Volumes V and VI include probably the most interesting period for my taste, while also including the worst individual chapter and even more unnecessary Byzantine-bashing (Constantinople's "decline is almost coeval with her foundation") and even clearer bias on Gibbon's side. It's fascinating to read someone so blithely unaware of the inconsistencies in his own beliefs, and so happily accepting of the superiority of his own class. You know who should control everything, Gibbon asks? The most wealthy merchants and the nobility. Why? Because that's freedom and liberty. But don't let others have freedom and liberty, that way lies anarchy. This is based on a rigorous classicism, which imagines that "the old patricians were the subjects, the modern barons the tyrants, of the state." Yes. In Ancient Greece, the massively wealthy just hung out talking about Homer all day. Ignore the slaves being used as footstools while they read.

On the other hand, the sheer volume of things he knows makes it much harder for him to keep up his own bigotries for long, and he concludes there there were many causes for end of Rome in both West and East--not just one. He's clearly made uncomfortable by the knowledge that what we have of Ancient Rome in the West was saved by the Papacy, but gives Sixtus V his due. Womersley argues in the introduction that Gibbon's movement away from philosophical history was complete by the end of the History, but that's a bit extreme.* There's plenty of hatred for everyone who isn't a rich, British, post-Anglican rationalist.

And there are still plenty of great fantasy-novel stories in this volume; I expect a dissertation soon, "Fall of Thrones: Gibbon's influence on George R. R. Martin". And many perfect turns of phrase: "Hitherto the weight of supernatural belief inclines against the Protestants; and many a sober Christian would rather admit that a wafer is God, than that God is a cruel and capricious tyrant." Not sure the doctrine of predestination is coming back from that. "The battles won by lessons of tactics may be numbered with the epic poems created from the rules of criticism." Hah. On gunpowder: "If we contrast the rapid progress of this mischievous discovery with the slow and laborious advances of reason, science and the arts of peace, a philosopher, according to his temper, will laugh or weep at the folly of mankind."

It makes me slightly uncomfortable that it took me so long to put my finger on the great flaw in Gibbon's prose, but I finally did: his rhythms and cadences don't alter according to the importance of the information being presented. Whether he's describing one of the most important points in his argument, or just throwing away a line about a fifth-rate Byzantine princeling, his words *sound* the same. In this, at least, we've gone one better than Gibbon. But, as he says, "Genius may anticipate the season of maturity; but in the education of a people, as in that of an individual, memory must be exercised, before the powers of reason and fancy can be expanded; nor may the artist hope to equal or surpass, till he has learned to imitate, the works of his predecessors." Gibbon helps us to to exercise memory, his work is an example of the powers of reason, and he is certainly an artist worthy of imitation, as well as worth surpassing.




*: The best part of Womersley's excellent introduction is his quote from Johnson's 'Journey to the Western Islands': "whatever withdraws us from the power of our senses; whatever makes the past, the distant, or the future predominate over the present, advances us in the dignity of thinking beings." Most certainly this applies to Gibbon's History. ( )

Chapter XLVIII: Plan of last two volumes, and later Byzantine emperors
Chapter XLIX: Iconoclasm, Charlemagne and the Holy Roman Empire
Chapter L: Mahomet
Chapter LI: the successors of Mahomet
Chapter LII: The limits of the early caliphate
Chapter LIII: The Byzantine Empire in the Tenth Century
Chapter LIV: The Paulicians and the Reformation
Chapter LV: The Bulgarians, the Hungarians and the Russians
Chapter LVI: Italy and the Normans
Chapter LVII: The Turks

Chapter LVIII: The First Crusade
Chapter LIX: The Later Crusades
Chapter LX: The Fourth Crusade
Chapter LXI: The Latin Empire, the Crusades and the Courtenays
Chapter LXII: the East in the later thirteenth century
Chapter LXIII: The East in the early 14th century
Chapter LXIV: Genghis Khan, and the return of the Turks
Chapter LXV: Tamerlane / Timour, and the Turks again
Chapter LXVI: The Eastern Empire and the Popes
Chapter LXVII: The Beginning of the End
Chapter LXVIII: The Fall of Constantinople
Chapter LXIX: Rome, 1100-1300
Chapter LXX: Rome, 1300-1590
Chapter LXXI: The End

Vindication ( )

Gibbon's third volume of The Decline and Fall seems to stray from the purpose stated in volume one. I think he just got carried away by the sweep of history. The melodious style and easy learning are still present but I was suffering from Gibbon fatigue by the third volume and we were off course. ( )