The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire

The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire (Vol. 1, 1776; Vols. II-III, 1781; Vols. IV-VI, 1788) by Edward Gibbon. One of the most famous historical works written in any language and covering over 1000 years of history, from the end of the Antonine dynasty to the fall of Constantinople.

Volume I

• 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.
  • Chapter I

• 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.
  • Chapter I

• Yet Phoenicia and Palestine will forever live in the memory of mankind; since America, as well as Europe, has received letters from the one, and religion from the other.
  • Chapter I

• That public virtue which among the ancients was denominated patriotism, is derived from a strong sense of our own interest in the preservation and prosperity of the free government of which we are members. Such a sentiment, which had rendered the legions of the republic almost invincible, could make but a very feeble impression on the mercenary servants of a despotic prince; and it became necessary to supply that defect by other motives, of a different, but not less forcible nature; honour and religion.
  • Chapter I

• The masters of the fairest and most wealthy climates of the globe turned with contempt from gloomy hills, assailed by the winter tempest, from lakes concealed in a blue mist, and from cold and lonely heaths, over which the deer of the forest were chased by a troop of naked barbarians.
  • Chapter I

• 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.
  • Chapter II

• But the zeal of fanaticism prevailed over the cold and feeble efforts of policy.
  • Chapter II

• We may be well assured, that a writer, conversant with the world, would never have ventured to expose the gods of his country to public ridicule, had they not already been the objects of secret contempt among the polished and enlightened orders of society.
  • Chapter II

• Under a democratical government, the citizens exercise the powers of sovereignty; and those powers will be first abused, and afterwards lost, if they are committed to an unwieldy multitude. From the foot of the Alps to the extremity of Calabria, all the natives of Italy were born citizens of Rome. Their partial distinctions were obliterated, and they insensibly coalesced into one great nation, united by language, manners, and civil institutions, and equal to the weight of a powerful empire. The republic gloried in her generous policy, and was frequently rewarded by the merit and services of her adopted sons. Had she always confined the distinction of Romans to the ancient families within the walls of the city, that immortal name would have been deprived of some of its noblest ornaments.
  • Chapter II

• Opinions of the Academics and Epicureans were of a less religious cast; but whilst the modest science of the former induced them to doubt, the positive ignorance of the latter urged them to deny, the providence of a Supreme Ruler.
  • Chapter II

• In Etruria, in Greece, and in Gaul, it was the first care of the senate to dissolve those dangerous confederacies, which taught mankind that, as the Roman arms prevailed by division, they might be resisted by union. Those princes, whom the ostentation of gratitude or generosity permitted for a while to hold a precarious sceptre, were dismissed from their thrones, as soon as they had performed their appointed task of fashioning to the yoke the vanquished nations.
  • Chapter II

• The situation of the Greeks was very different from that of the barbarians. The former had been long since civilized and corrupted. They had too much taste to relinquish their language, and too much vanity to adopt any foreign institutions. Still preserving the prejudices, after they had lost the virtues, of their ancestors, they affected to despise the unpolished manners of the Roman conquerors, whilst they were compelled to respect their superior wisdom and power.
  • Chapter II

• Without destroying the distinction of ranks, a distant prospect of freedom and honors was presented, even to those whom pride and prejudice almost disdained to number among the human species.
  • Chapter II

• 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 connection between the throne and the altar, that the banner of the church has very seldom been seen on the side of the people.
  • Chapter III

• The two Antonines (for it is of them that we are now speaking) governed the Roman world forty-two years, with the same invariable spirit of wisdom and virtue. ... Their united reigns are possibly the only period of history in which the happiness of a great people was the sole object of government.

• Antoninus diffused order and tranquillity over the greatest part of the earth. His reign is marked by the rare advantage of furnishing very few materials for history; which is, indeed, little more than the register of the crimes, follies, and misfortunes of mankind.
  • Chapter III This has often been truncated to : History...is indeed little more than the register of the crimes, follies, and misfortunes of mankind.

• The principles of a free constitution are irrevocably lost, when the legislative power is nominated by the executive.
  • Chapter III

• But the power of instruction is seldom of much efficacy, except in those happy dispositions where it is almost superfluous.
  • Chapter IV, part I
  • In describing how Marcus Aurelius summoned men of virtue and learning to attempt to broaden the mind of his son Commodus.

• The most worthless of mankind are not afraid to condemn in others the same disorders which they allow in themselves; and can readily discover some nice difference of age, character, or station, to justify the partial distinction.
  • Chapter VI

• In every age and country, the wiser, or at least the stronger, of the two sexes, has usurped the powers of the state, and confined the other to the cares and pleasures of domestic life.
  • Chapter VI

• Metellus Numidicus, the censor, acknowledged to the Roman people in a public oration that had kind Nature allowed us to exist without the help of women, we should be delivered from a very troublesome companion; and he could recommend matrimony, only as the sacrifice of private pleasure to public duty.
  • Chapter VI, part III, footnote 64

• Augustus was sensible that mankind is governed by names; nor was he deceived in his expectation, that the senate and people would submit to slavery, provided they were respectfully assured that they still enjoyed their ancient freedom.
  • Chapter VII

• Twenty-two acknowledged concubines, and a library of sixty-two thousand volumes, attested the variety of his inclinations; and from the productions which he left behind him, it appears that the former as well as the latter were designed for use rather than for ostentation.
  • Chapter VII

• Although the progress of civilisation has undoubtedly contributed to assuage the fiercer passions of human nature, it seems to have been less favourable to the virtue of chastity, whose most dangerous enemy is the softness of the mind. The refinements of life corrupt while they polish the intercourse of the sexes.
  • Chapter IX, part III

• Rational confidence ... is the just result of knowledge and experience.
  • Chapter X, part III

• The voice of history .. is often little more than the organ of hatred or flattery.
  • Chapter X, part IV

• "You have lost," said Saturninus on the day of his elevation, "a useful commander, and you have made a very wretched emperor."
  • Chapter X, part IV

• Fear has been the original parent of superstition and every new calamity urges trembling mortals to deprecate the wrath of their invisible enemies.
  • Chapter XI, part II

• Such was the unhappy condition of the Roman emperors, that, whatever might be their conduct, their fate was commonly the same. A life of pleasure or virtue, of severity or mildness, of indolence or glory, alike led to an untimely grave; and almost every reign is closed by the same disgusting repetition of treason and murder.
  • Chapter XII, part I

• "Alas!" he [Saturninus] said, "the republic has lost a useful servant, and the rashness of an hour has destroyed the services of many years. You know not," continued he, "the misery of sovereign power: a sword is perpetually suspended over our head. We dread our very guards, we distrust our companions. The choice of action or of repose is no longer in our disposition, nor is there any age, or character, or conduct, that can protect us from the censure of envy. In thus exalting me to the throne, you have doomed me to a life of cares, and to an untimely fate.
  • Chapter XII, part II

• But whenever the offence inspires less horror than the punishment, the rigour of penal law is obliged to give way to the common feelings of mankind.
  • Chapter XIV, part IV

• It was no longer esteemed infamous for a Roman to survive his honour and independence.
  • Chapter XIV, part IV

• The desire of perfection became the ruling passion of their soul; and it is well known that, while reason embraces a cold mediocrity, our passions hurry us with rapid violence over the space which lies between the most opposite extremes.
  • Chapter XV, part V

• But the human character, however it may be exalted or depressed by a temporary enthusiasm, will return by degrees to its proper and natural level, and will resume those passions that seem the most adapted to its present condition.
  • Chapter XV, part VI

• "Unhappy men!" exclaimed the proconsul Antoninus to the Christians of Asia, "If you are thus weary of your lives, is it so difficult for you to find ropes and precipices?"
  • Chapter XVI, part IV
  • Zealous Christians apparently provoked the authorities in order to become martyrs

Volume II

• In the various states of society, armies are recruited from very different motives. Barbarians are urged by the love of war; the citizens of a free republic may be prompted by a principle of duty; the subjects, or at least the nobles, of a monarchy, are animated by a sentiment of honor; but the timid and luxurious inhabitants of a declining empire must be allured into the service by the hopes of profit, or compelled by the dread of punishment.
  • Chapter XVII

• The progress of despotism ... tends to disappoint its own purpose.
  • Chapter XVII, part IV

• The general peace which [Constantine] maintained during the last fourteen years of his reign, was a period of apparent splendour rather than of real prosperity; and the old age of Constantine was disgraced by the opposite yet reconcilable vices of rapaciousness and prodigality.
  • Chapter XVIII

• But the operation of the wisest laws is imperfect and precarious. They seldom inspire virtue, they cannot always restrain vice.
  • Chapter XX, part I

• Corruption, the most infallible symptom of constitutional liberty.
  • Chapter XXI

• Whenever the spirit of fanaticism, at once so credulous and so crafty, has insinuated itself into a noble mind, it insensibly corrodes the vital principles of virtue and veracity.
  • Chapter XXII, part I

• It is the common calamity of old age to lose whatever might have rendered it desirable.
  • Chapter XXIV, part I

• I die without remorse, as I have lived without guilt.
  • Julian the Apostate
  • Chapter XXIV, part IV

• Flattery is a foolish suicide; she destroys herself with her own hands.
  • Chapter XXV, part I, footnote 1

• the inquisition into the crime of magic, which, under the reign of the two brothers, was so rigorously prosecuted both at Rome and Antioch, was interpreted as the fatal symptom, either of the displeasure of Heaven, or the depravity of mankind. Let us not hesitate to indulge a liberal pride, that, in the present age, the enlightened part of Europe has abolished a cruel and odious prejudice, which reigned in every climate of the globe, and adhered to every system of religious opinion. The nations, the sects, of the roman world, admitted with equal credulity, and similar abhorrence, the reality of that infernal art, which was able to control the eternal order of the planets, and the voluntary operations of the human mind. They dreaded the mysterious power of spells and incantations, of potent herbs, and execrable rites; which could extinguish or recall life, inflame the passions of the soul, blast the works of creation, and extort from the reluctant demons the secrets of futurity. They believed, with the wildest inconsistency, that this preternatural dominion of the air, of earth, and of hell, was exercised, from the vilest motives of malice or gain, by some wrinkled hags and itinerate sorcerers, who passed their lives in penury and contempt. The arts of magic were equally condemned by the public opinion, and by the laws of Rome; but as they tended to gratify the most imperious passions of the heart of man, they were continually proscribed, and continually practiced.
  • Chapter XXV

• But the wisdom and authority of the legislator are seldom victorious in a contest with the vigilant dexterity of private interest.
  • Chapter XXV, part III

• A philosopher may deplore the eternal discord of the human race, but he will confess that the desire of spoil is a more rational provocation than the vanity of conquest.
  • Chapter XXV, part V

• He was released from the miseries of life.
  • Chapter XXV, part VI

• Ammianus is so eloquent that he writes nonsense.
  • Chapter XXV, part VII, footnote 154

• The progress of manufactures and commerce insensibly collects a large multitude within the walls of a city; but these citizens are no longer soldiers, and the arts which adorn and improve the state of civil society corrupt the habits of the military life.
  • Chapter XXVI, part I

• Man has much more to fear from the passions of his fellow-creatures than from the convulsions of the elements.
  • Chapter XXVI, part I

• Resistance was fatal; flight was impracticable; and the patient submission of helpless innocence seldom found mercy from the barbarian conqueror.
  • Chapter XXVI, part III

• Feeble and timid minds ... consider the use of the dilatory and ambiguous measures as the most admirable efforts of consummate prudence.
  • Chapter XXVI, part III

• I reverence the field of battle, stained with their blood and the blood of the barbarians. Those honourable marks have been already washed away by the rains; but the lofty monuments of their bones, the bones of generals, of centurions, and of valiant warriors, claim a longer period of duration.
  • Libanius
  • Chapter XXVI, part IV

• The urgent consideration of the public safety may undoubtedly authorise the violation of every positive law. How far that or any other consideration may operate to dissolve the natural obligations of humanity and justice, is a doctrine of which I still desire to remain ignorant.
  • Chapter XXVI, part V

Volume III

• His profound veneration for the Christian clergy was rewarded by the applause and gratitude of a powerful order, which has claimed in every age the privilege of dispensing honours, both on earth and in heaven.
  • Chapter XXVII, part I

• Yet every physician is prone to exaggerate the inveterate nature of the disease which he has cured.
  • Chapter XXVII, part II, footnote 26.
  • In this case remarking on the works of Gregory Nazianzen.

• If the exercise of justice is the most important duty, the indulgence of mercy is the most exquisite pleasure of a sovereign.
  • Theodosius
  • Chapter XXVII, part IV

• The son of Theodosius passed the slumber of his life, a captive in his palace, a stranger in his country, and the patient, almost the indifferent, spectator of the ruin of the Western empire, which was repeatedly attacked, and finally subverted, by the arms of the Barbarians. In the eventful history of a reign of twenty-eight years, it will seldom be necessary to mention the name of the emperor Honorius.
  • Chapter XXIX

• In populous cities, which are the seat of commerce and manufactures, the middle ranks of inhabitants, who derive their subsistence from the dexterity or labour of their hands, are commonly the most prolific, the most useful, and; in that sense, the most respectable part of the community.
  • Chapter XXXI, part II

• There exists in human nature a strong propensity to depreciate the advantages, and to magnify the evils, of the present times.
  • Chapter XXXI, part IV
  • In this case recent injuries to Rome from the Goths compared to those from the Gauls in former times.
  • Similar "Notwithstanding the propensity of mankind to exalt the past, and to depreciate the present," in volume I, chapter II, part IV.

• The groans of the dying excited only the envy of their surviving friends.
  • Mariana de Rebus Hispanicis
  • Chapter XXXI, part VI

• The inconstant, rebellious disposition of the people [of Armorica], was incompatible either with freedom or servitude.
  • Chapter XXXI, part VI

• But the desire of obtaining the advantages, and of escaping the burthens, of political society, is a perpetual and inexhaustible source of discord.
  • Chapter XXXI, part VI

• A military force was collected in Europe, formidable by their arms and numbers, if the generals had understood the science of command, and their soldiers the duty of obedience.
  • Chapter XXXIV, part I

• In the hands of a popular preacher, an earthquake is an engine of admirable effect.
  • Chapter XXXIV, part I, footnote 22 (it's footnote 21 in other editions)

• For what fortress, what city, in the wide extent of the Roman empire, can hope to exist, secure and impregnable, if it is our pleasure that it should be erased from the earth?
  • Attila the Hun
  • Chapter XXXIV, part II

• It was the opinion of Marcian, that war should be avoided as long as it is possible to preserve a secure and honourable peace; but it was likewise his opinion that peace cannot be honourable or secure, if the sovereign betrays a pusillanimous aversion to war.
  • Chapter XXXV, part I

• The conflict was obstinate; the slaughter was mutual.
  • Chapter XXXV, part I

• Whole generations may be swept away by the madness of kings in the space of a single hour.
  • Chapter XXXV, part II

• I am ignorant, sir, of your motives or provocations; I only know that you have acted like a man who cuts off his right hand with his left.
  • Unnamed Roman
  • Chapter XXXV, part III

• But the emperor of the West, the feeble and dissolute Valentinian, who had reached his thirty-fifth year without attaining the age of reason or courage, abused this apparent security to undermine the foundations of his own throne by the murder of the patrician Aetius.
  • Chapter XXXV, part III

• The Roman government appeared every day less formidable to its enemies, more odious and oppressive to its subjects.
  • Chapter XXXV, part III

• But the day of his inauguration was the last day of his happiness.
  • Chapter XXXVI, part I

• The successor of Avitus [Majorian] presents the welcome discovery of a great and heroic character, such as sometimes arise, in a degenerate age, to vindicate the honour of the human species.
  • Chapter XXXVI, part II

• History has scarcely deigned to notice his [Libius Severus's] birth, his elevation, his character, or his death.
  • Chapter XXXVI, part III

• The emperor was probably born in the province of Galatia, whose inhabitants, the Gallo-Grecians, were supposed to unite the vices of a savage and a corrupted people.
  • Chapter XXXVI, part IV, footnote 103

• The revolution of ages may bring round the same calamities; but ages may revolve without producing a Tacitus to describe them.
  • Chapter XXXVI, part IV, footnote 110

• He [Ennodius] adds weight to the narrative of Procopius, though we may doubt whether the devil actually contrived the siege of Pavia to distress the bishop and his flock.
  • Chapter XXXVI, part V, footnote 119

• The Romans derided his [Marius's] indolence; they soon bewailed his activity.
  • Chapter XXXVI, part V, footnote 130

• Severinus died in Noricum, A.D. 482. Six years afterwards his body, which scattered miracles as it passed, was transported by his disciples into Italy.
  • Chapter XXXVI, part V, footnote 132

• They [the Ascetics] seriously renounced the business, and the pleasures, of the age; abjured the use of wine, of flesh, and of marriage; chastised their body, mortified their affections, and embraced a life of misery, as the price of eternal happiness.
  • Chapter XXXVII, part I

• The stories of Paul, Hilarion, and Malchus, by the same author [St. Jerom], are admirably told; and the only defect of these pleasing compositions is the want of truth and common sense.
  • Chapter XXXVII, part I, footnote 17

• The peace of the Eastern church was invaded by a swarm of fanatics [monks], incapable of fear, or reason, or humanity; and the Imperial troops acknowledged, without shame, that they were much less apprehensive of an encounter with the fiercest barbarians.
  • Chapter XXXVII, part I

• Pleasure and guilt are synonymous terms in the language of the monks, and they had discovered, by experience, that rigid fasts and abstemious diet are the most effectual preservatives against the impure desires of the flesh.
  • Chapter XXXVII, part II

• The monastic studies have tended, for the most part to darken, rather than to dispel, the cloud of superstition.
  • Chapter XXXVII, part II

• I have somewhere heard or read the frank confession of a Benedictine abbot: "My vow of poverty has given me an hundred thousand crowns a year; my vow of obedience has raised me to the rank of a sovereign prince." I forget the consequences of his vow of chastity.
  • Chapter XXXVII, part II, footnote 57

• Recluse fanatics have few ideas or sentiments to communicate.
  • Chapter XXXVII, part II

• Industry must be faint and languid which is not excited by the sense of personal interest.
  • Chapter XXXVII, part II

• Their [the monks'] credulity debased and vitiated the faculties of the mind: they corrupted the evidence of history; and superstition gradually extinguished the hostile light of philosophy and science.
  • Chapter XXXVII, part II

• All the manly virtues were oppressed by the servile and pusillanimous reign of the monks.
  • Chapter XXXVII, part II

• The ferocious Germans [have] so often attempted, and who will always desire, to exchange the solitude of their woods and morasses for the wealth and fertility of Gaul.
  • Tacitus
  • Chapter XXXVIII, part I

• The fortune of nations has often depended on accidents.
  • Chapter XXXVIII, part I

• They [the Gauls] derided the hairy and gigantic savages of the North; their rustic manners, dissonant joy, voracious appetite, and their horrid appearance, equally disgusting to the sight and to the smell.
  • Chapter XXXVIII, part I

• The Gauls were endowed with all the advantages of art and nature, but, as they wanted courage to defend them, they were justly condemned to obey, and even to flatter, the victorious barbarians by whose clemency they held their precarious fortunes and their lives.
  • Chapter XXXVIII, part I

• If you truly profess the Christian religion, why do you not restrain the king of the Franks? He has declared war against me, and forms alliances with my enemies for my destruction. A sanguinary and covetous mind is not the symptom of a sincere conversion: let him show his faith by his works.
  • Gundobald, King of the Bugundians
  • Chapter XXXVIII, part I

• Perhaps it would not be easy, within the same historical space, to find more vice and less virtue. We are continually shocked by the union of savage [Barbarian] and corrupt [Roman] manners.
  • Chapter XXXVIII, part II, footnote 61

• A bloody and complete victory has sometimes yielded no more than the possession of the field; and the loss of ten thousand men has sometimes been sufficient to destroy, in a single day, the work of ages.
  • Chapter XXXVIII, part II

• The love of freedom, so often invigorated and disgraced by private ambition, was reduced among the licentious Franks to the contempt of order and the desire of impunity.
  • Chapter XXXVIII, part IV

• Every age, however destitute of science or virtue, sufficiently abounds with acts of blood and military renown.
  • Chapter XXXVIII, part V

• By the revolution of Britain the limits of science as well as of empire were contracted. The dark cloud which had been cleared by the Phoenician discoveries, and finally dispelled by the arms of Caesar, again settled on the shores of the Atlantic, and a Roman province was again lost among the fabulous islands of the Ocean.
  • Chapter XXXVIII, part V

• But the decline of Rome was the natural and inevitable effect of immoderate greatness. Prosperity ripened the principle of decay; the causes of destruction multiplied with the extent of conquest; and as soon as time or accident had removed the artificial supports, the stupendous fabric yielded to the pressure of its own weight.
  • General Observations On The Fall Of The Roman Empire In The West

• Instead of inquiring why the Roman empire was destroyed, we should rather be surprised that it had subsisted so long.
  • General Observations On The Fall Of The Roman Empire In The West

• Extreme distress, which unites the virtue of a free people, embitters the factions of a declining monarchy.
  • General Observations On The Fall Of The Roman Empire In The West

• The clergy successfully preached the doctrines of patience and pusillanimity; the active virtues of society were discouraged; and the last remains of military spirit were buried in the cloister: a large portion of public and private wealth was consecrated to the specious demands of charity and devotion; and the soldiers' pay was lavished on the useless multitudes of both sexes who could only plead the merits of abstinence and chastity.
  • General Observations On The Fall Of The Roman Empire In The West

• The savage nations of the globe are the common enemies of civilised society; and we may inquire, with anxious curiosity, whether Europe is still threatened with a repetition of those calamities which formerly oppressed the arms and institutions of Rome.
  • General Observations On The Fall Of The Roman Empire In The West

• Yet this apparent security should not tempt us to forget that new enemies and unknown dangers may possibly arise from some obscure people, scarcely visible in the map of the world. The Arabs or Saracens, who spread their conquests from India to Spain, had languished in poverty and contempt till Mahomet breathed into those savage bodies the soul of enthusiasm.
  • General Observations On The Fall Of The Roman Empire In The West

• Europe is secure from any future irruption of barbarians; since, before they can conquer, they must cease to be barbarous.
  • General Observations On The Fall Of The Roman Empire In The West

• Yet the experience of four thousand years should enlarge our hopes and diminish our apprehensions: we cannot determine to what height the human species may aspire in their advance towards perfection; but it may safely be presumed that no people, unless the face of nature is changed, will relapse into their original barbarism.
  • General Observations On The Fall Of The Roman Empire In The West

• We may therefore acquiesce in the pleasing conclusion that 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.
  • General Observations On The Fall Of The Roman Empire In The West

Volume IV

• Their [the Ostrogoths'] poverty was incurable; since the most liberal donatives were soon dissipated in wasteful luxury, and the most fertile estates became barren in their hands; they despised, but they envied, the laborious provincials; and when their subsistence had failed, the Ostrogoths embraced the familiar resources of war and rapine.
  • Chapter XXXIX, part I

• But if the royal ear was open to the voice of truth, a saint and a philosopher are not always to be found at the ear of kings.
  • Chapter XXXIX, part III

• Boethius might have been styled happy, if that precarious epithet could be safely applied before the last term of the life of man.
  • Chapter XXXIX, part III

• In these honourable contests his spirit soared above the consideration of danger, and perhaps of prudence.
  • Chapter XXXIX, part III

• A material difference may be observed in the games of antiquity: the most eminent of the Greeks were actors, the Romans were merely spectators. The Olympic stadium was open to wealth, merit, and ambition; and if the candidates could depend on their personal skill and activity, they might pursue the footsteps of Diomede and Menelaus, and conduct their own horses in the rapid career… But a [Roman] senator, or even a citizen, conscious of his dignity, would have blushed to expose his person or his horses in the circus of Rome. The games were established at the expense of the republic, the magistrates, or the emperors; but the reins were abandoned to servile hands; and if the profits of a favourite charioteer sometimes exceeded those of an advocate, they must be considered as the effects of popular extravagance, and the high wages of a disgraceful profession.
  • Chapter XL
  • contrasting active Greek and passive Roman sport

• From this capital, this pestilence was diffused into the provinces and cities of the East, and the sportive distinction of two colours produced two strong and irreconcilable factions, which shook the foundations of a feeble government… Every law, either human or divine, was trampled under foot; and as long as the party was successful, its deluded followers appeared careless of private distress or public calamity.
  • Chapter XL
  • on the fighting between the Blue and Green factions of chariot race fans

• It is the interest as well as duty of a sovereign to maintain the authority of the laws.
  • Chapter XL, part II

• For my own part, I adhere to the maxim of antiquity, that the throne is a glorious sepulchre.
  • Theodora
  • Chapter XL, part II

• The enthusiast who entered the dome of St. Sophia might be tempted to suppose that it was the residence, or even the workmanship, of the Deity. Yet how dull is the artifice, how insignificant is the labour, if it be compared with the formation of the vilest insect that crawls upon the surface of the temple!
  • Chapter XL, part IV

• The Gothic arms were less fatal to the schools of Athens than 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 sceptic to eternal flames.
  • Chapter XL, part V

• I am not insensible of the benefits of elegant luxury; yet I reflect with some pain, that if the importers of silk had introduced the art of printing, already practised by the Chinese, the comedies of Menander and the entire decads of Livy would have been perpetuated in the editions of the sixth century.
  • Chapter XL

• In the evening Belisarius led his infantry to the attack of the camp; and the pusillanimous flight of Gelimer exposed the vanity of his recent declarations, that to the vanquished, death was a relief, life a burden, and infamy the only object of terror.
  • Chapter XLI, part II

• So long as Heaven has condemned us to suffer, patience is a virtue; but if we reject the proffered deliverance, it degenerates into blind and stupid despair.
  • Pharas
  • Chapter XLI, part II

• The vain and transitory scenes of human greatness are unworthy of a serious thought.
  • Chapter XLI, part II

• Flattery adheres to power, and envy to superior merit.
  • Chapter XLI, part II

• If it were not a melancholy truth, that the first and most cruel sufferings must be the lot of the innocent and helpless, history might exult in the misery of the conquerors, who, in the midst of riches, were left destitute of bread or wine, reduced to drink the waters of the Po, and to feed on the flesh of distempered cattle.
  • Chapter XLI, part V

• The spectator and historian of his [Belisarius's] exploits has observed, that amidst the perils of war, he was daring without rashness, prudent without fear, slow or rapid according to the exigencies of the moment; that in the deepest distress he was animated by real or apparent hope, but that he was modest and humble in the most prosperous fortune.
  • Chapter XLI, part VI

• The revenge of a guilty woman is implacable and bloody.
  • Chapter XLI, part VI

• Our estimate of personal merit, is relative to the common faculties of mankind. The aspiring efforts of genius, or virtue, either in active or speculative life, are measured, not so much by their real elevation, as by the height to which they ascend above the level of their age and country; and the same stature, which in a people of giants would pass unnoticed, must appear conspicuous in a race of pygmies.
  • Chapter XLII, part I

• It is impossible to reduce, or, at least, to hold a distant country against the wishes and efforts of its inhabitants.
  • Chapter XLII, part III

• If a Christian power had been maintained in Arabia, Mahomet must have been crushed in his cradle, and Abyssinia would have prevented a revolution which has changed the civil and religious state of the world.
  • Chapter XLII, part III

• That country [Carthage] was rapidly sinking into the state of barbarism from whence it had been raised by the Phoenician colonies and Roman laws; and every step of intestine discord was marked by some deplorable victory of savage man over civilized society.
  • Chapter XLIII, part I

• It was his [Totila's] constant theme, that national vice and ruin are inseparably connected; that victory is the fruit of moral as well as military virtue; and that the prince, and even the people, are responsible for the crimes which they neglect to punish.
  • Chapter XLIII, part I

• But the works of man are impotent against the assaults of nature.
  • Chapter XLIII, part III

• A Locrian, who proposed any new law, stood forth in the assembly of the people with a cord round his neck, and if the law was rejected, the innovator was instantly strangled.
  • Chapter XLIV, part II

• The Romans had aspired to be equal; they were levelled by the equality of servitude.
  • Chapter XLIV, part II

• A jurisdiction thus vague and arbitrary was exposed to the most dangerous abuse: the substance, as well as the form, of justice were often sacrificed to the prejudices of virtue, the bias of laudable affection, and the grosser seductions of interest or resentment.
  • Chapter XLIV, part II

• The science of the laws is the slow growth of time and experience.
  • Chapter XLIV, part IV

• It is the first care of a reformer to prevent any future reformation.
  • Chapter XLIV, part IV

• The law of nature instructs most animals to cherish and educate their infant progeny. The law of reason inculcates to the human species the returns of filial piety.
  • Chapter XLIV, part IV

• Passion, interest, or caprice, suggested daily motives for the dissolution of marriage; a word, a sign, a message, a letter, the mandate of a freedman, declared the separation; the most tender of human connections was degraded to a transient society of profit or pleasure.
  • Chapter XLIV, part IV

• A specious theory is confuted by this free and perfect experiment, which demonstrates, that the liberty of divorce does not contribute to happiness and virtue. The facility of separation would destroy all mutual confidence, and inflame every trifling dispute: the minute difference between a husband and a stranger, which might so easily be removed, might still more easily be forgotten; and the matron, who in five years can submit to the embraces of eight husbands, must cease to reverence the chastity of her own person.
  • Chapter XLIV, part IV

• In the most rigorous [Roman] laws, a wife was condemned to support a gamester, a drunkard, or a libertine, unless he were guilty of homicide, poison, or sacrilege, in which cases the marriage, as it should seem, might have been dissolved by the hand of the executioner.
  • Chapter XLIV, part IV

• The successor of Justinian yielded to the prayers of his unhappy subjects, and restored the liberty of divorce by mutual consent: the civilians were unanimous, the theologians were divided, and the ambiguous word, which contains the precept of Christ, is flexible to any interpretation that the wisdom of a legislator can demand.
  • Chapter XLIV, part IV

• Women were condemned to the perpetual tutelage of parents, husbands, or guardians; a sex created to please and obey was never supposed to have attained the age of reason and experience. Such, at least, was the stern and haughty spirit of the ancient law, which had been insensibly mollified before the time of Justinian.
  • Chapter XLIV, part V

• The active, insatiate principle of self-love can alone supply the arts of life and the wages of industry; and as soon as civil government and exclusive property have been introduced, they become necessary to the existence of the human race.
  • Chapter XLIV, part V

• A sentence of death and infamy was often founded on the slight and suspicious evidence of a child or a servant: the guilt of the green faction, of the rich, and of the enemies of Theodora, was presumed by the judges, and paederasty became the crime of those to whom no crime could be imputed.
  • Chapter XLIV, part VII

• The criminal penalties [for suicide] are the production of a later and darker age.
  • Chapter XLIV, part VII, footnote 206

• Yet the civilians have always respected the natural right of a citizen to dispose of his life.
  • Chapter XLIV, part VII

• The discretion of the judge is the first engine of tyranny.
  • Chapter XLIV, part VII

• But the government of Justinian united the evils of liberty and servitude; and the Romans were oppressed at the same time by the multiplicity of their laws and the arbitrary will of their master.
  • Chapter XLIV, part VII

• When a public quarrel is envenomed by private injuries, a blow that is not mortal or decisive can be productive only of a short truce, which allows the unsuccessful combatant to sharpen his arms for a new encounter.
  • Chapter XLV, part I

• The more stubborn Barbarians sacrificed a she-goat, or perhaps a captive, to the gods of their fathers... Gregory the Roman supposes that they likewise adored this she-goat. I know but of one religion in which the god and the victim are the same.
  • Chapter XLV, part I, footnote 14

• A society in which marriage is encouraged and industry prevails soon repairs the accidental losses of pestilence and war.
  • Chapter XLV, part III

• The events by which the fate of nations is not materially changed, leave a faint impression on the page of history, and the patience of the reader would be exhausted by the repetition of the same hostilities, undertaken without cause, prosecuted without glory, and terminated without effect.
  • Chapter XLVI, part I

• A reformer should be exempt from the suspicion of interest, and he must possess the confidence and esteem of those whom he proposes to reclaim.
  • Chapter XLVI, part II

• But the pride of the Persian had not yet sunk to the level of his fortune.
  • Chapter XLVI, part IV

• According to the faith and mercy of his Christian enemies, he [Chosroes] sunk without hope into a still deeper abyss; and it will not be denied, that tyrants of every age and sect are the best entitled to such infernal abodes.
  • Chapter XLVI, part IV

• And the more formidable monks, whose minds were inaccessible to reason or mercy, besieged the doors of the cathedral.
  • Chapter XLVII, part III

• He [Justinian] piously labored to establish with fire and sword the unity of the Christian faith.
  • Chapter XLVII, part III

• The province which had been ruined by the bigotry of Justinian, was the same through which the Mahometans penetrated into the empire.
  • Chapter XLVII, part III, footnote 90

• Language, the leading principle which unites or separates the tribes of mankind, soon discriminated the sectaries of the East, by a peculiar and perpetual badge, which abolished the means of intercourse and the hope of reconciliation.
  • Chapter XLVII, part III

• The long dominion of the Greeks, their colonies, and, above all, their eloquence, had propagated a language doubtless the most perfect that has been contrived by the art of man.
  • Chapter XLVII, part III

• The desire of gaining souls for God and subjects for the church, has excited in every age the diligence of the Christian priests.
  • Chapter XLVII, part IV

• Under the rod of oppression, the zeal of the Armenians is fervent and intrepid; they have often preferred the crown of martyrdom to the white turban of Mahomet.
  • Chapter XLVII, part IV

• In every deed of mischief he had a heart to resolve, a head to contrive, and a hand to execute.
  • Chapter XLVIII

• During his government of twenty-five years, the penalty of death was abolished in the Roman empire, a law of mercy most delightful to the humane theorist, but of which the practice, in a large and vicious community, is seldom consistent with the public safety.
  • Chapter XLVIII, part IV

• Our sympathy is cold to the relation of distant misery.
  • Chapter XLIX

• In the field of controversy I always pity the moderate party, who stand on the open middle ground exposed to the fire of both sides.
  • Chapter XLIX, part I, footnote 30

• Ignorant of the arts of luxury, the primitive Romans had improved the science of government and war.
  • Chapter XLIX, part II

• But their minds were not yet humbled to their condition; and instead of affecting the pacific virtues of the feeble, they peevishly harassed the Romans with a repetition of claims, evasions, and inroads, which they undertook without reflection, and terminated without glory.
  • Chapter XLIX, part II

• 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.
  • Chapter XLIX, part VI

• An extensive empire must be supported by a refined system of policy and oppression; in the centre, an absolute power, prompt in action and rich in resources; a swift and easy communication with the extreme parts; fortifications to check the first effort of rebellion; a regular administration to protect and punish; and a well-disciplined army to inspire fear, without provoking discontent and despair.
  • Chapter XLIX, part VI

Volume V

• Mahomet, with the sword in one hand and the Koran in the other, erected his throne on the ruins of Christianity and of Rome.
  • Chapter L, part I

• In this primitive and abject state, which ill deserves the name of society, the human brute, without arts or laws, almost without sense or language, is poorly distinguished from the rest of the animal creation.
  • Chapter L, part I

• Our toil is lessened, and our wealth is increased, by our dominion over the useful animals.
  • Chapter L, part I

• The life of a wandering Arab is a life of danger and distress; and though sometimes, by rapine or exchange, he may appropriate the fruits of industry, a private citizen in Europe is in the possession of more solid and pleasing luxury than the proudest emir, who marches in the field at the head of ten thousand horse.
  • Chapter L, part I

• The noblest of [Arabs] united the love of arms with the profession of merchandise.
  • Chapter L, part I

• [Arabs are] a people, whom it is dangerous to provoke, and fruitless to attack.
  • Chapter L, part I

• But their [the Arabs'] friendship was venal, their faith inconstant, their enmity capricious: it was an easier task to excite than to disarm these roving barbarians; and, in the familiar intercourse of war, they learned to see, and to despise, the splendid weakness both of Rome and of Persia.
  • Chapter L, part I

• The separation of the Arabs from the rest of mankind has accustomed them to confound the ideas of stranger and enemy
  • Chapter L, part II

• The character of Hatem is the perfect model of Arabian virtue: he was brave and liberal, an eloquent poet, and a successful robber.
  • Chapter L, part II

• [Beauty is] an outward gift which is seldom despised, except by those to whom it has been refused.
  • Chapter L, part III

• The moral attributes of Jehovah may not easily be reconciled with the standard of human virtue.
  • Chapter L, part III

• Mahomet has not specified the male companions of the female elect, lest he should either alarm the jealousy of their former husbands, or disturb their felicity, by the suspicion of an everlasting marriage.
  • Chapter L, part IV

• They trusted to the intercession of their old allies of Medina; they could not be ignorant that fanaticism obliterates the feelings of humanity.
  • Chapter L, part VI

• Ye Christian dogs, you know your option; the Koran, the tribute, or the sword. We are a people whose delight is in war rather than in peace: and we despise your pitiful alms, since we shall be speedily masters of your wealth your families, and your persons.
  • Chaled
  • Chapter LI, part III

• In a private condition, our desires are perpetually repressed by poverty and subordination; but the lives and labors of millions are devoted to the service of a despotic prince, whose laws are blindly obeyed, and whose wishes are instantly gratified. Our imagination is dazzled by the splendid picture; and whatever may be the cool dictates of reason, there are few among us who would obstinately refuse a trial of the comforts and the cares of royalty. It may therefore be of some use to borrow the experience of the same Abdalrahman, whose magnificence has perhaps excited our admiration and envy, and to transcribe an authentic memorial which was found in the closet of the deceased caliph. 'I have now reigned above fifty years in victory or peace; beloved by my subjects, dreaded by my enemies, and respected by my allies. Riches and honors, power and pleasure, have waited on my call, nor does any earthly blessing appear to have been wanting to my felicity. In this situation, I have diligently numbered the days of pure and genuine happiness which have fallen to my lot: they amount to Fourteen: - O man! place not thy confidence in this present world!' ... This confession, the complaints of Solomon of the vanity of this world... and the happy ten days of the emperor Seghed... will be triumphantly quoted by the detractors of human life. Their expectations are commonly immoderate, their estimates are seldom impartial. If I may speak of myself, (the only person of whom I can speak with certainty), my happy hours have far exceeded, and far exceed, the scanty numbers of the caliph of Spain; and I shall not scruple to add, that many of them are due to the pleasing labor of the present composition.
  • Chapter LII

• But the nations of the East had been taught to trample on the successors of the prophet; and the blessings of domestic peace were obtained by the relaxation of strength and discipline. So uniform are the mischiefs of military despotism, that I seem to repeat the story of the praetorians of Rome.
  • Chapter LII

• The sublime science of astronomy ... elevates the mind of man to disdain his diminutive planet and momentary existence.
  • Chapter LII, part III

• Their rapacious spirit was approved and animated by the precepts of the Koran.
  • Chapter LII, part IV

• In the national and religious conflict of the two empires [Byzantine and Saracen], peace was without confidence, and war without mercy.
  • Chapter LII, part IV

• A victorious line of march had been prolonged above a thousand miles from the rock of Gibraltar to the banks of the Loire; the repetition of an equal space would have carried the Saracens to the confines of Poland and the Highlands of Scotland; the Rhine is not more impassable than the Nile or Euphrates, and the Arabian fleet might have sailed without a naval combat into the mouth of the Thames. Perhaps the interpretation of the Koran would now be taught in the schools of Oxford, and her pulpits might demonstrate to a circumcised people the sanctity and truth of the revelation of Mahomet.
  From such calamities was Christendom delivered by the genius and fortune of one man. Charles, the illegitimate son of the elder Pepin, was content with the titles of mayor or duke of the Franks; but he deserved to become the father of a line of kings. [...]No sooner had he collected his forces, than he sought and found the enemy in the centre of France, between Tours and Poitiers. His well-conducted march was covered with a range of hills, and Abderame appears to have been surprised by his unexpected presence. The nations of Asia, Africa, and Europe, advanced with equal ardor to an encounter which would change the history of the world. In the six first days of desultory combat, the horsemen and archers of the East maintained their advantage: but in the closer onset of the seventh day, the Orientals were oppressed by the strength and stature of the Germans, who, with stout hearts and iron hands, asserted the civil and religious freedom of their posterity. The epithet of Martel, the Hammer, which has been added to the name of Charles, is expressive of his weighty and irresistible strokes: the valor of Eudes was excited by resentment and emulation; and their companions, in the eye of history, are the true Peers and Paladins of French chivalry. After a bloody field, in which Abderame was slain, the Saracens, in the close of the evening, retired to their camp. In the disorder and despair of the night, the various tribes of Yemen and Damascus, of Africa and Spain, were provoked to turn their arms against each other: the remains of their host were suddenly dissolved, and each emir consulted his safety by a hasty and separate retreat. At the dawn of the day, the stillness of a hostile camp was suspected by the victorious Christians: on the report of their spies, they ventured to explore the riches of the vacant tents; but if we except some celebrated relics, a small portion of the spoil was restored to the innocent and lawful owners. The joyful tidings were soon diffused over the Catholic world, and the monks of Italy could affirm and believe that three hundred and fifty, or three hundred and seventy-five, thousand of the Mahometans had been crushed by the hammer of Charles, while no more than fifteen hundred Christians were slain in the field of Tours. But this incredible tale is sufficiently disproved by the caution of the French general, who apprehended the snares and accidents of a pursuit, and dismissed his German allies to their native forests.
  The inactivity of a conqueror betrays the loss of strength and blood, and the most cruel execution is inflicted, not in the ranks of battle, but on the backs of a flying enemy. Yet the victory of the Franks was complete and final; Aquitain was recovered by the arms of Eudes; the Arabs never resumed the conquest of Gaul, and they were soon driven beyond the Pyrenees by Charles Martel and his valiant race.
  • Chapter LII

• In the profession of Christianity, the variety of national characters may be clearly distinguished. The natives of Syria and Egypt abandoned their lives to lazy and contemplative devotion; Rome again aspired to the dominion of the world; and the wit of the lively and loquacious Greeks was consumed in the disputes of metaphysical theology.
  • Chapter LIV, part I

• Of human life, the most glorious or humble prospects are alike and soon bounded by the sepulchre.
  • Chapter LVI, part IV

• From the paths of blood (and such is the history of nations) I cannot refuse to turn aside to gather some flowers of science or virtue.
  • Chapter LVII, part I

• He possessed that vehemence of speech, which seldom fails to impart the persuasion of the soul.
  • Chapter LVIII, part I

• But a law, however venerable be the sanction, cannot suddenly transform the temper of the times.
  • Chapter LVIII, part I

• So familiar, and as it were so natural to man, is the practice of violence, that our indulgence allows the slightest provocation, the most disputable right, as a sufficient ground of national hostility.
  • Chapter LVIII, part I

• A latent motive of affection or vanity might influence the choice of Urban: he was himself a native of France, a monk of Clugny, and the first of his countrymen who ascended the throne of St. Peter. The pope had illustrated his family and province; nor is there perhaps a more exquisite gratification than to revisit, in a conspicuous dignity, the humble and laborious scenes of our youth.
  • Chapter LVIII, part I

• The soil is fruitful, and intersected with rivers; but it was then covered with morasses and forests, which spread to a boundless extent, whenever man has ceased to exercise his dominion over the earth.
  • Chapter LVIII, part II

Volume VI

• The sentiment of fear is nearly allied to that of hatred.
  • Chapter LIX, part I

• The successors of St. Peter appear to have followed, rather than guided, the impulse of manners and prejudice; without much foresight of the seasons, or cultivation of the soil, they gathered the ripe and spontaneous fruits of the superstition of the times.
  • Chapter LIX, part III

• Of this hostile temper, a large portion may doubtless be ascribed to the difference of language, dress, and manners, which severs and alienates the nations of the globe.
  • Chapter LX, part I

• A thousand quarrels must arise under a law, and among men, whose sole umpire was the sword.
  • Chapter LXI, part I

• From these Latin princes of the xivth century, Boccace, Chaucer, and Shakspeare, have borrowed their Theseus duke of Athens. An ignorant age transfers its own language and manners to the most distant times.
  • Chapter LXII

• Assassination is the last resource of cowards.
  • Chapter LXII, part III

• In the year 1238, the inhabitants of Gothia (Sweden) and Frise were prevented, by their fear of the Tartars, from sending, as usual, their ships to the herring fishery on the coast of England; and as there was no exportation, forty or fifty of these fish were sold for a shilling... It is whimsical enough, that the orders of a Mogul khan, who reigned on the borders of China, should have lowered the price of herrings in the English market.
  • Chapter LXIV

• By the Venetians, the use of gunpowder was communicated without reproach to the sultans of Egypt and Persia, their allies against the Ottoman power; the secret was soon propagated to the extremities of Asia; and the advantage of the European was confined to his easy victories over the savages of the new world. 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.
  • Chapter LXV

• But no sooner had he introduced himself into the city, under color of a truce, than he perfidiously violated the treaty... and animated his troops to chastise the posterity of those Syrians who had executed, or approved, the murder of the grandson of Mahomet. A family which had given honorable burial to the head of Hosein, and a colony of artificers, whom he sent to labor at Samarcand, were alone reserved in the general massacre, and after a period of seven centuries, Damascus was reduced to ashes, because a Tartar was moved by religious zeal to avenge the blood of an Arab.
  • Chapter LXV

• Since the reign of Aurungzebe, their empire had been dissolved; their treasures of Delhi have been rifled by a Persian robber; and the richest of their kingdoms is now possessed by a company of Christian merchants, of a remote island in the Northern Ocean.
  • Chapter LXV

• The winds and waves are always on the side of the ablest navigators.
  • Chapter LXVIII

• His defence, at Florence, of the same union, which he so furiously attacked at Constantinople, has tempted Leo Allatius... to divide him into two men; but Renaudot... has restored the identity of his person and the duplicity of his character.
  • Chapter LXVIII

• 'When he was master of Normandy, the chapter of Seez presumed, without his consent, to proceed to the election of a bishop' upon which he ordered all of them, with the bishop elect, to be castrated, and made all their testicles be brought him in a platter.' Of the pain and danger they might justly complain; yet since they had vowed chastity he deprived them of a superfluous treasure.
  • Chapter LXIX

• Vicissitudes of fortune, which spares neither man nor the proudest of his works, which buries empires and cities in a common grave.
  • Chapter LXXI

• In the preceding volumes of this History, I have described the triumph of barbarism and religion.
  • Chapter LXXI

• All that is human must retrograde if it does not advance.
  • Chapter LXXI

About

• "Another damned fat book, Mr. Gibbon? Scribble, scribble, scribble, eh Mr. Gibbon?"
  • variously attributed to King George III or Henry, Duke of Gloucester, upon receiving a volume of Gibbon's book.

• I set out upon...Gibbon's Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire [and] was immediately dominated both by the story and the style....I devoured Gibbon. I rode triumphantly through it from end to end and enjoyed it all.
  • Winston Churchill, My Early Life: A Roving Commission (New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1958) ,also quoted in "Winston Churchill: Sketch for a Portrait" in George Lichtheim,Thoughts Among the Ruins: Collected essays on Europe and beyond. (Transaction Publishers, 1973)

External links

• The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire from the Christian Classics Ethereal Library. Formatted into chapters for easy web reading.
• The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire^{[dead link]} author record at Project Gutenberg. Based on the Rev. H.H. Milman edition of 1845.