Edward Gibbon facts, information, pictures | Encyclopedia.com articles about Edward Gibbon COPYRIGHT 2004 The Gale Group Inc. Edward Gibbon The English historian Edward Gibbon (1737-1794) wrote "The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire." Although superseded in part as history, this work is still read for its clarity, accuracy, and brilliant style. Gibbon's "Autobiography" is a classic of the genre. Edward Gibbon was born May 8, 1737, in Putney. A sickly child, he had tutors and spent two brief intervals at school, but he owed most of his early education to his voracious reading. In April 1752 he was sent to Oxford, where he learned little. In his summer vacation he began his first book, a chronological inquiry called The Age of Sesostris, which he later destroyed. Back at Oxford, he found a new subject of inquiry and in June 1753 told his horrified father that he had become a Roman Catholic. The elder Gibbon immediately sent his son to Lausanne in Protestant Switzerland. M.

Daniel Pavilliard, a Calvinist minister, was Edward's tutor and reclaimed him for Protestantism. Gibbon remained in Switzerland until 1758, shortly before he came of age. There, at first with Pavilliard's help and later alone, he acquired his classical learning and developed his scholarly bent. He also learned French thoroughly, made some lifelong friends, and fell in love. The French and the friends endured, but the romance foundered. Neither parent would permit his child to settle permanently in another country. Without parental aid there was no money, and Gibbon puts it, "I sighed as a lover; I obeyed as a son." Student, Soldier, Traveler In 1758 Gibbon's father settled a small income on him in exchange for his help in ending the entail on their estates. To his surprise, Gibbon found his stepmother kind and friendly, so he spent much of his time with his father and stepmother. Both Gibbons were officers of the Hampshire militia, which was embodied in May 1760.

Gibbon's militia duties prevented his devoting all his time to scholarship, but he published (July 1761) an Essay on the Study of Literature, written in French, and considered possible historical subjects. Earlier in 1761, at his father's request, Gibbon made an unsuccessful attempt to enter Parliament. In December 1762 his active service with the militia ended, and in January 1763 he began a tour of the Continent. Reaching Rome in October 1764, he there first thought of writing his history. But he did not yet begin it. Gibbon returned to England in 1765, where he continued his studies, but his only publications were two volumes of a French literary journal, edited with his friend G. Deyverdun, Mémoires littéraires de la Grande-Bretagne (1768 and 1769) and an attack on Warburton's interpretation of the sixth book of the Aeneid. He began a history of the Swiss republics in French (1767), which he abandoned. David Hume, who read this work, urged him to write history, but in English.

By this time Gibbon may already have begun preliminary work for the Decline and Fall, but he was preoccupied with domestic matters; his father died in November 1770. Parliament and History In 1772, having straightened out some of the tangles in his father's finances, Gibbon settled in London with his sources comfortably around him in an extensive library. He joined the famous Literary Club and became a member of Parliament in 1774, and in February 1776 he published the first volume of his Decline and Fall. The fifteenth and sixteenth chapters seemed so devastating an account of the early Christian Church that attackers hurried into print. Gibbon ignored them until a rash young man named Davis added plagiarism and the falsification of evidence to the charges against Gibbon. Gibbon's superb Vindication (1779) can be read with delight by those who know nothing about either the history or Davis's attack; in passing, Gibbon answered his other critics. After a brief visit to France (1777) Gibbon continued to work on his history, which was enjoying a large sale.

In 1779 he was appointed a lord of trade, and he was a conscientious member of that Board and of Parliament, but his real work was writing; volumes 2 and 3 were published in 1781. Gibbon had lost his seat in Parliament in 1780 but was elected to another in 1781. A new ministry abolished the Board of Trade in 1782, and Gibbon left Parliament forever in 1784. In September 1783 Gibbon returned to Lausanne to share a house with his old friend Deyverdun and to write the concluding volumes of his history. Much of volume 4 had been written before he left England, but its completion and volumes 5 and 6 occupied Gibbon until June 1787. He then returned to England to see the volumes through the press; they were issued on his fifty-first birthday. While in England, Gibbon had the pleasure of hearing R. B. Sheridan refer, in a famous Parliamentary speech, to Gibbon's "luminous pages," and he enjoyed public applause and the company of his English friends.

Nevertheless, Lausanne was now his home and in 1788 he returned to Switzerland. Last Years Various literary projects, especially six attempts to write his own memoirs, occupied Gibbon upon his return. His happiness was seriously marred by Deyverdun's death (July 4, 1789), which left him, in his words, "alone in Paradise." The cause of his return to England (1793), however, was concern for his friend John Holroyd, Lord Sheffield, whose wife had died suddenly. A long-standing illness of Gibbon's own was temporarily relieved by surgery in November but Gibbon died on Jan. 16, 1794. After Gibbon's death Lord Sheffield compiled and published his friend's memoirs and other miscellaneous works (1796 and 1814). Further Reading J. B. Bury edited the standard edition of The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire (7 vols., 1896-1902; 3 vols., 1946). The best edition of Gibbon's autobiography was edited by Georges A. Bonnard (1966).

Bonnard also edited Gibbon's Journey from Geneva to Rome: His Journal from 20 April to 2 October 1764 (1961). Jane Elizabeth Norton, A Bibliography of the Works of Edward Gibbon (1940), and her edition of Gibbon's Letters (1956) are exemplary. The standard biography is David M. Low, Edward Gibbon, 1737-1794 (1937). An excellent short critical biography is George Malcolm Young, Gibbon (1948). Gibbon is praised in Harold L. Bond, The Literary Art of Edward Gibbon (1960). Rewarding critical studies are John B. Black, The Art of History: A Study of Four Great Historians of the Eighteenth Century (1926); Joseph W. Swain, Edward Gibbon the Historian (1966); and David P. Jordan, Gibbon and His Roman Empire (1971). □ Cite this article Pick a style below, and copy the text for your bibliography.

MLA Europe, 1450 to 1789: Encyclopedia of the Early Modern World COPYRIGHT 2004 The Gale Group Inc. GIBBON, EDWARD (1737–1794) GIBBON, EDWARD (1737–1794), the leading English historian of the eighteenth century, famous for his History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire . The affluent only son of Edward Gibbon, a member of Parliament and country gentleman, Gibbon was briefly at Magdalen College, Oxford. The formative experience was his years in Lausanne (1753–1758). There he received an important introduction to Enlightenment thought and also defined his political judgments with reference to the various government structures and practices of the Swiss cantons, leading to his unpublished Letter on the Government of Berne. In 1758, Gibbon began the Essai sur l'étude de la littérature (Essay on the study of literature), a work that focused on the controversy of the ancients and moderns, providing a clear defense of the former.

After he had spent some time in England , Gibbon's next formative experience was a visit to Italy in 1764–1765. At Rome in 1764, he "trod, with a lofty step, the ruins of the Forum; each memorable spot where Romulus stood, or Tully spoke, or Caesar fell . . . it was at Rome . . . as I sat musing amidst the ruins of the Capitol, while the barefooted friars were singing Vespers in the Temple of Jupiter, that the idea of writing the decline and fall of the city first started to my mind." As a member of Parliament in 1774–1784, Gibbon was a supporter of the government of Lord North against the American Revolution and was a member of the Board of Trade in 1779–1782. Not a natural speaker, Gibbon did not enjoy being in Parliament, and preferred retirement to Lausanne. Gibbon's History (6 vols., 1776–1788) was a masterpiece of scholarship and skepticism and led to his being regarded in England as the leading historian of his generation.

Based on formidable reading across a range of languages, and supported by over 8,300 references and a sound knowledge of the geography of the Classical world, the work contrasted with the less profound and philosophical character of most contemporary historical work. Gibbon attributed the fall of Rome in part to the rise of Christianity , although he was cautious about providing a general model of change and preferred to focus on a detailed narrative of developments. He contrasted the degenerate Roman Empire with the vigor of the barbarian invaders. Rather than focusing only on Rome and its successor states, Gibbon extended his scope to a history of Eurasia. He was particularly interested in the displacement of the Greek and Syrian world by the Arabs and Islam . While Gibbon was writing, the banners of the Ottoman Empire still waved above the walls of Belgrade . He sought to understand the past that foreshadowed the modern world and to explain the world of post-Roman power, ecclesiastical authority, and Scholastic philosophy against which eighteenth-century civil society had been constructed.

Gibbon was convinced of the general benefit of history and of modern European civilization: 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 . . . 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. The merit of discovery has too often been stained with avarice, cruelty, and fanaticism; and the inter-course of nations has produced the communication of disease and prejudice. The History was critically and commercially successful, although his critical account of Christianity was attacked by many. Nevertheless, Gibbon's remained the best history of the rise of Christianity in English into the following century. Gibbon's apparent ambivalence toward Christianity was such that he can scarcely be cited as typifying the values of his age. This was also true of his cosmopolitanism, opposition to war and martial glory, and disapproval of imperial expansion.

In his History, Gibbon made his cosmopolitanism clear: 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 attained almost the same level of politeness and cultivation. In later years, Gibbon condemned the French Revolution , which threatened his concept of enlightened Europe and forced him to return home from Lausanne. He never married. The irony of Gibbon's authorial voice was linked to moral and moralistic concerns: rulership, governance, and political life were seen as moral activities. Gibbon's History reflects the scholarship of his age in being essentially a political account, but it is also a great work of literature. See also Ancient World ; English Literature and Language ; Enlightenment ; Historiography . BIBLIOGRAPHY Primary Source Gibbon, Edward. The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire. Edited by J. B. Bury. 7 vols. 2nd ed. London, 1909–1914. Secondary Sources Pocock, J. G. A., Barbarism and Religion. Vol.

I, The Enlightenments of Edward Gibbon. Cambridge, U.K., 1999. Porter, Roy. Edward Gibbon: Making History. London, 1988. Jeremy Black The Columbia Encyclopedia, 6th ed. Copyright The Columbia University Press Edward Gibbon, 1737–94, English historian, author of The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire. His childhood was sickly, and he had little formal education but read enormously and omnivorously. He went at the age of 15 to Oxford, but was forced to leave because of his conversion to Roman Catholicism. His father sent him (1753) to Lausanne, where he was formally reconverted to Protestantism. Actually, he became a skeptic and later greatly offended the pious by his famous chapters of historical criticism of Christianity in his great work. In Lausanne he fell in love with the penniless daughter of a pastor, Suzanne Curchod (who was later to be the great intellectual, Mme Necker). The two were engaged to be married, but Gibbon's father refused consent.

Gibbon "sighed as a lover" but "obeyed as a son" and gave up the match. He left Lausanne in 1758. It was on a visit to Rome that he conceived the idea of his magnificent and panoramic history. This appeared as The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire (6 vol., 1776–88) and won immediate acclaim, despite some harsh criticism. Gibbon himself was assured of the greatness of his work, which is, indeed, one of the most-read historical works of modern times. He entered upon a short and highly inglorious political career, serving as a member of Parliament from 1774 to 1783. He violently opposed the American Revolution, although later he was to look with favor on the more radical French Revolution. In 1783 he withdrew to Lausanne, where he completed his masterpiece. His own Memoirs of His Life and Writings, commonly called the Autobiography, first appeared in a heavily bowderlized form in the edition of his miscellaneous works by Lord Sheffield in 1796 (repr. 1959).

The autobiography is, however, one of the most subtle and interesting works of its kind in English. An edition of Gibbon's original six drafts appeared as The Autobiographies in 1896. A new edition, edited by G. A. Bonnard, was published in 1969 (Am. ed.). Editions of the Decline and Fall are legion. The modern standard edition is that of J. B. Bury (7 vol., 1896–1900). See his collected letters (ed. by J. E. Norton, 3 vol., 1956); biographies by J. W. Swain (1966), G. De Beer (1968), P. B. Craddock (1982, 1988), and J. W. Burrow (1985); studies by D. P. Jordan (1971) and R. N. Parkinson (1974). Cite this article The Oxford Companion to British History © The Oxford Companion to British History 2002, originally published by Oxford University Press 2002.

Gibbon, Edward (1737–94). Historian. After fourteen months at Magdalen College, Oxford, which the laziness of the dons made ‘the most idle and unprofitable of my whole life’, Gibbon converted to catholicism and had to leave. This was fortunate since it probably prevented him from becoming an obscure academic. His enraged father sent him to Lausanne ( Switzerland ), under a Calvinist tutor, where he learned French, reverted to protestantism, and determined to write some great work. He spent 1760–2 as a captain of the Hampshire militia—a strange inhabitant of the officers' mess. In 1773 he began serious work on Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire , the inspiration of which was a visit to Rome in 1764, described in his Memoirs. The following year he entered Parliament, was given minor office by Lord North, but never spoke: ‘the great speakers’, he wrote memorably, ‘fill me with despair, the bad ones with terror’. The first volume came out in 1776 and established him at once: the work was completed in 1788.

Gibbon was fortunate that his study touched on contemporary anxieties—the enervating effect of luxury, the fragility of civilization. But the intrinsic merits of his book, its scholarship, silky style, and philosophic detachment, made it an enduring classic. Gibbon spent his last ten years back in Lausanne. Unmarried, very short, plump early in life, fat later, overdressed, vain, and watchful, Gibbon was easy to make fun of, and though he belonged to Johnson's Club, he was not a clubbable man. His ‘cheerful temper’ and urbane, balanced prose masked, but did not hide, strong and disturbing feelings. J. A. Cannon Edward Gibbon - Christian Classics Ethereal Library - Christian Classics Ethereal Library Biography, Byzantine Empire, Great Britain, Historians, Historiography 3 Importance is calculated using the length of this author's Wikipedia entry, as well as the number of works by and about this author. Top Biography Source: Wikipedia Gibbon was the supreme historian of the Enlightenment, and is best-known as the author of the monumental The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, often considered the greatest historical work written in English.

Edward Gibbon was born in Putney in South London into a prosperous family. His father was a wealthy Tory member of Parliament who went into seclusion and left his son to the care of an aunt. Gibbon was a sickly child and his education at Westminster and at Magdalen College, Oxford, was irregular. According to Gibbon's own explanation he was too bashful to spend his time in taverns, but his studies ended anyway after one year: he was expelled for turning to Roman Catholicism - a decision which was undoubtedly directed against one of his intellectually lazy Anglican college tutors. In 1753 Gibbon was sent by his father to Lausanne, Switzerland. He boarded with a Calvinist pastor and scholar, who was very demanding in his teaching, and rejoined the Anglican fold. In Lausanne he fell in love with Suzanne Curchod, who eventually married Jacques Necker, a banker. Their relationship was ended by his father, and Gibbon remained unmarried for the rest of his life. From 1759 to 1762 Gibbon hold a commission in the Hampshire militia, reaching the rank of colonel.

Before 1763 Gibbon had considered various subjects as worthy of the type of philosophical analysis that he wished to apply to history: the life of Sir Walter Raleigh, the history of Switzerland, and others. However, he felt that he had nothing original to say about Elizabethan politics and he could not read German. In 1764 he visited Rome and was inspired to write the history of the city from the death of Marcus Aurelius to the year 1453. After his father died Gibbon found himself in some difficulties, but he was able to settle in London to proceed with his great work. The first volume appeared in 1776, with a certain amount of public reaction to Gibbon's ironical treatment of the rise of Christianity and the actions of early church fathers. Like Voltaire, Gibbon was himself a deist who had little appreciation of the metaphysical side of religion. He examined the secular side of religion as a social phenomenon - religion did not have for Gibbon special sanctity. But Christianity had a special role in the fall of the Roman empire: "...

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." Between 1774 and 1783 Gibbon sat in the House of Commons, and became a lord commissioner of trade and plantations, partly because he was considered a nuisance as a politician. In 1774 he was elected to Dr Johnson's Club. From 1783 Gibbon spent much of his time in Lausanne and in England with Lord Sheffield (John Baker Holroy) in his Sussex and London houses. The last three volumes of Decline and Fall were published in 1788. The book was a bestseller, and offered the reading public a vivid narrative of the past instead of an antiquarian picture. Top Edward Gibbon - Freedom From Religion Foundation Orders Edward Gibbon On this date in 1737, Edward Gibbon was born in England.

The historian's most famous work is The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, which appeared originally in six volumes from 1776 through 1788. Oxford-educated, Gibbon represented Lymington in Parliament for many years. Gibbon was a highly skeptical and unreligious Deist, who was particularly critical of the history of the Roman Catholic Church. The "melancholy duty" of the historian, he wrote in his treatise, is to discover "the inevitable mixture of error and corruption" of religion. Chapter XV of Decline and Fall contains Gibbon's famous explication of early Christianity. He observed, "it was not in this world that the primitive Christians were desirous of making themselves either agreeable or useful." Gibbon believed that Christianity introduced a new and negative element into religion in damning those who would not accept Christian teachings. "These rigid sentiments, which had been unknown to the ancient world, appear to have infused a spirit of bitterness into a system of love and harmony.

The ties of blood and friendship were frequently torn asunder by the difference of religious faith; and the Christians, who, in this world, found themselves oppressed by the power of the Pagans, were sometimes seduced by resentment and spiritual pride to delight in the prospect of their future triumph." Gibbon wrote several other major histories. D. 1794. “A state of scepticism and suspense may amuse a few inquisitive minds. But the practice of superstition is so congenial to the multitude that, if they are forcibly awakened, they still regret the loss of their pleasing vision. Their love of the marvellous and supernatural, their curiosity with regard to future events, and their strong propensity to extend their hopes and fears beyond the limits of the visible world, were the principal causes which favoured the establishment of Polytheism. So urgent on the vulgar is the necessity of believing, that the fall of any system of mythology will most probably be succeeded by the introduction of some other mode of superstition.” —Edward Gibbon, The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire (1776-1788) Compiled by Annie Laurie Gaylor © Freedom From Religion Foundation. All rights reserved.

In This Section May 8: Edward Gibbon » Freethought Almanac Freethought Almanac Edward Gibbon (1737) Edward Gibbon It was on this date, May 8, 1737, that English historian and MP Edward Gibbon was born near London. He was educated at Oxford where, he said later, he spent “the most idle and unprofitable” fourteen months of his life. He was recalled by his father for converting to Roman Catholicism, and returned to the Church of England after his father sent him to Lausanne, Switzerland, in 1753, with a Calvinist as his guardian. But his religion shifted yet again, perhaps after meeting Voltaire: Samuel Johnson described Gibbon as one of the “infidel wasps” before he reached age 40.

It was at Rome, wrote Gibbon, “[o]n the fifteenth of October 1764, as I sat musing amidst the ruins of the Capitol, while the bare-footed friars were singing Vespers in the Temple of Jupiter, the idea of writing the decline and fall of the city first started to my mind.” His father died in 1770, leaving Gibbon enough money to begin writing in London. The first volume of his masterwork, The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, appeared in 1776, the last three in 1788 while Gibbon lived once again in Switzerland. The seven-volume edition revised and annotated by J.B. Bury (1861-1927) is considered he greatest historical work written in English. Aiming to elevate history above “the register of the crimes, follies and misfortunes of mankind,” Gibbon wrested the study of the past from clerical confines and outraged the divines of the time by describing Christianity as a factor that hastened the decay of Rome.

Gibbon wrote, “… 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.” In the Roman world, Gibbon wrote, Athenian wisdom had been supplanted by “the establishment of a new religion, whose ministers superseded the exercise of reason, resolved every question by an article of faith, and condemned the infidel or skeptic to eternal flames.” Steadfastly resisting the treatment of religion as anything more than a social force, Gibbon also wrote, “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.” Sir Leslie Stephen, in the Dictionary of National Biography, said of Gibbon’s work, “in accuracy, thoroughness, lucidity and comprehensive grasp of a vast subject the History is unsurpassable.” Although Gibbon is accused (mostly by those who have not read him) of Atheism and of bias against religion, because of his unbelief, in his famous chapters

 15 and 16 he is more charitable toward Christianity than it deserves.

This may have been tactical irony: blasphemy was still prosecuted in England at the time. Perhaps the highest compliment was paid by John Henry Newman, the Catholic convert and cardinal, who wrote, “It is melancholy to say it, but the chief, perhaps the only English writer who has any claim to be an ecclesiastical historian, is the unbeliever Gibbon.” Originally published May 2003 by Ronald Bruce Meyer . Share this: Edward Gibbon Biography, Quotes, Works and Writings – ReadCentral.com  Sorry no quotes for author are available yet!!!  Edward Gibbon's Biography English historian and scholar the supreme historian of the Enlightenment who is best-known as the author of the monumental THE DECLINE AND FALL OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE often considered the greatest historical work written in English. "It was at Rome... as I sat musing amidst the ruins of the Capitol while barefoot friars were singing vespers in the Temple of Jupiter that the idea of writing the decline and fall of the city first started to my mind." However Gibbon's first works were written in French. Edward Gibbon was born in Putney in South London into a prosperous family.

His father was a wealthy Tory member of Parliament who went into seclusion and left his son to the care of an aunt. Gibbon was a sickly child and his education at Westminster and at Magdalen College Oxford was irregular. According to Gibbon's own explanation he was too bashful to spend his time in taverns but his studies ended anyway after one year: he was expelled for turning to Roman Catholicism - a decision which was undoubtedly directed against one of his intellectually lazy Anglican college tutors. In 1753 Gibbon was sent by his father to Lausanne Switzerland. He boarded with a Calvinist pastor and scholar who was very demanding in his teaching and rejoined the Anglican fold. In Lausanne he fell in love with Suzanne Curchod who eventually married Jacques Necker a banker. Their relationship was ended by his father and Gibbon remained unmarried for the rest of his life. Suzanne became the mother of the famous writer and early champion of women's rights Madame de Staël.

From 1759 to 1762 Gibbon hold a commission in the Hampshire militia reaching the rank of colonel. Before 1763 Gibbon had considered various subjects as worthy of the type of philosophical analysis that he wished to apply to history: the life of Sir Walter Raleigh the history of Switzerland and others. However he felt that he had nothing original to say about Elizabethan politics and he could not read German. In 1764 he visited Rome and was inspired to write the history of the city from the death of Marcus Aurelius to the year 1453. After his father died Gibbon found himself in some difficulties but he was able to settle in London to proceed with his great work. The first volume appeared in 1776 with a certain amount of public reaction to Gibbon's ironical treatment of the rise of Christianity and the actions of early church fathers. Like Voltaire Gibbon was himself a deist who had little appreciation of the metaphysical side of religion. He examined the secular side of religion as a social phenomenon - religion did not have for Gibbon special sanctity.

But Christianity had a special role in the fall of the Roman empire: "... 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." Between 1774 and 1783 Gibbon sat in the House of Commons and became a lord commissioner of trade and plantations partly because he was considered a nuisance as a politician. In 1774 he was elected to Dr Johnson's Club. From 1783 Gibbon spent much of his time in Lausanne and in England with Lord Sheffield (John Baker Holroy) in his Sussex and London houses. After Decline and Fall Gibbon wrote a memoir. It went through many drafts and was not published during his lifetime. Lord Sheffield later prepared Gibbon's MEMOIRS OF MY LIFE AND WRITINGS for publication (1796) and MISCELLANEOUS WORKS (1796).

The last three volumes of Decline and Fall were published in 1788. The book was a bestseller and offered the reading public a vivid narrative of the past instead of an antiquarian picture. "If he had been more vulnerable to the glittering abstractions of his age he might have become an English Montesquieu writing for scholars of political thought. If he had sought historical laws or cycles or found some single cause he might have been bedside reading no more than Vico or Marx." (Daniel J. Boorstin in The Creators 1992) Gibbon who did not much value contemporary historians developed his own approach and adopted influences from such diverse sources as the "Protestant Enlightenment" Parisian philosophers and the Scottish Enlightenment. Although Gibbon's conclusions have been modified his masterful historical perspective and literary style have secured his place as the forerunner of English historiographers. On the other hand his personal habits were peculiar - according to some contemporary comment Gibbon was so filthy that one could not stand close to him. How did Lord Sheffield manage to do so?

Gibbon's devotion to routine was also a source of jokes - this harmless personal trait he shared with amongst others the German philosopher Kant and the Danish philosopher Kierkegaard. When Benjamin Franklin was visiting England he wanted to see Gibbon who refused to meet him. It did not diminish Franklin's admiration of the historian and he promised to help Gibbon when he came to write the history of the decline and fall of the British Empire. In The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire (1776-1788) Gibbon himself was grateful to Jean Mabillon (1632-1707) Bernard Montfasucon (1655-1741) and Ludovico Muratori (1672-1741) for their collections of facts and documents. The work covers more than 13 centuries from the 2nd century AD to the fall of Constantinople in 1453. Christianity is dealt with in detail he examines the encroachment of the Teutonic tribes who eventually held the Western Empire in fee the rise of Islam and the Crusades.

Gibbon viewed the Roman Empire as a single entity in undeviating decline from the ideals of political and intellectual freedom that had characterized the classical literature he had read. For him the material decay of Rome was the effect and symbol of moral decadence. "Many a sober Christian would rather admit that a wafer is God than that God is a cruel and capricious tyrant." With powerful narrative fluid prose and persuasive arguments the work has a remained a classic in historical literature. Some rights reserved Petri Liukkonen (author) & Ari Pesonen. Kuusankosken kaupunginkirjasto 2008 Edward Gibbon | British historian | Britannica.com British historian John Milton Edward Gibbon, (born May 8 [April 27, old style], 1737, Putney, Surrey , Eng.—died Jan. 16, 1794, London ), English rationalist historian and scholar best known as the author of The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire (1776–88), a continuous narrative from the 2nd century ad to the fall of Constantinople in 1453.

Edward Gibbon, oil painting by Henry Walton, 1774; in the National Portrait Gallery, London. Courtesy of The National Portrait Gallery, London Life. Gibbon’s grandfather, Edward, had made a considerable fortune and his father, also Edward, was able to live an easygoing life in society and Parliament. He married Judith, a daughter of James Porten, whose family had originated in Germany. Edward, too, had independent means throughout his life. He was the eldest and the only survivor of seven children, the rest dying in infancy. Gibbon’s own childhood was a series of illnesses and more than once he nearly died. Neglected by his mother, he owed his life to her sister, Catherine Porten, whom he also called “the mother of his mind,” and after his mother’s death in 1747 he was almost entirely in his aunt’s care. He early became an omnivorous reader and could indulge his tastes the more fully since his schooling was most irregular.

He attended a day school in Putney and, in 1746, Kingston grammar school, where he was to note in his Memoirs “at the expense of many tears and some blood, [he] purchased a knowledge of Latin syntax.” In 1749 he was admitted to Westminster School . He was taken in 1750 to Bath and Winchester in search of health and after an unsuccessful attempt to return to Westminster was placed for the next two years with tutors from whom he learned little. His father took him on visits to country houses where he had the run of libraries filled with old folios. He noted his 12th year as one of great intellectual development and says in his Memoirs that he had early discovered his “proper food,” history . By his 14th year he had already covered the main fields of his subsequent masterpiece, applying his mind as well to difficult problems of chronology. The keynote of these early years of study was self-sufficiency. Apart from his aunt’s initial guidance, Gibbon followed his intellectual bent in solitary independence. This characteristic remained with him throughout his life. His great work was composed without consulting other scholars and is impressed with the seal of his unique personality.

Britannica Stories Ringling Bros. Folds Its Tent In his Memoirs Gibbon remarked that with the onset of puberty his health suddenly improved and remained excellent throughout his life. Never a strong or active man, he was of diminutive stature and very slightly built and he became corpulent in later years. The improvement in his health apparently accounts for his father’s sudden decision to enter him at Magdalen College, Oxford, on April 3, 1752, about three weeks before his 15th birthday. He was now privileged and independent. Any expectations of study at Oxford were soon disappointed. The authorities failed to look after him intellectually or spiritually or even to note his absences from the college. Left to himself, Gibbon turned to theology and read himself into the Roman Catholic faith. It was a purely intellectual conversion. Yet he acted on it and was received into the Roman Catholic Church by a priest in London on June 8, 1753. His father, outraged because under the existing laws his son had disqualified himself for all public service and office, acted swiftly, and Edward was dispatched to Lausanne and lodged with a Calvinist minister, the Rev. Daniel Pavillard.

Though the change was complete, and Gibbon was under strict surveillance, in great discomfort, and with the scantiest allowance, he later spoke of this period with gratitude. To Pavillard he owed kindly and competent instruction and the formation of regular habits of study. He mastered the bulk of classical Latin literature and studied mathematics and logic. He also became perfectly conversant with the language and literature of France, which exercised a permanent influence on him. These studies made him not only a man of considerable learning but a stylist for life. He began his first work, written in French, Essai sur l’étude de la littérature (1761; An Essay on the Study of Literature, 1764). Meanwhile, the main purpose of his exile had not been neglected. Not without weighty thought, Gibbon at last abjured his new faith and was publicly readmitted to the Protestant communion at Christmas 1754.

“It was here,” Gibbon says somewhat ambiguously, “that I suspended my religious enquiries, acquiescing with implicit belief in the tenets and mysteries which are adopted by the general consent of Catholics and Protestants.” Britannica Lists & Quizzes Editor Picks: Exploring 10 Types of Basketball Movies In the latter part of his exile Gibbon entered more freely into Lausanne society. He attended Voltaire’s parties. He formed an enduring friendship with a young Swiss, Georges Deyverdun, and also fell in love with and rashly plighted himself to Suzanne Curchod, a pastor’s daughter of great charm and intelligence. In 1758 his father called Gibbon home shortly before his 21st birthday and settled an annuity of £300 on him. On the other hand, he found that his father and his stepmother were implacably opposed to his engagement, and he was compelled to break it off. (“I sighed as a lover, I obeyed as a son.”) He never again thought seriously of marriage. After a natural estrangement he and Curchod became lifelong friends. She was well known as the wife of Jacques Necker , the French finance minister under Louis XVI .

During the next five years Gibbon read widely and considered many possible subjects for a historical composition . From 1760 until the end of 1762, his studies were seriously interrupted by his service on home defense duties with the Hampshire militia. With the rank of captain he did his duty conscientiously and later claimed that his experience of men and camps had been useful to him as a historian. British Culture and Politics Gibbon left England on Jan. 25, 1763, and spent some time in Paris, making the acquaintance of several Philosophes, Denis Diderot and Jean Le Rond d’Alembert among others. During the autumn and winter spent in study and gaiety at Lausanne, he gained a valuable friend in John Baker Holroyd (later Lord Sheffield), who was to become his literary executor. In 1764 Gibbon went to Rome, where he made an exhaustive study of the antiquities and, on Oct. 15, 1764, while musing amid the ruins of the Capitol, was inspired to write of the decline and fall of the city. Some time was yet to pass before he decided on the history of the empire.

Connect with Britannica Facebook Twitter YouTube Instagram Pinterest At home, the next five years were the least satisfactory in Gibbon’s life. He was dependent on his father and although nearly 30 had achieved little in life. Although bent on writing a history, he had not settled on a definite subject. Impressed by the supremacy of French culture in Europe, he began in that language a history of the liberty of the Swiss, but was dissuaded from continuing it. He and Deyverdun published two volumes of Mémoires littéraires de la Grande Bretagne (1768–69). In 1770 he sought to attract some attention by publishing Critical Observations on the Sixth Book of the Aeneid. His father died intestate in 1770. After two years of tiresome business, Gibbon was established in Bentinck Street, London, and concentrated on his Roman history. At the same time he entered fully into social life. He joined the fashionable clubs and was also becoming known among men of letters. In 1775 he was elected to the Club , the brilliant circle that the painter Sir Joshua Reynolds had formed round the writer and lexicographer Dr. Samuel Johnson .

Although Johnson’s biographer, James Boswell , openly detested Gibbon, and it may be inferred that Johnson disliked him, Gibbon took an active part in the Club and became intimate with Reynolds and the actor David Garrick . In the previous year he had entered Parliament and was an assiduous , though silent, supporter of Lord North. The “Decline and Fall.” The first quarto volume of his history, published on Feb. 17, 1776, immediately scored a success that was resounding, if somewhat scandalous because of the last two chapters in which he dealt with great irony with the rise of Christianity. Reactions to Gibbon’s treatment of Christianity have displayed various phases. Both in his lifetime and after, he was attacked and personally ridiculed by those who feared that his skepticism would shake the existing establishment. In the 19th century he was hailed as a champion by militant agnostics . Gibbon himself was not militant. He did not cry with Voltaire, “Écrasez l’Infâme!” (“Crush the Infamy!”) because in his England and Switzerland he saw no danger in the ecclesiastical systems. His concern was past history.

One may say, however, with confidence, that he had no belief in a divine revelation and little sympathy with those who had such a belief. While he treated the supernatural with irony, his main purpose was to establish the principle that religions must be treated as phenomena of human experience. In this his successors have followed him and added to the collateral causes of Christianity’s growth those that he had overlooked or could not know of, such as the various mystery religions of the empire and particularly the Mithraic cult. Although Gibbon’s best known treatment of Christianity is found mainly in the 15th and 16th chapters, no less significant are later chapters in which he traced the developments of theology and ecclesiasticism in relation to the breakup of the empire. Trending Topics Opium Wars Gibbon went on to prepare the next volumes. Meanwhile, he was assailed by many pamphleteers and subjected to much ridicule. His ugliness and elaborate clothes made him an easy target. For the most part he ignored his critics. The historians David Hume and William Robertson recognized him as their equal if not their superior.

Only to those who had accused him of falsifying his evidence did he make a devastating reply in A Vindication of Some Passages in the Fifteenth and Sixteenth Chapters of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire (1779). In the same year he obtained a valuable sinecure as a commissioner of trade and plantations. Shortly after that he composed Mémoire justificatif (1779; a French and English version, 1780), a masterly state paper in reply to continental criticism of the British government’s policy in America. In 1781 he published the second and third volumes of his history, bringing the narrative down to the end of the empire in the West. Gibbon paused at this point to consider continuing his history. In 1782, however, Lord North’s government fell, and soon Gibbon’s commission was abolished. This was a serious loss of income. To economize he left England and joined Deyverdun in a house at Lausanne. There he quietly completed his history in three more volumes, writing the last lines of it on June 27, 1787.

He soon returned to England with the manuscript, and these volumes were published on his 51st birthday, May 8, 1788. The completion of this great work was acclaimed on all sides. The Decline and Fall is thus comprised of two divisions, equal in bulk but inevitably different in treatment. The first half covers a period of about 300 years to the end of the empire in the West, about ad 480. In the second half nearly 1,000 years are compressed. Yet the work is a coherent whole by virtue of its conception of the Roman Empire as a single entity throughout its long and diversified course. Gibbon imposed a further unity on his narrative by viewing it as an undeviating decline from those ideals of political and, even more, intellectual freedom that he had found in classical literature. The material decay that had inspired him in Rome was the effect and symbol of moral decadence. However well this attitude suited the history of the West, its continuance constitutes the most serious defect of the second half of Gibbon’s history and involved him in obvious contradictions.

He asserted, for example, that the long story of empire in the East is one of continuous decay, yet for 1,000 years Constantinople stood as a bulwark of eastern Europe. The fact is that Gibbon was not only out of sympathy with Byzantine civilization; he was less at home with Greek sources than with Latin and had no access to vast stores of material in other languages that subsequent scholars have assembled. Consequently there are serious omissions in his narrative, as well as unsatisfactory summaries. Nevertheless, this second half contains much of Gibbon’s best. With all its shortcomings, it marshals with masterly lucidity the successive forces that eventually overthrew Constantinople. Many of his most famous chapters occur there. These include sections on Justinian, the Trinitarian controversies, the rise of Islām, and the history of Roman law. There is, in addition, a brilliant and moving story of the last siege and capture of Constantinople and, finally, the epilogue of chapters describing medieval and Renaissance Rome, which gives some hope that the long decline is over and that mankind has some prospect of recovering intellectual freedom. The vindication of intellectual freedom is a large part of Gibbon’s purpose as a historian.

When toward the end of his work he remarks, “I have described the triumph of barbarism and religion,” he reveals epigrammatically his view of the causes of the decay of the Greco-Roman world. They can hardly be disputed. But there is the further question of whether the changes brought about are to be regarded as ones of progress or retrogression. Writing as a mid-18th-century “philosopher,” Gibbon saw the process as retrogression, and his judgment remains of perpetual interest. Returning to Lausanne, Gibbon turned mainly to writing his memoirs. His happiness was broken first by Deyverdun’s death in 1789, quickly followed by the outbreak of the French Revolution and the subsequent apprehension of an invasion of Switzerland. He had now become very fat and his health was declining. In 1793 he suddenly returned to England on hearing of Lady Sheffield’s death. The journey aggravated his ailments, and he died in a house in St. James’s Street, London. His remains were placed in Lord Sheffield’s family vault in Fletching Church, Sussex. Assessment. Modern knowledge of history, in Gibbon’s field alone, has increased conspicuously.

Economic, social, and constitutional history have grown up. The study of coins, inscriptions, and archaeology generally has brought in a great harvest. Above all, the scientific examination of literary sources, so rigorously practiced now, was unknown to Gibbon. Yet he often exhibits a flair and an acumen that seem to anticipate these systematic studies. He had genius in large measure, as well as untiring industry and accuracy in consulting his sources. Though he was unsympathetic to Christianity, his sense of fairness and probity made him respectful of honest opinion and true devotion, even among those with whom he disagreed. These qualities, expressed with his command of historical perspective and his incomparable literary style, justify a modern historian’s dictum that “whatever else is read Gibbon must be read too,” or the conclusion of the great Cambridge historian J.B. Bury: That Gibbon is behind date in many details and in some departments of importance, simply signifies that we and our fathers have not lived in an absolutely incompetent world. But in the main things he is still our master above and beyond “date.” Edward Gibbon - Student Encyclopedia (Ages 11 and up) (1737-94).

The ’Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire’ by Edward Gibbon has been read by millions of people, as much for its beauty of narrative expression as for its fascinating insights into the past. Gibbon was born at Putney in Surrey, England, on May 8, 1737. His family was well off, enabling him to pursue his studies and writing. He was raised mostly by his aunt, Catherine Porten. His schooling was irregular, but he found ample time for reading. In 1753 he converted to Roman Catholicism. This move outraged his father, who sent him off to Lausanne, Switzerland, to live with a Reformed clergyman’s family until he returned to Protestantism in late 1754. Much of the rest of his life was divided between England and Lausanne. Article Contributors Edward Gibbon Books | Folio Biography '[He was] at the very head of Europe’s literary tribe' Adam Smith Early Years Edward Gibbon was born in 1737 in Putney, in what was then rural Surrey. His parents, Edward and Judith Gibbon were part of the affluent untitled rural elite of the age.

Gibbon was one of seven children, however he was the only one to survive infancy, as a result he was destined to have a lonely childhood. He described himself as 'a puny child, neglected by my Mother, starved by my nurse'. He was often sick and he would remain in ill health for the entirety of his life. At nine he was sent away to school in Kingston-upon-Thames and then Westminster School, following the death of his mother. Whilst at Westminster he stayed with his ‘Aunt Kitty’, Catherine Porten who would have a strong influence on him and whom he adored. It was she who showed the first real affection for the sickly boy (his parents having been distant and disdainful) and introduced him to reading. At the age of 15 Gibbon was sent to Magdalene College, Oxford a period he later referred to as the one in which he was most idle. While he was unsuited to the academic lifestyle, the college had a great effect on him, introducing him to radical free thinkers and new philosophies. Under his aunt’s tutelage he had always had an interest in religion and the power it exerts on life.

At university, having discussed religion with many of the great thinkers and theologians of the day, he converted to Roman Catholicism. At a time when Catholics were still denied the right to own property, inherit land and join the army, this was a radical act. His father immediately recalled him from university and his free thinking associates and sent him to Lausanne, Switzerland into the care of a Protestant pastor. Romance and reading in Switzerland Staying in Lausanne for five years, it would turn out to be one of the most enlightening periods of Gibbon’s life. After his father threatened to stop financially supporting him if he remained a Catholic, Gibbon returned to Protestantism. While in Lausanne he also had the one (known) romance of his life – becoming engaged to Suzanne Churchod, the daughter of a Swiss pastor. Though they were in love and planned to marry, Gibbon’s father refused to consent and Churchod refused to leave Switzerland. The affair came to an end in 1758 when Gibbon submitted to his father’s will, as he would later put it 'I sighed as a lover, I obeyed as a son'.

Churchod would later go on to marry a minister at the French court, becoming a writer and hosting one of the most celebrated salons of the age. He returned to England after ending his relationship and began working on his first book, Essai sur l'Étude de la Littérature, published in 1761. The book was a success and established Gibbon as a respected man of letters, well known in the salons of Europe. After publication he served in the South Hampshire Militia, in reserve during the Seven Years War. When the militia was disbanded at the end of the war he vowed to embark on a grand tour of Europe. In 1763 he set off, visiting France and then on to Rome. In Rome he was deeply moved by the ruins of the Forum and the beauty of the Roman civilisation. He became obsessed by the idea of writing a history of how Rome came to fall into the ruins he saw before him which led to the writing of the most famous of all Edward Gibbon books which he claimed to have thought of while seated on Capitoline Hill – his ‘Capitoline vision’.

The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire In 1770 Gibbon's father died and having returned to England, he now found himself to be a wealthy man. He settled in London and joined a number of sophisticated social clubs. He became a Freemason and even an MP for Liskerd, Cornwall. These pursuits however did not distract him from his writing. After seven years of research Gibbon published the first volume of his The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire in 1776. The book was another success, making Gibbon one of the most famous historians of the age. This fresh take on the fall of the Roman Empire relied heavily on primary sources and was extremely controversial in its argument that the decline was largely the result of the increasing influence of Christianity in draining the traditional martial spirit of the Romans. The rest of the volumes were published in 1781, 1787 and 1788 creating a collection of six. Gibbon's lifelong friend Lord Sheffield assisted him in the publication and promotion of the work.

As Gibbon was often in Lausanne with the many friends he had in the city, Sheffield took on the role of overseeing the publication of the works - a lengthy process in Georgian England. In the later part of his life, Gibbon continued to suffer from ill health, it is believed that he suffered from an extreme case of hydrocele testis (scrotal swelling), which, given the fashion for tight fitting breeches at the time, was very uncomfortable for him. It was after an operation designed to treat this ailment when he contracted peritonitis and died on 16 January 1794. He was buried in the Sheffield family graveyard in Fletching, Sussex.

Buy books by this Author Clove Building, 4 Maguire Street, London SE1 2NQ America Has Been Warned: Edward Gibbon's The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Breitbart by Virgil 22 Nov 2014 0 22 Nov, 2014 22 Nov, 2014 SIGN UP FOR OUR NEWSLETTER What can a chronicler of barbarian invasions, writing in the 18th century, explain to Americans in the 21st century?What lessons can we learn today from the fall of an ancient empire? Plenty. Many. SIGN UP FOR OUR NEWSLETTER Indeed, as immigration is a hot issue today, we might look to long-ago scholarship to remind us that the basic patriotic loyalty of the home population can never be taken for granted. In particular, if the demography of the population changes, its loyalties will change. Edward Gibbon’s famous work of history, The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, was published in six volumes, from 1776 to 1788.

And the first appearance of that work, of course,–in that evocative year of 1776–has led many to consider its significance to American history. Could America ever fall like that? Could America collapse like the Roman Empire? Gibbon was English, and yet even after the American Revolution, his work was widely read in the new republic known as the United States; we know, for example, that George Washington included Gibbon in his library. Indeed, Gibbon’s conservative turn of mind made him particularly popular among the American Founders, who were, after all, themselves conservative. Yes, George Washington & Co. were revolutionaries, but they were definitely not radicals. They rebelled in 1776 to uphold their ancient liberties, not to try new fads. Indeed, as recently noted here at Breitbart News, the Founders looked to history to tell them what could go wrong with a government; then, with that knowledge in mind, they sought to build in protective checks and balances.

So to the Founders, Gibbon’s sober worldview–his statement, for example, that “history is indeed little more than the register of the crimes, follies, and misfortunes of mankind”–coincided with their own thinking, which began with a basic mistrust of human nature. The world, after all, is Fallen; men are not angels. Come to think of it, maybe American politicians today, too, should be reading Gibbon, because America today is under threat, not least from the sort of demographic transformation–some might call it an invasion–that toppled Rome. We might consider, for instance, the evidence of President Obama’s Executive Order granting amnesty to millions. “Democrats bet on diversity”–that was the blunt headline in Politico. And we know what that means. If there’s one thing that Barack Obama, Al Sharpton, and La Raza can probably all agree on, it’s that it’s high time for the rule of Americans of European descent to come to an end. Meanwhile, the Main Stream Media is doing its best to speed up the Multicultural Bandwagon.

It’s to be expected, of course, that The New York Times would be cheerleading Obama’s effort, but here’s a similar headline from The Houston Chronicle: “Momentum gathers in Houston for Obama’s immigration order.” So we might ask: In the face of this onslaught, what of the Republicans? Aren’t they supposed to be leading the opposition? For the most part, the Republicans seem strangely ineffective. Here’s another Politico headline : “Lack of immigration plan flusters GOP.” As the story puts it, “Congressional Republicans woke up on Friday morning with no clear legislative response to the president and with their membership scattered across the country on a 10-day Thanksgiving break. Meanwhile, Obama headed to Las Vegas to begin selling his proposal to shield millions of young immigrants and some of their family members.” Even those who recognize that Politico leans left might be hard pressed to identify any error in the above paragraph. Yes, Republicans intend to do a lot of litigating, and they will be holding some Congressional hearings.

But Iowa talk show host Steve Deace speaks for many concerned citizens when he describes this GOP wordplay as “Sound and fury signifying nothing.” Indeed, as Quin Hillyer observes , it’s far from certain that many in the Republican elite really oppose what Obama is doing. Oh sure, top Republicans are good ‘n’ mad that Obama went around them with that Executive Order, but many of them have already pledged themselves to “comprehensive immigration reform.” In other words, they’re mad at Obama over procedure, not substance. And yet it’s the substance that matters most. It’s the substance that determines the fate of the nation. Let’s return to that blunt Politico headline: “Democrats bet on diversity.” And let’s say it: Democrats envision a different America; they look forward to what they call a “ Coalition of the Ascendant .” And of course, if one group is rising, then another must be falling–and so we come back to Edward Gibbon. Gibbon begins his Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire with a look at the ruins of the Roman Forum–once the vital hub of the Republic, then of the Empire.

But many centuries later, he recorded, the Forum had disappeared as an urban center; the once-important public space was now just ruins, overgrown with petty farming and overrun by farm animals: “The forum of the Roman people, where they assembled to enact their laws and elect their magistrates, is now enclosed for the cultivation of pot-herbs, or thrown open for the reception of swine and buffaloes. The public and private edifices, that were founded for eternity, lie prostrate, naked, and broken, like the limbs of a mighty giant; and the ruin is the more visible, from the stupendous relics that have survived the injuries of time and fortune.” But Gibbon was much more than just a poetic tour-guide; he offered his readers a general theory of historical decline. He began his narrative in the second century AD, when the Roman Empire was at its peak, and then he chronicled the failures of feckless elites, the consequences of demoralized faith, and the disasters of military incompetence. And as we shall see, there was a further problem as well–the danger of outright treachery. So what went wrong? Why did Rome fall?

One problem, as Gibbon makes clear, was the emergence of a welfarist “bread and circuses” policy for the city of Rome. The Empire had been so rich for so long that Rome itself had become a magnet for those looking for a soft life. From around the Empire, people made their way to the capital city. And so what to do with them when they got there? Inside the city, the governing elites found it easiest to simply buy off the motley population with free food, and to keep them entertained with free shows.

As Gibbon puts it, Rome’s rulers aimed to “relieve the poverty and to amuse the idleness of an innumerable people.” He explains: “For the convenience of the lazy plebeians, the monthly distributions of corn were converted into a daily allowance of bread; a great number of ovens were constructed and maintained at the public expense.” Moreover, to further pacify the population, the authorities arranged free shows for the public: “The Roman people still considered the Circus as their home, their temple.” As a result, “From the morning to the evening, careless of the sun or of the rain, the spectators, who sometimes amounted to the number of four hundred thousand, remained in eager attention; their eyes fixed on the horses and charioteers, their minds agitated with hope and fear for the success of the colours which they espoused; and the happiness of Rome appeared to hang on the event of a race.” If this bread-and-circuses policy doesn’t seem like a policy built to last–you’re right. It wasn’t. The Empire’s Roman core had been hollowed out, and by the Fifth Century, barbarians had overrun much of the realm.

In 410 AD, the Goths besieged the city of Rome itself. As Gibbon explains, the Roman authorities were preparing a defense, but– and this is crucial –“they were unable to guard against the secret conspiracy of their slaves and domestics, who either from birth or interest were attached to the cause of the enemy.” And so, as Gibbon records, at midnight, disloyal Romans silently opened one of the city’s gates. Thereupon, most Romans “were awakened by the tremendous sound of the Gothic trumpet,” as the enemy rushed in. The result: “Eleven hundred and sixty-three years after the foundation of Rome, the Imperial city, which had subdued and civilised so considerable a part of mankind, was delivered to the licentious fury of the tribes of Germany and Scythia.” Yes, of course, the sacking of the city was brutal and bloody.

For a while, the conquerors made some attempt to limit the damage, but one thing led to another: In the pillage of Rome a just preference was given to gold and jewels, which contain the greatest value in the smallest compass and weight, but, after these portable riches had been removed by the more diligent robbers, the palaces of Rome were rudely stripped of their splendid and costly furniture… The most exquisite works of art were roughly handled or wantonly destroyed: many a statue was melted for the sake of the precious materials and many a vase, in the division of the spoil, was shivered into fragments by the stroke of a battleaxe. The acquisition of riches served only to stimulate the avarice of the rapacious barbarians, who proceeded by threats, by blows, and by tortures, to force from their prisoners the confession of hidden treasure. And so, in the end, the Goths’ conquest of Rome meant “promiscuous massacre to the feeble, the innocent, and the helpless.” And while Rome had been weakening for many years, the decisive blow that lead to the fall of the city in 410 was betrayal from within.

We’ve been warned: Yes, the nature of the population–loyal or not–matters a great deal. That’s one of the lessons that Edward Gibbon teaches us. And the Founders, those apt students of history, would most definitely agree. Next: The Grim Message of The Camp of the Saints Read More Stories About:

Question: Edward Gibbon was famed for which great historical work?
Answer: The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire