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The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire by Edward Gibbon, David P. Womersley (Abridged by), David P. Womersley
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January 7, 2025
This is a Penguin abridgement from a few decades ago, condensing the narrative into 1000 pages or so but while keeping twenty or so entire chapters, with bridging chapters of short quotes and summaries between these. I can't vouch for how accurate it all is as a summary and at one point, the entire Crusades are leapt over in a few sentences and Charlemagne barely appears - but the complete chapters are really lots of fun, with that great, beefy, vigorous 18th century prose, and an unusual and good combination of nuanced writing and strong assertion, especially on let's say 'complex' figures like Julian the Apostate, Justinian and 'Mahomet'. *Might* try and read the whole thing after this. One day.
August 24, 2026
Wow. One of those "have to tackle it at some point" type of books, and glad I did. Remarkable that Gibbon took 20 years of his life to write it, and also that he wrote while an MP and during the American Revolution (and the intro acknowledges his debt to Hume and Adam Smith).
I was not surprised by the scope, but I was by the witticisms and wry take on human nature. My favorite sections were near the end when he frames up rise of the Protestant Revolution as based in early dissenting Christianity.
As part of the introduction the view of Gibbons toward empire - "There is nothing perhaps more adverse to nature and reason than to hold in obedience remote countries and foreign nations, in opposition to their inclination and interest.."
"The various tribes of Britons possessed valour without conduct, and the love of freedom without the spirit of union. They took up arms with savage fierceness; they laid them down, or turned them against each other with wild inconstancy; and while they fought singly, they were successively subdued."
"Trajan was ambitious of fame; and as long as mankind shall continue to bestow more liberal applause on their destroyers than on their benefactors, the thirst of military glory will ever be the vice of the most exalted characters."
"The terror of the Roman arms added weight and dignity to the moderation of the emperors. They preserved peace by a constant preparation for war; and while justice regulated their conduct, they announced to the nations on their confines, that they were as little disposed to endure, as to offer an injury."
"In the midst of peace, the Roman troops familiarized themselves with the practice of war; and it is prettily remarked by an ancient historian who had fought against them, that the effusion of blood was the only circumstance which distinguished a field of battle from a field of exercise."
Pre-Christianity - "The various modes of worship, which prevailed in the Roman world, were all considered by the people, as equally true; by the philosopher, as equally false; and by the magistrate, as equally useful. And thus toleration produced not only mutual indulgence, but even religious concord."
Why did Rome conquer where Athens and Sparta failed - "The narrow policy of preserving, without any foreign mixture, the pure blood of the ancient citizens, had checked the fortune, and hastened the ruin, of Athens and Sparta."
Key theme of Gibbons - "The influence of the clergy, in an age of superstition, might be usefully employed to assert the rights of mankind; but so intimate is the connexion between the throne and the altar, that the banner of the church has very seldom been seen on the side of the people. A martial nobility and stubborn commons, possessed of arms, tenacious of property, and collected into constitutional assemblies, form the only balance capable of preserving a free constitution against the enterprises of an aspiring prince."
"A theologian may indulge the pleasing task of describing Religion as she descended from Heaven, arrayed in her native purity. A more melancholy duty is imposed on 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."
Why did Christianity spread and not Judaism - Gibbon ascribes it to the failure of the Jews to allow inter-marriage or other alliances with the Gentiles, and to not take in converts easily - "Under these circumstances, Christianity offered itself to the world, armed with the strength of the Mosaic law, and delivered from the weight of its fetters."
"We are sufficiently acquainted with the eminent persons who flourished in the age of Cicero, and of the first Caesars, with their actions, their characters, and their motives, to be assured that their conduct in this life was never regulated by any serious conviction of the rewards or punishments of a future state."
"The acquisition of knowledge, the exercise of our reason or fancy, and the cheerful flow of unguarded conversation, may employ the leisure of a liberal mind. Such amusements, however, were rejected with abhorrence, or admitted with the utmost caution, by the severity of the fathers, who despised all knowledge that was not useful to salvation, and who considered all levity of discourse as a criminal abuse of the gift of speech."
"The most favorable calculation, however, that can be deduced from the examples of Antioch and of Rome, will not permit us to imagine that more than a twentieth part of the subjects of the Empire had enlisted themselves under the banner of the cross before the important conversion of Constantinople."
Gibbon's hero is the Emperor Julian - "The luxury of the palace excited the contempt and indignation of Julian, who usually slept on the ground, who yielded with reluctance to the indispensable calls of nature; and who place his vanity, not in emulating, but in despising, the pomp of royalty."
"Julian surprised the world with an edict, which was not unworthy of a statesman, or a philosopher. He extended to all the inhabitants of the Roman world, the benefits of a free and equal toleration; and the only hardship which he inflicted on the Christians, was to deprive them of the power of tormenting their fellow-subjects, whom they stigmatised with the odious titles of idolaters and heretics."
Julian - "I am slow to condemn, but I am slower still to forgive."
Julian deciding to march to Persia: "In the season of life, when the powers of the mind and body enjoy the most active vigour, the emperor, who was instructed by experience, and animated by the success, of the German war, resolved to signalize his reign by some more splendid and memorable achievement."
Julian - "For myself, the only inheritance that I have received from my royal ancestors, is a soul incapable of fear."
"Julian might expect, that a conqueror, who possessed the two forcible instruments of persuasion, steel and gold, would easily procure a plentiful subsistence from the fears or avarice of the natives."
I was not surprised by the scope, but I was by the witticisms and wry take on human nature. My favorite sections were near the end when he frames up rise of the Protestant Revolution as based in early dissenting Christianity.
As part of the introduction the view of Gibbons toward empire - "There is nothing perhaps more adverse to nature and reason than to hold in obedience remote countries and foreign nations, in opposition to their inclination and interest.."
"The various tribes of Britons possessed valour without conduct, and the love of freedom without the spirit of union. They took up arms with savage fierceness; they laid them down, or turned them against each other with wild inconstancy; and while they fought singly, they were successively subdued."
"Trajan was ambitious of fame; and as long as mankind shall continue to bestow more liberal applause on their destroyers than on their benefactors, the thirst of military glory will ever be the vice of the most exalted characters."
"The terror of the Roman arms added weight and dignity to the moderation of the emperors. They preserved peace by a constant preparation for war; and while justice regulated their conduct, they announced to the nations on their confines, that they were as little disposed to endure, as to offer an injury."
"In the midst of peace, the Roman troops familiarized themselves with the practice of war; and it is prettily remarked by an ancient historian who had fought against them, that the effusion of blood was the only circumstance which distinguished a field of battle from a field of exercise."
Pre-Christianity - "The various modes of worship, which prevailed in the Roman world, were all considered by the people, as equally true; by the philosopher, as equally false; and by the magistrate, as equally useful. And thus toleration produced not only mutual indulgence, but even religious concord."
Why did Rome conquer where Athens and Sparta failed - "The narrow policy of preserving, without any foreign mixture, the pure blood of the ancient citizens, had checked the fortune, and hastened the ruin, of Athens and Sparta."
Key theme of Gibbons - "The influence of the clergy, in an age of superstition, might be usefully employed to assert the rights of mankind; but so intimate is the connexion between the throne and the altar, that the banner of the church has very seldom been seen on the side of the people. A martial nobility and stubborn commons, possessed of arms, tenacious of property, and collected into constitutional assemblies, form the only balance capable of preserving a free constitution against the enterprises of an aspiring prince."
"A theologian may indulge the pleasing task of describing Religion as she descended from Heaven, arrayed in her native purity. A more melancholy duty is imposed on 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."
Why did Christianity spread and not Judaism - Gibbon ascribes it to the failure of the Jews to allow inter-marriage or other alliances with the Gentiles, and to not take in converts easily - "Under these circumstances, Christianity offered itself to the world, armed with the strength of the Mosaic law, and delivered from the weight of its fetters."
"We are sufficiently acquainted with the eminent persons who flourished in the age of Cicero, and of the first Caesars, with their actions, their characters, and their motives, to be assured that their conduct in this life was never regulated by any serious conviction of the rewards or punishments of a future state."
"The acquisition of knowledge, the exercise of our reason or fancy, and the cheerful flow of unguarded conversation, may employ the leisure of a liberal mind. Such amusements, however, were rejected with abhorrence, or admitted with the utmost caution, by the severity of the fathers, who despised all knowledge that was not useful to salvation, and who considered all levity of discourse as a criminal abuse of the gift of speech."
"The most favorable calculation, however, that can be deduced from the examples of Antioch and of Rome, will not permit us to imagine that more than a twentieth part of the subjects of the Empire had enlisted themselves under the banner of the cross before the important conversion of Constantinople."
Gibbon's hero is the Emperor Julian - "The luxury of the palace excited the contempt and indignation of Julian, who usually slept on the ground, who yielded with reluctance to the indispensable calls of nature; and who place his vanity, not in emulating, but in despising, the pomp of royalty."
"Julian surprised the world with an edict, which was not unworthy of a statesman, or a philosopher. He extended to all the inhabitants of the Roman world, the benefits of a free and equal toleration; and the only hardship which he inflicted on the Christians, was to deprive them of the power of tormenting their fellow-subjects, whom they stigmatised with the odious titles of idolaters and heretics."
Julian - "I am slow to condemn, but I am slower still to forgive."
Julian deciding to march to Persia: "In the season of life, when the powers of the mind and body enjoy the most active vigour, the emperor, who was instructed by experience, and animated by the success, of the German war, resolved to signalize his reign by some more splendid and memorable achievement."
Julian - "For myself, the only inheritance that I have received from my royal ancestors, is a soul incapable of fear."
"Julian might expect, that a conqueror, who possessed the two forcible instruments of persuasion, steel and gold, would easily procure a plentiful subsistence from the fears or avarice of the natives."
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews