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A review by naiapard
The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire by Hans-Friedrich Mueller, Daniel J. Boorstin, Edward Gibbon, Giovanni Battista Piranesi
4.0
"In the second century of the Christian Era, the empire of Rome comprehended the fairest part of the earth and the most civilized portion of mankind."
I have to start by saying that my first intention towards this book was not to learn about the Roman Empire (for that, I have [b:SPQR: A History of Ancient Rome|28789711|SPQR A History of Ancient Rome|Mary Beard|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1470421195l/28789711._SY75_.jpg|44684882] by [a:Mary Beard|97783|Mary Beard|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1530842450p2/97783.jpg]), but to see what a man of the 18th C would want to see in the past of his ancestors.
After having read Adam Smith`s [b:The Wealth of Nations, Books 1-3|115596|The Wealth of Nations, Books 1-3|Adam Smith|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1429470663l/115596._SY75_.jpg|19056941], a thought kept bugging me: I could not get over the way Smith described the things around him, his immediate surroundings and the affairs of the world. I mean, when he was writing his book there was no “United States of America”, yet, he named that part of the world as the Colonies –because USA hadn`t yet gained its independence. Not to even mention the fact that slavery was in its bloom and it did inadvertently influence his view over the way a economical system could be shaped and annexed in that society, of his time.
So, I picked Gibbon because I wanted to go deeper into the mind of a 18th C British guy.
(Yes, I am picking some peculiar ways to fill my spare time)
He wrote this book in the course of twenty years and it shows. There are plenty passages in which he simply derails from his main points and goes on into stories as if he is experiencing a fever dream on the page.
Regardless, it was still a quaint and pleasant (-ish) read.
From the entire book I think that three main thinks stuck with me:
I. One
of the first traits that I picked up was the continuing glorification of the Roman Empire. The way Gibbon stops to praise its merits at any given moment, makes one wonder where does the metaphorical reading stops and where does the literary one starts.
For example:
“The Roman name was revered among the most remote nations of the earth.” (p.8) Yeah, sure, I bet the Native Americans had a lot to say about it, at that time.
But, after stripping that glamorous language off the marrow of this text one remains with other questionable images.
II. For example, the way in which Gibbon chooses to word the slavery part in the Roman Empire. I know from Beard`s [b:SPQR: A History of Ancient Rome|28789711|SPQR A History of Ancient Rome|Mary Beard|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1470421195l/28789711._SY75_.jpg|44684882] that in those times one could buy himself out of slavery (if one had been bound to it in order to repay debt). However, Gibbon paints the imagery of slavery as a customary almost habituary state of affairs in the human society that has been presented FOREVER, especially in the times of “these glorious” Romans.
He touches this subject briefly, almost never by wants of explaining it, or trying to find some causes or consequences. The comparison between the Roman slavery and the one that was taking place in the American colonies, in his time, was never brought fourth, but its presence was blazing under the lines of his rhetoric in which it was more than obviously that he saw one and the other as one and the same.
This is a really long book.
I did not read it quick.
It took me months to arrive to the last parts.
III. In Gibbon`s vision the decline of the Empire was somehow owed to the christianization of the population, but he does not make it sounds as if that was something bad, more like an unavoidable fate. It is paradoxically, in a way. He praises this empire but at the same time when it comes to him making a choice between the empire and the Christendom he chooses the latter with absolute determination.
Overall, this is a particular read. It is not what someone picks casually to read on a late summer evening.
But, here are some quotes that can make this book look cooler:
“The ascent to greatness, however steep and dangerous, may entertain an active spirit with the consciousness and exercise of its own powers: but the possession of a throne could never yet afford a lasting satisfaction to an ambitious mind.”(p.110)
Or
“The progress of the ecclesiastical authority gave birth to the memorable distinction of the laity and of the clergy, which had been unknown to the Greeks and Romans.”(p.274)
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I have to start by saying that my first intention towards this book was not to learn about the Roman Empire (for that, I have [b:SPQR: A History of Ancient Rome|28789711|SPQR A History of Ancient Rome|Mary Beard|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1470421195l/28789711._SY75_.jpg|44684882] by [a:Mary Beard|97783|Mary Beard|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1530842450p2/97783.jpg]), but to see what a man of the 18th C would want to see in the past of his ancestors.
After having read Adam Smith`s [b:The Wealth of Nations, Books 1-3|115596|The Wealth of Nations, Books 1-3|Adam Smith|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1429470663l/115596._SY75_.jpg|19056941], a thought kept bugging me: I could not get over the way Smith described the things around him, his immediate surroundings and the affairs of the world. I mean, when he was writing his book there was no “United States of America”, yet, he named that part of the world as the Colonies –because USA hadn`t yet gained its independence. Not to even mention the fact that slavery was in its bloom and it did inadvertently influence his view over the way a economical system could be shaped and annexed in that society, of his time.
So, I picked Gibbon because I wanted to go deeper into the mind of a 18th C British guy.
(Yes, I am picking some peculiar ways to fill my spare time)
He wrote this book in the course of twenty years and it shows. There are plenty passages in which he simply derails from his main points and goes on into stories as if he is experiencing a fever dream on the page.
Regardless, it was still a quaint and pleasant (-ish) read.
From the entire book I think that three main thinks stuck with me:
I. One
of the first traits that I picked up was the continuing glorification of the Roman Empire. The way Gibbon stops to praise its merits at any given moment, makes one wonder where does the metaphorical reading stops and where does the literary one starts.
For example:
But, after stripping that glamorous language off the marrow of this text one remains with other questionable images.
II. For example, the way in which Gibbon chooses to word the slavery part in the Roman Empire. I know from Beard`s [b:SPQR: A History of Ancient Rome|28789711|SPQR A History of Ancient Rome|Mary Beard|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1470421195l/28789711._SY75_.jpg|44684882] that in those times one could buy himself out of slavery (if one had been bound to it in order to repay debt). However, Gibbon paints the imagery of slavery as a customary almost habituary state of affairs in the human society that has been presented FOREVER, especially in the times of “these glorious” Romans.
He touches this subject briefly, almost never by wants of explaining it, or trying to find some causes or consequences. The comparison between the Roman slavery and the one that was taking place in the American colonies, in his time, was never brought fourth, but its presence was blazing under the lines of his rhetoric in which it was more than obviously that he saw one and the other as one and the same.
This is a really long book.
I did not read it quick.
It took me months to arrive to the last parts.
III. In Gibbon`s vision the decline of the Empire was somehow owed to the christianization of the population, but he does not make it sounds as if that was something bad, more like an unavoidable fate. It is paradoxically, in a way. He praises this empire but at the same time when it comes to him making a choice between the empire and the Christendom he chooses the latter with absolute determination.
Overall, this is a particular read. It is not what someone picks casually to read on a late summer evening.
But, here are some quotes that can make this book look cooler:
Or
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