to all the inhabitants of the empire, an important
distinction was preserved between Italy and the provinces. The
former was esteemed the centre of public unity, and the firm
basis of the constitution. Italy claimed the birth, or at least
the residence, of the emperors and the senate. ^26 The estates of
the Italians were exempt from taxes, their persons from the
arbitrary jurisdiction of governors. Their municipal
corporations, formed after the perfect model of the capital, ^*
were intrusted, under the immediate eye of the supreme power,
with the execution of the laws. From the foot of the Alps to the
extremity of Calabria, all the natives of Italy were born
citizens of Rome. Their partial distinctions were obliterated,
and they insensibly coalesced into one great nation, united by
language, manners, and civil institutions, and equal to the
weight of a powerful empire. The republic gloried in her
generous policy, and was frequently rewarded by the merit and
services of her adopted sons. Had she always confined the
distinction of Romans to the ancient families within the walls of
the city, that immortal name would have been deprived of some of
its noblest ornaments. Virgil was a native of Mantua; Horace was
inclined to doubt whether he should call himself an Apulian or a
Lucanian; it was in Padua that an historian was found worthy to
record the majestic series of Roman victories. The patriot
family of the Catos emerged from Tusculum; and the little town of
Arpinum claimed the double honor of producing Marius and Cicero,
the former of whom deserved, after Romulus and Camillus, to be
styled the Third Founder of Rome; and the latter, after saving
his country from the designs of Catiline, enabled her to contend
with Athens for the palm of eloquence. ^27

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