The great work of Gibbon is indispensable to the student of history. The
literature of Europe offers no substitute for “The Decline and Fall of the
Roman Empire.” It has obtained undisputed possession, as rightful
occupant, of the vast period which it comprehends. However some subjects,
which it embraces, may have undergone more complete investigation, on the
general view of the whole period, this history is the sole undisputed
authority to which all defer, and from which few appeal to the original
writers, or to more modern compilers. The inherent interest of the
subject, the inexhaustible labor employed upon it; the immense
condensation of matter; the luminous arrangement; the general accuracy;
the style, which, however monotonous from its uniform stateliness, and
sometimes wearisome from its elaborate ar., is throughout vigorous,
animated, often picturesque, always commands attention, always conveys its
meaning with emphatic energy, describes with singular breadth and
fidelity, and generalizes with unrivalled felicity of expression; all
these high qualifications have secured, and seem likely to secure, its
permanent place in historic literature.
This vast design of Gibbon, the magnificent whole into which he has cast
the decay and ruin of the ancient civilization, the formation and birth of
the new order of things, will of itself, independent of the laborious
execution of his immense plan, render “The Decline and Fall of the Roman
Empire” an unapproachable subject to the future historian: 101
in the eloquent language of his recent French editor, M. Guizot:—
“The gradual decline of the most extraordinary dominion which has ever
invaded and oppressed the world; the fall of that immense empire, erected
on the ruins of so many kingdoms, republics, and states both barbarous and
civilized; and forming in its turn, by its dismemberment, a multitude of
states, republics, and kingdoms; the annihilation of the religion of
Greece and Rome; the birth and the progress of the two new religions which
have shared the most beautiful regions of the earth; the decrepitude of
the ancient world, the spectacle of its expiring glory and degenerate
manners; the infancy of the modern world, the picture of its first
progress, of the new direction given to the mind and character of man—such
a subject must necessarily fix the attention and excite the interest of
men, who cannot behold with indifference those memorable epochs, during
which, in the fine language of Corneille—
‘Un grand destin commence, un grand destin s’achève.’”
This extent and harmony of design is unquestionably that which
distinguishes the work of Gibbon from all other great historical
compositions. He has first bridged the abyss between ancient and modern
times, and connected together the two great worlds of history. The great
advantage which the classical historians possess over those of modern
times is in unity of plan, of course greatly facilitated by the narrower
sphere to which their researches were confined. Except Herodotus, the
great historians of Greece—we exclude the more modern compilers,
like Diodorus Siculus—limited themselves to a single period, or at
‘east to the contracted sphere of Grecian affairs. As far as the
Barbarians trespassed within the Grecian boundary, or were necessarily
mingled up with Grecian politics, they were admitted into the pale of
Grecian history; but to Thucydides and to Xenophon, excepting in the
Persian inroad of the latter, Greece was the world. Natural unity confined
their narrative almost to chronological order, the episodes were of rare
occurrence and extremely brief. To the Roman historians the course was
equally clear and defined. Rome was their centre of unity; and the
uniformity with which the circle of the Roman dominion spread around, the
regularity with which their civil polity expanded, forced, as it were,
upon the Roman historian that plan which Polybius announces as the subject
of his history, the means and the manner by which the whole world became
subject to the Roman sway. How different the complicated politics of the
European kingdoms! Every national history, to be complete, must, in a
certain sense, be the history of Europe; there is no knowing to how remote
a quarter it may be necessary to trace our most domestic events; from a
country, how apparently disconnected, may originate the impulse which
gives its direction to the whole course of affairs.
In imitation of his classical models, Gibbon places Rome as the cardinal
point from which his inquiries diverge, and to which they bear constant
reference; yet how immeasurable the space over which those inquiries
range! how complicated, how confused, how apparently inextricable the
causes which tend to the decline of the Roman empire! how countless the
nations which swarm forth, in mingling and indistinct hordes, constantly
changing the geographical limits—incessantly confounding the natural
boundaries! At first sight, the whole period, the whole state of the
world, seems to offer no more secure footing to an historical adventurer
than the chaos of Milton—to be in a state of irreclaimable disorder,
best described in the language of the poet:—
—“A dark
Illimitable ocean, without bound,
Without dimension, where length, breadth, and height,
And time, and place, are lost: where eldest Night
And Chaos, ancestors of Nature, hold
Eternal anarchy, amidst the noise
Of endless wars, and by confusion stand.”
We feel that the unity and harmony of narrative, which shall comprehend
this period of social disorganization, must be ascribed entirely to the
skill and luminous disposition of the historian. It is in this sublime
Gothic architecture of his work, in which the boundless range, the
infinite variety, the, at first sight, incongruous gorgeousness of the
separate parts, nevertheless are all subordinate to one main and
predominant idea, that Gibbon is unrivalled. We cannot but admire the
manner in which he masses his materials, and arranges his facts in
successive groups, not according to chronological order, but to their
moral or political connection; the distinctness with which he marks his
periods of gradually increasing decay; and the skill with which, though
advancing on separate parallels of history, he shows the common tendency
of the slower or more rapid religious or civil innovations. However these
principles of composition may demand more than ordinary attention on the
part of the reader, they can alone impress upon the memory the real
course, and the relative importance of the events. Whoever would justly
appreciate the superiority of Gibbon’s lucid arrangement, should attempt
to make his way through the regular but wearisome annals of Tillemont, or
even the less ponderous volumes of Le Beau. Both these writers adhere,
almost entirely, to chronological order; the consequence is, that we are
twenty times called upon to break off, and resume the thread of six or
eight wars in different parts of the empire; to suspend the operations of
a military expedition for a court intrigue; to hurry away from a siege to
a council; and the same page places us in the middle of a campaign against
the barbarians, and in the depths of the Monophysite controversy. In
Gibbon it is not always easy to bear in mind the exact dates but the
course of events is ever clear and distinct; like a skilful general,
though his troops advance from the most remote and opposite quarters, they
are constantly bearing down and concentrating themselves on one point—that
which is still occupied by the name, and by the waning power of Rome.
Whether he traces the progress of hostile religions, or leads from the
shores of the Baltic, or the verge of the Chinese empire, the successive
hosts of barbarians—though one wave has hardly burst and discharged
itself, before another swells up and approaches—all is made to flow
in the same direction, and the impression which each makes upon the
tottering fabric of the Roman greatness, connects their distant movements,
and measures the relative importance assigned to them in the panoramic
history. The more peaceful and didactic episodes on the development of the
Roman law, or even on the details of ecclesiastical history, interpose
themselves as resting-places or divisions between the periods of barbaric
invasion. In short, though distracted first by the two capitals, and
afterwards by the formal partition of the empire, the extraordinary
felicity of arrangement maintains an order and a regular progression. As
our horizon expands to reveal to us the gathering tempests which are
forming far beyond the boundaries of the civilized world—as we
follow their successive approach to the trembling frontier—the
compressed and receding line is still distinctly visible; though gradually
dismembered and the broken fragments assuming the form of regular states
and kingdoms, the real relation of those kingdoms to the empire is
maintained and defined; and even when the Roman dominion has shrunk into
little more than the province of Thrace—when the name of Rome,
confined, in Italy, to the walls of the city—yet it is still the
memory, the shade of the Roman greatness, which extends over the wide
sphere into which the historian expands his later narrative; the whole
blends into the unity, and is manifestly essential to the double
catastrophe of his tragic drama.
But the amplitude, the magnificence, or the harmony of design, are, though
imposing, yet unworthy claims on our admiration, unless the details are
filled up with correctness and accuracy. No writer has been more severely
tried on this point than Gibbon. He has undergone the triple scrutiny of
theological zeal quickened by just resentment, of literary emulation, and
of that mean and invidious vanity which delights in detecting errors in
writers of established fame. On the result of the trial, we may be
permitted to summon competent witnesses before we deliver our own
judgment.
M. Guizot, in his preface, after stating that in France and Germany, as
well as in England, in the most enlightened countries of Europe, Gibbon is
constantly cited as an authority, thus proceeds:—
“I have had occasion, during my labors, to consult the writings of
philosophers, who have treated on the finances of the Roman empire; of
scholars, who have investigated the chronology; of theologians, who have
searched the depths of ecclesiastical history; of writers on law, who have
studied with care the Roman jurisprudence; of Orientalists, who have
occupied themselves with the Arabians and the Koran; of modern historians,
who have entered upon extensive researches touching the crusades and their
influence; each of these writers has remarked and pointed out, in the
‘History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire,’ some negligences,
some false or imperfect views, some omissions, which it is impossible not
to suppose voluntary; they have rectified some facts, combated with
advantage some assertions; but in general they have taken the researches
and the ideas of Gibbon, as points of departure, or as proofs of the
researches or of the new opinions which they have advanced.”
M. Guizot goes on to state his own impressions on reading Gibbon’s
history, and no authority will have greater weight with those to whom the
extent and accuracy of his historical researches are known:—
“After a first rapid perusal, which allowed me to feel nothing but the
interest of a narrative, always animated, and, notwithstanding its extent
and the variety of objects which it makes to pass before the view, always
perspicuous, I entered upon a minute examination of the details of which
it was composed; and the opinion which I then formed was, I confess,
singularly severe. I discovered, in certain chapters, errors which
appeared to me sufficiently important and numerous to make me believe that
they had been written with extreme negligence; in others, I was struck
with a certain tinge of partiality and prejudice, which imparted to the
exposition of the facts that want of truth and justice, which the English
express by their happy term misrepresentation. Some imperfect (tronquées)
quotations; some passages, omitted unintentionally or designedly cast a
suspicion on the honesty (bonne foi) of the author; and his violation of
the first law of history—increased to my eye by the prolonged
attention with which I occupied myself with every phrase, every note,
every reflection—caused me to form upon the whole work, a judgment
far too rigorous. After having finished my labors, I allowed some time to
elapse before I reviewed the whole. A second attentive and regular perusal
of the entire work, of the notes of the author, and of those which I had
thought it right to subjoin, showed me how much I had exaggerated the
importance of the reproaches which Gibbon really deserved; I was struck
with the same errors, the same partiality on certain subjects; but I had
been far from doing adequate justice to the immensity of his researches,
the variety of his knowledge, and above all, to that truly philosophical
discrimination (justesse d’esprit) which judges the past as it would judge
the present; which does not permit itself to be blinded by the clouds
which time gathers around the dead, and which prevent us from seeing that,
under the toga, as under the modern dress, in the senate as in our
councils, men were what they still are, and that events took place
eighteen centuries ago, as they take place in our days. I then felt that
his book, in spite of its faults, will always be a noble work—and
that we may correct his errors and combat his prejudices, without ceasing
to admit that few men have combined, if we are not to say in so high a
degree, at least in a manner so complete, and so well regulated, the
necessary qualifications for a writer of history.”
The present editor has followed the track of Gibbon through many parts of
his work; he has read his authorities with constant reference to his
pages, and must pronounce his deliberate judgment, in terms of the highest
admiration as to his general accuracy. Many of his seeming errors are
almost inevitable from the close condensation of his matter. From the
immense range of his history, it was sometimes necessary to compress into
a single sentence, a whole vague and diffuse page of a Byzantine
chronicler. Perhaps something of importance may have thus escaped, and his
expressions may not quite contain the whole substance of the passage from
which they are taken. His limits, at times, compel him to sketch; where
that is the case, it is not fair to expect the full details of the
finished picture. At times he can only deal with important results; and in
his account of a war, it sometimes requires great attention to discover
that the events which seem to be comprehended in a single campaign, occupy
several years. But this admirable skill in selecting and giving prominence
to the points which are of real weight and importance—this
distribution of light and shade—though perhaps it may occasionally
betray him into vague and imperfect statements, is one of the highest
excellencies of Gibbon’s historic manner. It is the more striking, when we
pass from the works of his chief authorities, where, after laboring
through long, minute, and wearisome descriptions of the accessary and
subordinate circumstances, a single unmarked and undistinguished sentence,
which we may overlook from the inattention of fatigue, contains the great
moral and political result.
Gibbon’s method of arrangement, though on the whole most favorable to the
clear comprehension of the events, leads likewise to apparent inaccuracy.
That which we expect to find in one part is reserved for another. The
estimate which we are to form, depends on the accurate balance of
statements in remote parts of the work; and we have sometimes to correct
and modify opinions, formed from one chapter by those of another. Yet, on
the other hand, it is astonishing how rarely we detect contradiction; the
mind of the author has already harmonized the whole result to truth and
probability; the general impression is almost invariably the same. The
quotations of Gibbon have likewise been called in question;—I have,
in general, been more inclined to admire their exactitude, than to
complain of their indistinctness, or incompleteness. Where they are
imperfect, it is commonly from the study of brevity, and rather from the
desire of compressing the substance of his notes into pointed and emphatic
sentences, than from dishonesty, or uncandid suppression of truth.
These observations apply more particularly to the accuracy and fidelity of
the historian as to his facts; his inferences, of course, are more liable
to exception. It is almost impossible to trace the line between unfairness
and unfaithfulness; between intentional misrepresentation and undesigned
false coloring. The relative magnitude and importance of events must, in
some respect, depend upon the mind before which they are presented; the
estimate of character, on the habits and feelings of the reader.
Christians, like M. Guizot and ourselves, will see some things, and some
persons, in a different light from the historian of the Decline and Fall.
We may deplore the bias of his mind; we may ourselves be on our guard
against the danger of being misled, and be anxious to warn less wary
readers against the same perils; but we must not confound this secret and
unconscious departure from truth, with the deliberate violation of that
veracity which is the only title of an historian to our confidence.
Gibbon, it may be fearlessly asserted, is rarely chargeable even with the
suppression of any material fact, which bears upon individual character;
he may, with apparently invidious hostility, enhance the errors and
crimes, and disparage the virtues of certain persons; yet, in general, he
leaves us the materials for forming a fairer judgment; and if he is not
exempt from his own prejudices, perhaps we might write passions, yet it
must be candidly acknowledged, that his philosophical bigotry is not more
unjust than the theological partialities of those ecclesiastical writers
who were before in undisputed possession of this province of history.
We are thus naturally led to that great misrepresentation which pervades
his history—his false estimate of the nature and influence of
Christianity.
But on this subject some preliminary caution is necessary, lest that
should be expected from a new edition, which it is impossible that it
should completely accomplish. We must first be prepared with the only
sound preservative against the false impression likely to be produced by
the perusal of Gibbon; and we must see clearly the real cause of that
false impression. The former of these cautions will be briefly suggested
in its proper place, but it may be as well to state it, here, somewhat
more at length. The art of Gibbon, or at least the unfair impression
produced by his two memorable chapters, consists in his confounding
together, in one indistinguishable mass, the origin and apostolic
propagation of the new religion, with its later progress. No argument for
the divine authority of Christianity has been urged with greater force, or
traced with higher eloquence, than that deduced from its primary
development, explicable on no other hypothesis than a heavenly origin, and
from its rapid extension through great part of the Roman empire. But this
argument—one, when confined within reasonable limits, of
unanswerable force—becomes more feeble and disputable in proportion
as it recedes from the birthplace, as it were, of the religion. The
further Christianity advanced, the more causes purely human were enlisted
in its favor; nor can it be doubted that those developed with such artful
exclusiveness by Gibbon did concur most essentially to its establishment.
It is in the Christian dispensation, as in the material world. In both it
is as the great First Cause, that the Deity is most undeniably manifest.
When once launched in regular motion upon the bosom of space, and endowed
with all their properties and relations of weight and mutual attraction,
the heavenly bodies appear to pursue their courses according to secondary
laws, which account for all their sublime regularity. So Christianity
proclaims its Divine Author chiefly in its first origin and development.
When it had once received its impulse from above—when it had once
been infused into the minds of its first teachers—when it had gained
full possession of the reason and affections of the favored few—it
might be—and to the Protestant, the rationa Christian, it is
impossible to define when it really was—left to make its way by its
native force, under the ordinary secret agencies of all-ruling Providence.
The main question, the divine origin of the religion, was dexterously
eluded, or speciously conceded by Gibbon; his plan enabled him to commence
his account, in most parts, below the apostolic times; and it was only by
the strength of the dark coloring with which he brought out the failings
and the follies of the succeeding ages, that a shadow of doubt and
suspicion was thrown back upon the primitive period of Christianity.
“The theologian,” says Gibbon, “may indulge the pleasing task of
describing religion as she descended from heaven, arrayed in her native
purity; a more melancholy duty is imposed upon the historian:—he
must discover the inevitable mixture of error and corruption which she
contracted in a long residence upon earth among a weak and degenerate race
of beings.” Divest this passage of the latent sarcasm betrayed by the
subsequent tone of the whole disquisition, and it might commence a
Christian history written in the most Christian spirit of candor. But as
the historian, by seeming to respect, yet by dexterously confounding the
limits of the sacred land, contrived to insinuate that it was an Utopia
which had no existence but in the imagination of the theologian—as
he suggested rather than affirmed that the days of Christian purity were a
kind of poetic golden age;—so the theologian, by venturing too far
into the domain of the historian, has been perpetually obliged to contest
points on which he had little chance of victory—to deny facts
established on unshaken evidence—and thence, to retire, if not with
the shame of defeat, yet with but doubtful and imperfect success. Paley,
with his intuitive sagacity, saw through the difficulty of answering
Gibbon by the ordinary arts of controversy; his emphatic sentence, “Who
can refute a sneer?” contains as much truth as point. But full and
pregnant as this phrase is, it is not quite the whole truth; it is the
tone in which the progress of Christianity is traced, in comparison with
the rest of the splendid and prodigally ornamented work, which is the
radical defect in the “Decline and Fall.” Christianity alone receives no
embellishment from the magic of Gibbon’s language; his imagination is dead
to its moral dignity; it is kept down by a general zone of jealous
disparagement, or neutralized by a painfully elaborate exposition of its
darker and degenerate periods. There are occasions, indeed, when its pure
and exalted humanity, when its manifestly beneficial influence, can compel
even him, as it were, to fairness, and kindle his unguarded eloquence to
its usual fervor; but, in general, he soon relapses into a frigid apathy;
affects an ostentatiously severe impartiality; notes all the faults of
Christians in every age with bitter and almost malignant sarcasm;
reluctantly, and with exception and reservation, admits their claim to
admiration. This inextricable bias appears even to influence his manner of
composition. While all the other assailants of the Roman empire, whether
warlike or religious, the Goth, the Hun, the Arab, the Tartar, Alaric and
Attila, Mahomet, and Zengis, and Tamerlane, are each introduced upon the
scene almost with dramatic animation—their progress related in a
full, complete, and unbroken narrative—the triumph of Christianity
alone takes the form of a cold and critical disquisition. The successes of
barbarous energy and brute force call forth all the consummate skill of
composition; while the moral triumphs of Christian benevolence—the
tranquil heroism of endurance, the blameless purity, the contempt of
guilty fame and of honors destructive to the human race, which, had they
assumed the proud name of philosophy, would have been blazoned in his
brightest words, because they own religion as their principle—sink
into narrow asceticism. The glories of Christianity, in short, touch on no
chord in the heart of the writer; his imagination remains unkindled; his
words, though they maintain their stately and measured march, have become
cool, argumentative, and inanimate. Who would obscure one hue of that
gorgeous coloring in which Gibbon has invested the dying forms of
Paganism, or darken one paragraph in his splendid view of the rise and
progress of Mahometanism? But who would not have wished that the same
equal justice had been done to Christianity; that its real character and
deeply penetrating influence had been traced with the same philosophical
sagacity, and represented with more sober, as would become its quiet
course, and perhaps less picturesque, but still with lively and
attractive, descriptiveness? He might have thrown aside, with the same
scorn, the mass of ecclesiastical fiction which envelops the early history
of the church, stripped off the legendary romance, and brought out the
facts in their primitive nakedness and simplicity—if he had but
allowed those facts the benefit of the glowing eloquence which he denied
to them alone. He might have annihilated the whole fabric of
post-apostolic miracles, if he had left uninjured by sarcastic insinuation
those of the New Testament; he might have cashiered, with Dodwell, the
whole host of martyrs, which owe their existence to the prodigal invention
of later days, had he but bestowed fair room, and dwelt with his ordinary
energy on the sufferings of the genuine witnesses to the truth of
Christianity, the Polycarps, or the martyrs of Vienne. And indeed, if,
after all, the view of the early progress of Christianity be melancholy
and humiliating we must beware lest we charge the whole of this on the
infidelity of the historian. It is idle, it is disingenuous, to deny or to
dissemble the early depravations of Christianity, its gradual but rapid
departure from its primitive simplicity and purity, still more, from its
spirit of universal love. It may be no unsalutary lesson to the Christian
world, that this silent, this unavoidable, perhaps, yet fatal change shall
have been drawn by an impartial, or even an hostile hand. The Christianity
of every age may take warning, lest by its own narrow views, its want of
wisdom, and its want of charity, it give the same advantage to the future
unfriendly historian, and disparage the cause of true religion.
The design of the present edition is partly corrective, partly
supplementary: corrective, by notes, which point out (it is hoped, in a
perfectly candid and dispassionate spirit with no desire but to establish
the truth) such inaccuracies or misstatements as may have been detected,
particularly with regard to Christianity; and which thus, with the
previous caution, may counteract to a considerable extent the unfair and
unfavorable impression created against rational religion: supplementary,
by adding such additional information as the editor’s reading may have
been able to furnish, from original documents or books, not accessible at
the time when Gibbon wrote.
The work originated in the editor’s habit of noting on the margin of his
copy of Gibbon references to such authors as had discovered errors, or
thrown new light on the subjects treated by Gibbon. These had grown to
some extent, and seemed to him likely to be of use to others. The
annotations of M. Guizot also appeared to him worthy of being better known
to the English public than they were likely to be, as appended to the
French translation.
The chief works from which the editor has derived his materials are, I.
The French translation, with notes by M. Guizot; 2d edition, Paris, 1828.
The editor has translated almost all the notes of M. Guizot. Where he has
not altogether agreed with him, his respect for the learning and judgment
of that writer has, in general, induced him to retain the statement from
which he has ventured to differ, with the grounds on which he formed his
own opinion. In the notes on Christianity, he has retained all those of M.
Guizot, with his own, from the conviction, that on such a subject, to
many, the authority of a French statesman, a Protestant, and a rational
and sincere Christian, would appear more independent and unbiassed, and
therefore be more commanding, than that of an English clergyman.
The editor has not scrupled to transfer the notes of M. Guizot to the
present work. The well-known zeal for knowledge, displayed in all the
writings of that distinguished historian, has led to the natural
inference, that he would not be displeased at the attempt to make them of
use to the English readers of Gibbon. The notes of M. Guizot are signed
with the letter G.
II. The German translation, with the notes of Wenck. Unfortunately this
learned translator died, after having completed only the first volume; the
rest of the work was executed by a very inferior hand.
The notes of Wenck are extremely valuable; many of them have been adopted
by M. Guizot; they are distinguished by the letter W. 102
III. The new edition of Le Beau’s “Histoire du Bas Empire, with notes by
M. St. Martin, and M. Brosset.” That distinguished Armenian scholar, M.
St. Martin (now, unhappily, deceased) had added much information from
Oriental writers, particularly from those of Armenia, as well as from more
general sources. Many of his observations have been found as applicable to
the work of Gibbon as to that of Le Beau.
IV. The editor has consulted the various answers made to Gibbon on the
first appearance of his work; he must confess, with little profit. They
were, in general, hastily compiled by inferior and now forgotten writers,
with the exception of Bishop Watson, whose able apology is rather a
general argument, than an examination of misstatements. The name of Milner
stands higher with a certain class of readers, but will not carry much
weight with the severe investigator of history.
V. Some few classical works and fragments have come to light, since the
appearance of Gibbon’s History, and have been noticed in their respective
places; and much use has been made, in the latter volumes particularly, of
the increase to our stores of Oriental literature. The editor cannot,
indeed, pretend to have followed his author, in these gleanings, over the
whole vast field of his inquiries; he may have overlooked or may not have
been able to command some works, which might have thrown still further
light on these subjects; but he trusts that what he has adduced will be of
use to the student of historic truth.
The editor would further observe, that with regard to some other
objectionable passages, which do not involve misstatement or inaccuracy,
he has intentionally abstained from directing particular attention towards
them by any special protest.
The editor’s notes are marked M.
A considerable part of the quotations (some of which in the later editions
had fallen into great confusion) have been verified, and have been
corrected by the latest and best editions of the authors.
June, 1845.
In this new edition, the text and the notes have been carefully revised,
the latter by the editor.
Some additional notes have been subjoined, distinguished by the signature
M. 1845.