THE FIRST THREE VOLUMES OF THE DECLINE AND FALL.
The historian who is also an artist is exposed to a particular
drawback from which his brethren in other fields are exempt. The mere
lapse of time destroys the value and even the fidelity of his
pictures. In other arts correct colouring and outline remain correct,
and if they are combined with imaginative power, age rather enhances
than diminishes their worth. But the historian lives under another
law. His reproduction of a past age, however full and true it may
appear to his contemporaries, appears less and less true to his
successors. The way in which he saw things ceases to be satisfactory;
we may admit his accuracy, but we add a qualification referring to the
time when he wrote, the point of view that he occupied. And we feel
that what was accurate for him is no longer accurate for us. This
superannuation of historical work is not similar to the superseding of
scientific work which is ever going on, and is the capital test of
progress. Scientific books become rapidly old-fashioned, because the
science to which they refer is in constant growth, and a work on
chemistry or biology is out of date by reason of incompleteness or
the discovery of unsuspected errors. The scientific side of history,
if we allow it to have a scientific side, conforms to this rule, and
presents no singularity. Closer inspection of our materials, the
employment of the comparative method, occasionally the bringing to
light of new authorities--all contribute to an increase of real
knowledge, and historical studies in this respect do not differ from
other branches of research. But this is not the sole or the chief
cause of the renovation and transformation constantly needed in
historic work. That depends on the ever-moving standpoint from which
the past is regarded, so that society in looking back on its previous
history never sees it for long together at quite the same angle, never
sees, we may say, quite the same thing. The past changes to us as we
move down the stream of time, as a distant mountain changes through
the windings of the road on which we travel away from it. To drop
figure and use language now becoming familiar, the social organism is
in constant growth, and receiving new additions, and each new addition
causes us to modify our view of the whole. The historian, in fact, is
engaged in the study of an unfinished organism, whose development is
constantly presenting him with surprises. It is as if the biologist
were suddenly to come upon new and unheard-of species and families
which would upset his old classification, or as if the chemist were to
find his laws of combination replaced by others which were not only
unknown to him, but which were really new and recent in the world.
Other inquirers have the whole of the phenomena with which their
science is concerned before them, and they may explore them at their
leisure. The sociologist has only an instalment, most likely a very
small instalment, of the phenomena with which his science is
concerned before him. They have not yet happened, are not yet
phenomena, and as they do happen and admit of investigation they
necessarily lead to constant modification of his views and deductions.
Not only does he acquire new knowledge like other inquirers, but he is
constantly having the subject-matter from which he derives his
knowledge augmented. Even in modern times society has thrown out with
much suddenness rapid and unexpected developments, of such scope and
volume that contemporaries have often lost self-possession at the
sight of them, and wondered if social order could survive. The
Reformation and the French Revolution are cases in point. And what a
principal part do these two great events always play in any
speculations instituted subsequent to them! How easy it is to see
whether a writer lived before the Reign of Terror, or after it, from
his gait and manner of approaching social inquiries! Is there any
reason to suppose that such mutations are now at an end? None. The
probability, well nigh a certainty, is that metamorphoses of the
social organism are in store for us which will equal, if they do not
vastly exceed, anything that the past has offered.
Considerations of this kind need to be kept in view if we would be
just in our appreciation of historical writings which have already a
certain age. It is impossible that a history composed a century ago
should fully satisfy us now; but we must beware of blaming the writer
for his supposed or real shortcomings, till we have ascertained how
far they arose from his personal inadequacy to his task, and were not
the result of his chronological position. It need not be said that
this remark does not refer to many books which are called histories,
but are really contemporary memoirs and original authorities
subservient to history proper. The works of Clarendon and Burnet, for
instance, can never lose a certain value on this account. The immortal
book which all subsequent generations have agreed to call a possession
for ever, is the unapproachable ideal of this class. But neither
Thucydides nor Clarendon were historians in the sense in which Gibbon
was an historian, that is, engaged in the delineation of a remote
epoch by the help of such materials as have escaped the ravages of
time. It is historians like Gibbon who are exposed to the particular
unhappiness referred to a little way back--that of growing out of date
through no fault of their own, but through the changed aspect
presented by the past in consequence of the movement which has brought
us to the present. But if this is the field of historical disaster, it
is also the opportunity of historical genius. In proportion as a
writer transcends the special limitations of his time, will "age fail
to wither him." That he cannot entirely shake off the fetters which
fasten him to his epoch is manifest. But in proportion as his vision
is clear, in proportion as he has with singleness of eye striven to
draw the past with reverent loyalty, will his bondage to his own time
be loosened, and his work will remain faithful work for which due
gratitude will not be withheld.
The sudden and rapid expansion of historic studies in the middle of
the eighteenth century constitutes one of the great epochs in
literature. Up to the year 1750 no great historical work had appeared
in any modern language.[11] The instances that seem to make against
this remark will be found to confirm it. They consist of memoirs,
contemporary documents, in short materials for history, but not
history itself. From Froissart and De Comines, or even from the
earlier monastic writers to St. Simon (who was just finishing his
incomparable Memoirs), history with wide outlook and the conception of
social progress and interconnection of events did not exist. Yet
history in its simple forms is one of the most spontaneous of human
achievements. Stories of mighty deeds, of the prowess and death of
heroes, are among the earliest productions of even semi-civilised
man--the earliest subjects of epic and lyric verse. But this
rudimentary form is never more than biographical. With increasing
complexity of social evolution it dies away, and history proper, as
distinct from annals and chronicle, does not arise till circumstances
allow of general and synthetic views, till societies can be surveyed
from a sufficient distance and elevation for their movements to be
discerned. Thucydides, Livy, and Tacitus do not appear till Greece and
Home have reached their highest point of homogeneous national life.
The tardy dawn of history in the modern world was owing to its immense
complexity. Materials also were wanting. They gradually emerged out of
manuscript all over Europe, during what may be called the great pedant
age (1550-1650), under the direction of meritorious antiquaries,
Camden, Savile, Duchesne, Gale, and others. Still official documents
and state papers were wanting, and had they been at hand would hardly
have been used with competence. The national and religious
limitations were still too marked and hostile to permit a free survey
over the historic field. The eighteenth century, though it opened with
a bloody war, was essentially peaceful in spirit: governments made
war, but men and nations longed for rest. The increased interest in
the past was shown by the publication nearly contemporary of the great
historic collections of Rymer (A.D. 1704), Leibnitz (1707), and
Muratori (1723). Before the middle of the century the historic muse
had abundant oil to feed her lamp. Still the lamp would probably not
have been lighted but for the singular pass to which French thought
had come.
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 11: Mézeray's great history of France is next to valueless
till he reaches the sixteenth century, that was a period bordering on
his own. Thuanus deals with contemporary events.]
From the latter years of Louis XIV. till the third quarter of the
eighteenth century was all but closed, France had a government at once
so weak and wicked, so much below the culture of the people it
oppressed, that the better minds of the nation turned away in disgust
from their domestic ignominy, and sought consolation in contemplating
foreign virtue wherever they thought it was to be found; in short,
they became cosmopolitan. The country which has since been the
birthplace of Chauvinism, put away national pride almost with passion.
But this was not all. The country whose king was called the Eldest Son
of the Church, and with which untold pains had been taken to keep it
orthodox, had lapsed into such an abhorrence of the Church and of
orthodoxy that anything seemed preferable to them in its eyes.
Thus, as if by enchantment, the old barriers disappeared, both
national and religious. Man and his fortunes, in all climes and all
ages, became topics of intense interest, especially when they tended
to degrade by contrast the detested condition of things at home. This
was the weak side of historical speculation in France: it was
essentially polemical; prompted less by genuine interest in the past
than by strong hatred of the present. Of this perturbation note must
be taken. But it is none the less true that the disengagement of
French thought from the narrow limits of nation and creed produced, as
it were in a moment, a lofty conception of history such as subsequent
ages may equal, but can hardly surpass.
The influence of French thought was European, and nowhere more
beneficial than in England. In other countries it was too despotic,
and produced in Germany, at least, Lessing's memorable reaction. But
the robust national and political life of England reduced it to a
welcome flavouring of our insular temperament. The Scotch, who had a
traditional connection with France, were the first importers of the
new views. Hume, who had practically grown in the same soil as
Voltaire, was only three years behind him in the historic field. The
_Age of Louis XIV._ was published in 1751, and the first volume of the
_History of England_ in 1754. Hume was no disciple of Voltaire; he
simply wrote under the stimulus of the same order of ideas. Robertson,
who shortly followed him, no doubt drew direct inspiration from
Voltaire, and his weightiest achievement, the View of the State of
Europe, prefixed to his _History of Charles V._, was largely
influenced, if it was not absolutely suggested, by the _Essay on
Manners_. But both Hume and Robertson surpassed their masters, if we
allow, as seems right, that the French were their masters. The Scotch
writers had no quarrel with their country or their age as the French
had. One was a Tory, the other a Whig; and Hume allowed himself to be
unworthily affected by party bias in his historical judgment. But
neither was tempted to turn history into a covert attack on the
condition of things amid which they lived. Hence a calmness and
dignity of tone and language, very different from the petulant
brilliancy of Voltaire, who is never so happy as when he can make the
past look mean and ridiculous, merely because it was the parent of the
odious present. But, excellent as were the Scotch historians--Hume, in
style nearly perfect; Robertson, admirable for gravity and shrewd
sense--they yet left much to be desired. Hume had despatched his five
quartos, containing the whole history of England from the Roman period
to the Revolution, in nine years. Considering that the subject was new
to him when he began, such rapidity made genuine research out of the
question. Robertson had the oddest way of consulting his friends as to
what subject it would be advisable for him to treat, and was open to
proposals from any quarter with exemplary impartiality; this only
showed how little the stern conditions of real historic inquiry were
appreciated by him. In fact it is not doing them injustice to say that
these eminent men were a sort of modern Livies, chiefly occupied with
the rhetorical part of their work, and not over inclined to waste
their time in ungrateful digging in the deep mines of historic lore.
Obviously the place was open for a writer who should unite all the
broad spirit of comprehensive survey, with the thorough and minute
patience of a Benedictine; whose subject, mellowed by long brooding,
should have sought him rather than he it; whose whole previous course
of study had been an unconscious preparation for one great effort
which was to fill his life. When Gibbon sat down to write his book,
the man had been found who united these difficult conditions.
The decline and fall of Rome is the greatest event in history. It
occupied a larger portion of the earth's surface, it affected the
lives and fortunes of a larger number of human beings, than any other
revolution on record. For it was essentially one, though it took
centuries to consummate, and though it had for its theatre the
civilised world. Great evolutions and catastrophes happened before it,
and have happened since, but nothing which can compare with it in
volume and mere physical size. Nor was it less morally. The
destruction of Rome was not only a destruction of an empire, it was
the destruction of a phase of human thought, of a system of human
beliefs, of morals, politics, civilisation, as all these had existed
in the world for ages. The drama is so vast, the cataclysm so
appalling, that even at this day we are hardly removed from it far
enough to take it fully in. The mind is oppressed, the imagination
flags under the load imposed upon it. The capture and sack of a town
one can fairly conceive: the massacre, outrage, the flaming roofs, the
desolation. Even the devastation of a province can be approximately
reproduced in thought. But what thought can embrace the devastation
and destruction of all the civilised portions of Europe, Africa, and
Asia? Who can realise a Thirty Years War lasting five hundred years? a
devastation of the Palatinate extending through fifteen generations?
If we try to insert into the picture, as we undoubtedly should do, the
founding of the new, which was going on beside this destruction of the
old, the settling down of the barbarian hosts in the conquered
provinces, the expansion of the victorious Church, driving paganism
from the towns to the country and at last extinguishing it entirely,
the effort becomes more difficult than ever. The legend of the Seven
Sleepers testifies to the need men felt, even before the tragedy had
come to an end, to symbolize in a manageable form the tremendous
changes they saw going on around them. But the legend only refers to
the changes in religion. The fall of Rome was much more than that. It
was the death of the old pagan world and the birth of the new
Christian world--the greatest transition in history.
This, and no less than this, is Gibbon's subject.
He has treated it in such a way as even now fills competent judges
with something like astonishment. His accuracy, coupled with the
extraordinary range of his matter, the variety of his topics, the
complexity of his undertaking, the fulness and thoroughness of his
knowledge, never failing at any point over the vast field, the ease
and mastery with which he lifts the enormous load, are appreciated in
proportion to the information and abilities of his critic. One
testimonial will suffice. Mr. Freeman says: "That Gibbon should ever
be displaced seems impossible. That wonderful man monopolised, so to
speak, the historical genius and the historical learning of a whole
generation, and left little, indeed, of either for his contemporaries.
He remains the one historian of the eighteenth century whom modern
research has neither set aside nor threatened to set aside. We may
correct and improve from the stores which have been opened since
Gibbon's time; we may write again large parts of his story from other
and often truer and more wholesome points of view, but the work of
Gibbon as a whole, as the encyclopædic history of 1300 years, as the
grandest of historical designs, carried out alike with wonderful power
and with wonderful accuracy, must ever keep its place. Whatever else
is read, Gibbon must be read too."
Gibbon's immense scheme did not unfold itself to him at once: he
passed through at least two distinct stages in the conception of his
work. The original idea had been confined to the decline and fall of
the city of Rome. Before he began to write, this had been expanded to
the fall of the empire of the West. The first volume, which we saw him
publish in the last chapter, was only an instalment, limited to the
accession of Constantine, through a doubt as to how his labours would
be received. The two following volumes, published in 1781, completed
his primitive plan. Then he paused exactly a year before he resolved
to carry on his work to its true end, the taking of Constantinople by
the Turks in 1453. The latter portion he achieved in three volumes
more, which he gave to the world on his fifty-first birthday, in 1788.
Thus the work naturally falls into two equal parts. It will be more
convenient to disregard in our remarks the interval of five years
which separated the publication of the first volume from its two
immediate companions. The first three volumes constitute a whole in
themselves, which we will now consider.
From the accession of Commodus, A.D. 180, to the last of the Western
Cæsars, A.D. 476, three centuries elapsed. The first date is a real
point of departure, the commencement of a new stage of decay in the
empire. The second is a mere official record of the final
disappearance of a series of phantom sovereigns, whose vanishing was
hardly noticed. Between these limits the empire passed from the
autumnal calm of the Antonine period, through the dreadful century of
anarchy between Pertinax and Diocletian, through the relative peace
brought about by Diocletian's reforms, the civil wars of the sons of
Constantine, the disastrous defeat of Julian, the calamities of the
Gothic war, the short respite under Theodosius, the growing anarchy
and misery under his incompetent sons, the three sieges of Rome and
its sack by the Goths, the awful appearance of Attila and his Huns,
the final submergence of the Western Empire under the barbarians, and
the universal ruin which marked the close of the fifth century. This
was the temporal side of affairs. On the spiritual, we have the silent
occult growth of the early Church, the conversion of Constantine, the
tremendous conflict of hostile sects, the heresy of Arius, the final
triumph of Athanasius, the spread of monasticism, the extinction of
paganism. Antiquity has ended, the middle ages have begun.
Over all this immense field Gibbon moves with a striking attitude of
power, which arose from his consciousness of complete preparation.
What there was to be known of his subject he felt sure that he knew.
His method of treatment is very simple, one might say primitive, but
it is very effective. He masters his materials, and then condenses and
clarifies them into a broad, well-filled narrative, which is always or
nearly always perfectly lucid through his skill in grouping events and
characters, and his fine boldness in neglecting chronological sequence
for the sake of clearness and unity of action. It is doing the book
injustice to consult it only as a work of reference, or even to read
it in detached portions. It should be read through, if we would
appreciate the art with which the story is told. No part can be
fairly judged without regard to the remainder. In fact, Gibbon was
much more an artist than perhaps be suspected, and less of a
philosophic thinker on history than he would have been willing to
allow. His shortcomings in this latter respect will be adverted to
presently; we are now considering his merits. And among these the very
high one of lofty and vigorous narrative stands pre-eminent. The
campaigns of Julian, Belisarius, and Heraclius are painted with a dash
and clearness which few civil historians have equalled. His
descriptive power is also very great. The picture of Constantinople in
the seventeenth chapter is, as the writer of these pages can testify,
a wonderful achievement, both for fidelity and brilliancy, coming from
a man who had never seen the place.
"If we survey Byzantium in the extent which it acquired with
the august name of Constantinople, the figure of the
imperial city may be represented under that of an unequal
triangle. The obtuse point, which advances towards the east
and the shores of Asia, meets and repels the waves of the
Thracian Bosphorus. The northern side of the city is bounded
by the harbour; and the southern is washed by the Propontis,
or Sea of Marmora. The basis of the triangle is opposed to
the west, and terminates the continent of Europe. But the
admirable form and division of the circumjacent land and
water cannot, without a more ample explanation, be clearly
or sufficiently understood.
"The winding channel through which the waters of the Euxine
flow with rapid and incessant course towards the
Mediterranean received the appellation of Bosphorus, a name
not less celebrated in the history than in the fables of
antiquity. A crowd of temples and of votive altars,
profusely scattered along its steep and woody banks,
attested the unskilfulness, the terrors, and the devotion of
the Grecian navigators, who, after the example of the
Argonauts, explored the dangers of the inhospitable Euxine.
On these banks tradition long preserved the memory of the
palace of Phineus, infested by the obscene Harpies, and of
the sylvan reign of Amycus, who defied the son of Leda to
the combat of the cestus. The straits of the Bosphorus are
terminated by the Cyanean rocks, which, according to the
description of the poets, had once floated on the surface of
the waters, and were destined by the gods to protect the
entrance of the Euxine against the eye of profane curiosity.
From the Cyanean rocks to the point and harbour of Byzantium
the winding length of the Bosphorus extends about sixteen
miles, and its most ordinary breadth may be computed at
about one mile and a half. The _new_ castles of Europe and
Asia are constructed on either continent upon the
foundations of two celebrated temples of Serapis and Jupiter
Urius. The _old_ castles, a work of the Greek emperors,
command the narrowest part of the channel, in a place where
the opposite banks advance within five hundred yards of each
other. These fortresses were destroyed and strengthened by
Mahomet the Second when he meditated the siege of
Constantinople; but the Turkish conqueror was most probably
ignorant that near two thousand years before his reign
Darius had chosen the same situation to connect the two
continents by a bridge of boats. At a small distance from
the old castles we discover the little town of Chrysopolis
or Scutari, which may almost be considered as the Asiatic
suburb of Constantinople. The Bosphorus, as it begins to
open into the Propontis, passes between Byzantium and
Chalcedon. The latter of these two cities was built by the
Greeks a few years before the former, and the blindness of
its founders, who overlooked the superior advantages of the
opposite coast, has been stigmatised by a proverbial
expression of contempt.
"The harbour of Constantinople, which may be considered as
an arm of the Bosphorus, obtained in a very remote period,
the denomination of the _Golden Horn_. The curve which it
describes might be compared to the horn of a stag, or as it
should seem with more propriety, to that of an ox. The
epithet of _golden_ was expressive of the riches which every
wind wafted from the most distant countries into the secure
and capacious port of Constantinople. The river Lycus,
formed by the conflux of two little streams, pours into the
harbour a perpetual supply of fresh water, which serves to
cleanse the bottom and to invite the periodical shoals of
fish to seek their retreat in that convenient recess. As the
vicissitudes of the tides are scarcely felt in those seas,
the constant depth of the harbour allows goods to be landed
on the quays without the assistance of boats, and it has
been observed that in many places the largest vessels may
rest their prows against the houses while their sterns are
floating in the water. From the mouth of the Lycus to that
of the harbour, this arm of the Bosphorus is more than seven
miles in length. The entrance is about five hundred yards
broad, and a strong chain could be occasionally drawn across
it, to guard the port and the city from the attack of an
hostile navy.
"Between the Bosphorus and the Hellespont, the shores of
Europe and Asia receding on either side include the Sea of
Marmora, which was known to the ancients by the denomination
of the Propontis. The navigation from the issue of the
Bosphorus to the entrance of the Hellespont is about one
hundred and twenty miles. Those who steer their westward
course through the middle of the Propontis may at once
descry the highlands of Thrace and Bithynia and never lose
sight of the lofty summit of Mount Olympus, covered with
eternal snows. They leave on the left a deep gulf, at the
bottom of which Nicomedia was seated, the imperial residence
of Diocletian, and they pass the small islands of Cyzicus
and Proconnesus before they cast anchor at Gallipoli, where
the sea which separates Asia from Europe is again contracted
to a narrow channel.
"The geographers, who with the most skilful accuracy have
surveyed the form and extent of the Hellespont, assign about
sixty miles for the winding course and about three miles for
the ordinary breadth of those celebrated straits. But the
narrowest part of the channel is found to the northward of
the old Turkish castles between the cities of Sestos and
Abydos. It was here that the adventurous Leander braved the
passage of the flood for the possession of his mistress. It
was here, likewise, in a place where the distance between
the opposite banks cannot exceed five hundred paces, that
Xerxes imposed a stupendous bridge of boats for the purpose
of transporting into Europe an hundred and seventy myriads
of barbarians. A sea contracted within such narrow limits
may seem but ill to deserve the singular epithet of _broad_,
which Homer, as well as Orpheus, has frequently bestowed on
the Hellespont. But our ideas of greatness are of a relative
nature; the traveller, and especially the poet, who sailed
along the Hellespont, who pursued the windings of the stream
and contemplated the rural scenery which appeared on every
side to terminate the prospect, insensibly lost the
remembrance of the sea, and his fancy painted those
celebrated straits with all the attributes of a mighty river
flowing with a swift current in the midst of a woody and
inland country, and at length through a wide mouth
discharging itself into the Ægean or Archipelago. Ancient
Troy, seated on an eminence at the foot of Mount Ida,
overlooked the mouth of the Hellespont, which scarcely
received an accession of waters from the tribute of those
immortal rivulets the Simois and Scamander. The Grecian camp
had stretched twelve miles along the shore from the Sigæan
to the Rhætian promontory, and the flanks of the army were
guarded by the bravest chiefs who fought under the banners
of Agamemnon. The first of these promontories was occupied
by Achilles with his invincible Myrmidons, and the dauntless
Ajax pitched his tents on the other. After Ajax had fallen a
sacrifice to his disappointed pride and to the ingratitude
of the Greeks, his sepulchre was erected on the ground where
he had defended the navy against the rage of Jove and
Hector, and the citizens of the rising town of Rhætium
celebrated his memory with divine honours. Before
Constantine gave a just preference to the situation of
Byzantium he had conceived the design of erecting the seat
of empire on this celebrated spot, from whence the Romans
derived their fabulous origin. The extensive plain which
lies below ancient Troy towards the Rhætian promontory was
first chosen for his new capital; and though the undertaking
was soon relinquished, the stately remains of unfinished
walls and towers attracted the notice of all who sailed
through the straits of the Hellespont.
"We are at present qualified to view the advantageous
position of Constantinople; which appears to have been
formed by nature for the centre and capital of a great
monarchy. Situated in the forty-first degree of latitude,
the imperial city commanded from her seven hills the
opposite shores of Europe and Asia; the climate was healthy
and temperate; the soil fertile; the harbour secure and
capacious; and the approach on the side of the continent was
of small extent and easy defence. The Bosphorus and the
Hellespont may be considered as the two gates of
Constantinople, and the prince who possesses those important
passages could always shut them against a naval enemy and
open them to the fleets of commerce. The preservation of the
eastern provinces may in some degree be ascribed to the
policy of Constantine, as the barbarians of the Euxine, who
in the preceding age had poured their armaments into the
heart of the Mediterranean, soon desisted from the exercise
of piracy, and despaired of forcing this insurmountable
barrier. When the gates of the Hellespont and Bosphorus were
shut, the capital still enjoyed within their spacious
inclosure every production which could supply the wants or
gratify the luxury of its numerous inhabitants. The
sea-coasts of Thrace and Bithynia, which languish under the
weight of Turkish oppression, still exhibit a rich prospect
of vineyards, of gardens, and of plentiful harvests; and the
Propontis has ever been renowned for an inexhaustible store
of the most exquisite fish that are taken in their stated
seasons without skill and almost without labour. But when
the passages of the straits were thrown open for trade, they
alternately admitted the natural and artificial riches of
the north and south, of the Euxine and the Mediterranean.
Whatever rude commodities were collected in the forests of
Germany and Scythia, and as far as the sources of the Tanais
and Borysthenes; whatsoever was manufactured by the skill of
Europe or Asia, the corn of Egypt, the gems and spices of
the furthest India, were brought by the varying winds into
the port of Constantinople, which for many ages attracted
the commerce of the ancient world.
"The prospect of beauty, of safety, and of wealth united in
a single spot was sufficient to justify the choice of
Constantine. But as some mixture of prodigy and fable has in
every age been supposed to reflect a becoming majesty on the
origin of great cities, the emperor was desirous of
ascribing his resolution not so much to the uncertain
counsels of human policy as to the eternal and infallible
decrees of divine wisdom. In one of his laws he has been
careful to instruct posterity that in obedience to the
commands of God he laid the everlasting foundations of
Constantinople, and though he has not condescended to relate
in what manner the celestial inspiration was communicated to
his mind, the defect of his modest silence has been
liberally supplied by the ingenuity of succeeding writers,
who describe the nocturnal vision which appeared to the
fancy of Constantine as he slept within the walls of
Byzantium. The tutelar genius of the city, a venerable
matron sinking under the weight of years and infirmities,
was suddenly transformed into a blooming maid, whom his own
hands adorned with all the symbols of imperial greatness.
The monarch awoke, interpreted the auspicious omen, and
obeyed without hesitation the will of Heaven. The day which
gave birth to a city or a colony was celebrated by the
Romans with such ceremonies as had been ordained by a
generous superstition: and though Constantine might omit
some rites which savoured too strongly of their pagan
origin, yet he was anxious to leave a deep impression of
hope and respect on the minds of the spectators. On foot,
with a lance in his hand, the emperor himself led the solemn
procession: and directed the line which was traced as the
boundary of the destined capital: till the growing
circumference was observed with astonishment by the
assistants, who at length ventured to observe that he had
already exceeded the most ample measure of a great city. 'I
shall still advance,' replied Constantine, 'till HE, the
invisible Guide who marches before me, thinks proper to
stop.'"
Gibbon proceeds to describe the extent, limits, and edifices of
Constantinople. Unfortunately the limits of our space prevent us from
giving more than a portion of his brilliant picture.
"In the actual state of the city the palace and gardens of
the Seraglio occupy the eastern promontory, the first of the
seven hills, and cover about one hundred and fifty acres of
our own measure. The seat of Turkish jealousy and despotism
is erected on the foundations of a Grecian republic: but it
may be supposed that the Byzantines were tempted by the
conveniency of the harbour to extend their habitations on
that side beyond the modern limits of the Seraglio. The new
walls of Constantine stretched from the port to the
Propontis across the enlarged breadth of the triangle, at
the distance of fifteen stadia from the ancient
fortifications: and with the city of Byzantium they inclosed
five of the seven hills, which to the eyes of those who
approach Constantinople appear to rise above each other in
beautiful order. About a century after the death of the
founder the new buildings, extending on one side up the
harbour, and on the other the Propontis, already covered the
narrow ridge of the sixth and the broad summit of the
seventh hill. The necessity of protecting those suburbs from
the incessant inroads of the barbarians engaged the younger
Theodosius to surround his capital with an adequate and
permanent inclosure of walls. From the eastern promontory to
the Golden Gate, the extreme length of Constantinople was
above three Roman miles; the circumference measured between
ten and eleven; and the surface might be computed as equal
to about two thousand English acres. It is impossible to
justify the vain and credulous exaggerations of modern
travellers, who have sometimes stretched the limits of
Constantinople over the adjacent villages of the European
and even Asiatic coasts. But the suburbs of Pera and Galata,
though situate beyond the harbour, may deserve to be
considered as a part of the city, and this addition may
perhaps authorise the measure of a Byzantine historian, who
assigns sixteen Greek (about sixteen Roman) miles for the
circumference of his native city. Such an extent may seem
not unworthy of an imperial residence. Yet Constantinople
must yield to Babylon and Thebes, to ancient Rome, to
London, and even to Paris....
"Some estimate may be formed of the expense bestowed with
imperial liberality on Constantinople, by the allowance of
about two millions five hundred thousand pounds for the
construction of the walls, the porticoes, and the aqueducts.
The forests that overshadowed the shores of the Euxine, and
the celebrated quarries of white marble in the little
island of Proconnesus, supplied an inexhaustible stock of
materials ready to be conveyed by the convenience of a short
water carriage to the harbour of Byzantium. A multitude of
labourers and artificers urged the conclusion of the work
with incessant toil, but the impatience of Constantine soon
discovered that in the decline of the arts the skill as well
as the number of his architects bore a very unequal
proportion to the greatness of his design.... The buildings
of the new city were executed by such artificers as the age
of Constantine could afford, but they were decorated by the
hands of the most celebrated masters of the age of Pericles
and Alexander.... By Constantine's command the cities of
Greece and Asia were despoiled of their most valuable
ornaments. The trophies of memorable wars, the objects of
religious veneration, the most finished statues of the gods
and heroes, of the sages and poets of ancient times,
contributed to the splendid triumph of Constantinople.
"... The Circus, or Hippodrome, was a stately building of
about four hundred paces in length and one hundred in
breadth. The space between the two _metæ_, or goals, was
filled with statues and obelisks, and we may still remark a
very singular fragment of antiquity--the bodies of three
serpents twisted into one pillar of brass. Their triple
heads had once supported the golden tripod which, after the
defeat of Xerxes, was consecrated in the temple of Delphi by
the victorious Greeks. The beauty of the Hippodrome has been
long since defaced by the rude hands of the Turkish
conquerors; but, under the similar appellation of Atmeidan,
it still serves as a place of exercise for their horses.
From the throne whence the emperor viewed the Circensian
games a winding staircase descended to the palace, a
magnificent edifice, which scarcely yielded to the residence
of Rome itself, and which, together with the dependent
courts, gardens, and porticoes, covered a considerable
extent of ground upon the banks of the Propontis between the
Hippodrome and the church of St. Sophia. We might likewise
celebrate the baths, which still retained the name of
Zeuxippus, after they had been enriched by the magnificence
of Constantine with lofty columns, various marbles, and
above three score statues of bronze. But we should deviate
from the design of this history if we attempted minutely to
describe the different buildings or quarters of the city....
A particular description, composed about a century after its
foundation, enumerates a capitol or school of learning, a
circus, two theatres, eight public and one hundred and
fifty-three private baths, fifty-two porticoes, five
granaries, eight aqueducts or reservoirs of water, four
spacious halls for the meeting of the senate or courts of
justice, fourteen churches, fourteen palaces, and four
thousand three hundred and eighty-eight houses, which for
their size or beauty deserved to be distinguished from the
multitude of plebeian habitations."
Gibbon's conception of history was that of a spacious panorama, in
which a series of tableaux pass in succession before the reader's eye.
He adverts but little, far too little, to that side of events which
does not strike the visual sense. He rarely generalises or sums up a
widely-scattered mass of facts into pregnant synthetic views. But
possibly he owes some of the permanence of his fame to this very
defect. As soon as ever a writer begins to support a thesis, to prove
a point, he runs imminent danger of one-sidedness and partiality in
his presentation of events. Gibbon's faithful transcript of the past
has neither the merit nor the drawback of generalisation, and he has
come in consequence to be regarded as a common mine of authentic facts
to which all speculators can resort.
The first volume, which was received with such warm acclamation, is
inferior to those that followed. He seems to have been partly aware of
this himself, and speaks of the "concise and superficial narrative
from Commodus to Alexander." But the whole volume lacks the grasp and
easy mastery which distinguish its successors. No doubt the
subject-matter was comparatively meagre and ungrateful. The century
between Commodus and Diocletian was one long spasm of anarchy and
violence, which was, as Niebuhr said, incapable of historical
treatment. The obscure confusion of the age is aggravated into almost
complete darkness by the wretched materials which alone have survived,
and the attempt to found a dignified narrative on such scanty and
imperfect authorities was hardly wise. Gibbon would have shown a
greater sense of historic proportion if he had passed over this period
with a few bold strokes, and summed up with brevity such general
results as may be fairly deduced. We may say of the first volume that
it was tentative in every way. In it the author not only sounded his
public, but he was also trying his instrument, running over the keys
in preparatory search for the right note. He strikes it full and clear
in the two final chapters on the Early Church; these, whatever
objections may be made against them on other grounds, are the real
commencement of the Decline and Fall.
From this point onwards he marches with the steady and measured tramp
of a Roman legion. His materials improve both in number and quality.
The fourth century, though a period of frightful anarchy and disaster
if compared to a settled epoch, is a period of relative peace and
order when compared to the third century. The fifth was calamitous
beyond example; but ecclesiastical history comes to the support of
secular history in a way which might have excited more gratitude in
Gibbon than it did. From Constantine to Augustulus Gibbon is able to
put forth all his strength. His style is less superfine, as his matter
becomes more copious; and the more definite cleavage of events brought
about by the separation between the Eastern and Western Empires,
enables him to display the higher qualities which marked him as an
historian.
The merit of his work, it is again necessary to point out, will not be
justly estimated unless the considerations suggested at the beginning
of this chapter be kept in view. We have to remember that his culture
was chiefly French, and that his opinions were those which prevailed
in France in the latter half of the eighteenth century. He was the
friend of Voltaire, Helvétius, and D'Holbach; that is, of men who
regarded the past as one long nightmare of crime, imposture, and
folly, instigated by the selfish machinations of kings and priests. A
strong infusion of the spirit which animated not only Voltaire's
_Essay on Manners_, but certain parts of Hume's _History of England_
might have been expected as a matter of course. It is essentially
absent. Gibbon's private opinions may have been what they will, but he
has approved his high title to the character of an historian by
keeping them well in abeyance. When he turned his eyes to the past and
viewed it with intense gaze, he was absorbed in the spectacle, his
peculiar prejudices were hushed, he thought only of the object before
him and of reproducing it as well as he could. This is not the common
opinion, but, nevertheless, a great deal can be said to support it.
It will be as well to take two concrete tests--his treatment of two
topics which of all others were most likely to betray him into
deviations from historic candour. If he stands these, he may be
admitted to stand any less severe. Let them be his account of Julian,
and his method of dealing with Christianity.
The snare that was spread by Julian's apostasy for the philosophers of
the last century, and their haste to fall into it, are well known.
The spectacle of a philosopher on the throne who proclaimed
toleration, and contempt for Christianity, was too tempting and too
useful controversially to allow of much circumspection in handling it.
The odious comparisons it offered were so exactly what was wanted for
depreciating the Most Christian king and his courtly Church, that all
further inquiry into the apostate's merits seemed useless. Voltaire
finds that Julian had all the qualities of Trajan without his defects;
all the virtues of Cato without his ill-humour; all that one admires
in Julius Cæsar without his vices; he had the continency of Scipio,
and was in all ways equal to Marcus Aurelius, the first of men. Nay,
more. If he had only lived longer, he would have retarded the fall of
the Roman Empire, if he could not arrest it entirely. We here see the
length to which "polemical fury" could hurry a man of rare insight.
Julian had been a subject of contention for years between the hostile
factions. While one party made it a point of honour to prove that he
was a monster, warring consciously against the Most High, the other
was equally determined to prove that he was a paragon of all virtue,
by reason of his enmity to the Christian religion. The deep interest
attaching to the pagan reaction in the fourth century, and the social
and moral problems it suggests, were perceived by neither side, and it
is not difficult to see why they were not. The very word reaction, in
its modern sense, will hardly be found in the eighteenth century, and
the thing that it expresses was very imperfectly conceived. We, who
have been surrounded by reactions, real or supposed, in politics, in
religion, in philosophy, recognise an old acquaintance in the efforts
of the limited, intense Julian to stem the tide of progress as
represented in the Christian Church. It is a fine instance of the way
in which the ever-unfolding present is constantly lighting up the
past. Julian and his party were the Ultramontanes of their day in
matters of religion, and the Romantics in matters of literature. Those
radical innovators and reformers, the Christians, were marching from
conquest to conquest, over the old faith, making no concealment of
their revolutionary aims and intentions to wipe out the past as
speedily as possible. The conservatives of those times, after long
despising the reformers, passed easily to fearing them and hating them
as their success became threatening. "The attachment to paganism,"
says Neander, "lingered especially in many of the ancient and noble
families of Greece and Rome." Old families, or new rich ones who
wished to be thought old, would be sure to take up the cause of
ancestral wisdom as against modern innovation. Before Julian came to
the throne, a pagan reaction was imminent, as Neander points out.
Julian himself was a remarkable man, as men of his class usually are.
In the breaking up of old modes of belief, as Mill has said, "the most
strong-minded and discerning, next to those who head the movement, are
generally those who bring up the rear." The energy of his mind and
character was quite exceptional, and if we reflect that he only
reigned sixteen months, and died in his thirty-second year, we must
admit that the mark he has left in history is very surprising. He and
his policy are now discussed with entire calm by inquirers of all
schools, and sincere Christians like Neander and Dean Milman are as
little disposed to attack him with acrimony, as those of a different
way of thought are inclined to make him a subject of unlimited
panegyric.
Through this difficult subject Gibbon has found his way with a
prudence and true insight which extorted admiration, even in his own
day. His account of Julian is essentially a modern account. The
influence of his private opinions can hardly be traced in the
brilliant chapters that he has devoted to the Apostate. He sees
through Julian's weaknesses in a way in which Voltaire never saw or
cared to see. His pitiful superstition, his huge vanity, his weak
affectation are brought out with an incisive clearness and subtle
penetration into character which Gibbon was not always so ready to
display. At the same time he does full justice to Julian's real
merits. And this is perhaps the most striking evidence of his
penetration. An error on the side of injustice to Julian is very
natural in a man who, having renounced allegiance to Christianity, yet
fully realises the futility of attempting to arrest it in the fourth
century. A certain intellectual disdain for the reactionary emperor is
difficult to avoid. Gibbon surmounts it completely, and he does so,
not in consequence of a general conception of the reactionary spirit,
as a constantly emerging element in society, but by sheer historical
insight, clear vision of the fact before him. It may be added that
nowhere is Gibbon's command of vivid narrative seen to greater
advantage than in the chapters that he has devoted to Julian. The
daring march from Gaul to Illyricum is told with immense spirit; but
the account of Julian's final campaign and death in Persia is still
better, and can hardly be surpassed. It has every merit of clearness
and rapidity, yet is full of dignity, which culminates in this fine
passage referring to the night before the emperor received his mortal
wound.
"While Julian struggled with the almost insuperable
difficulties of his situation, the silent hours of the night
were still devoted to study and contemplation. Whenever he
closed his eyes in short and interrupted slumbers, his mind
was agitated by painful anxiety; nor can it be thought
surprising that the Genius of the empire should once more
appear before him, covering with a funereal veil his head
and his horn of abundance, and slowly retiring from the
Imperial tent. The monarch started from his couch, and,
stepping forth to refresh his wearied spirits with the
coolness of the midnight air, he beheld a fiery meteor,
which shot athwart the sky and suddenly vanished. Julian was
convinced that he had seen the menacing countenance of the
god of war: the council which he summoned, of Tuscan
Haruspices, unanimously pronounced that he should abstain
from action; but on this occasion necessity and reason were
more prevalent than superstition, and the trumpets sounded
at the break of day."[12]
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 12: It is interesting to compare Gibbon's admirable picture
with the harsh original Latin of his authority, Ammianus Marcellinus.
"Ipse autem ad sollicitam suspensamque quietem paullisper protractus,
cum somno (ut solebat) depulso, ad æmulationem Cæsaris Julii quædam
sub pellibus scribens, obscuro noctis altitudine sensus cujusdam
philosophi teneretur, vidit squalidius, ut confessus est proximis,
speciem illam Genii publici, quam quum ad Augustum surgeret culmen,
conspexit in Galliis, velata cum capite cornucopia per aulæa tristius
discedentem. Et quamquam ad momentum hæsit, stupore defixus, omni
tamen superior metu, ventura decretis cælestibus commendabat; relicto
humi strato cubili, adulta jam excitus nocte, et numinibus per sacra
depulsoria supplicans, flagrantissimam facem cadenti similem visam,
aëris parte sulcata evanuisse existimavit: horroreque perfusus est, ne
ita aperte minax Martis adparuerit sidus."--_Amm. Marc._ lib. xxv.
cap. 2.]
It will not be so easy to absolve Gibbon from the charge of prejudice
in reference to his treatment of the Early Church. It cannot be denied
that in the two famous chapters, at least, which concluded his first
volume, he adopted a tone which must be pronounced offensive, not only
from the Christian point of view, but on the broad ground of
historical equity. His preconceived opinions were too strong for him
on this occasion, and obstructed his generally clear vision. Yet a
distinction must be made. The offensive tone in question is confined
to these two chapters. We need not think that it was in consequence of
the clamour they raised that he adopted a different style with
reference to church matters in his subsequent volumes. A more
creditable explanation of his different tone, which will be presently
suggested, is at least as probable. In any case, these two chapters
remain the chief slur on his historical impartiality, and it is worth
while to examine what his offence amounts to.
Gibbon's account of the early Christians is vitiated by his narrow and
distorted conception of the emotional side of man's nature. Having no
spiritual aspirations himself, he could not appreciate or understand
them in others. Those emotions which have for their object the unseen
world and its centre, God, had no meaning for him; and he was tempted
to explain them away when he came across them, or to ascribe their
origin and effects to other instincts which were more intelligible to
him. The wonderland which the mystic inhabits was closed to him, he
remained outside of it and reproduced in sarcastic travesty the
reports he heard of its marvels. What he has called the secondary
causes of the growth of Christianity, were much rather its effects.
The first is "the inflexible and intolerant zeal of the Christians"
and their abhorrence of idolatry. With great power of language, he
paints the early Christian "encompassed with infernal snares in every
convivial entertainment, as often as his friends, invoking the
hospitable deities, poured out libations to each other's happiness.
When the bride, struggling with well-affected reluctance, was forced
in hymenæal pomp over the threshold of her new habitation, or when the
sad procession of the dead slowly moved towards the funeral pile, the
Christian on these interesting occasions was compelled to desert the
persons who were dearest to him, rather than contract the guilt
inherent in those impious ceremonies." It is strange that Gibbon did
not ask himself what was the cause of this inflexible zeal. The zeal
produced the effects alleged, but what produced the zeal? He says that
it was derived from the Jewish religion, but neglects to point out
what could have induced Gentiles of every diversity of origin to
derive from a despised race tenets and sentiments which would make
their lives one long scene of self-denial and danger. The whole vein
of remark is so completely out of date, that it is not worth dwelling
on, except very summarily.
The second cause is "the doctrine of a future life, improved by every
additional circumstance which could give weight and efficacy to that
important truth." Again we have an effect treated as a cause. "The
ancient Christians were animated by a contempt for their present
existence, and by a just confidence of immortality." Very true; but
the fact of their being so animated was what wanted explaining. Gibbon
says it "was no wonder that so advantageous an offer" as that of
immortality was accepted. Yet he had just before told us that the
ablest orators at the bar and in the senate of Rome, could expose
this offer of immortality to ridicule without fear of giving offence.
Whence arose, then, the sudden blaze of conviction with which the
Christians embraced it?
The third cause is the miraculous powers _ascribed_ to the primitive
Church. Gibbon apparently had not the courage to admit that he agreed
with his friend Hume in rejecting miracles altogether. He conceals his
drift in a cloud of words, suggesting indirectly with innuendo and
sneer his real opinion. But this does not account for the stress he
lays on the _ascription_ of miracles. He seems to think that the claim
of supernatural gifts somehow had the same efficacy as the gifts
themselves would have had, if they had existed.
The fourth cause is the virtues of the primitive Christians. The
paragraphs upon it, Dean Milman considers the most uncandid in all the
history, and they certainly do Gibbon no credit. With a strange
ignorance of the human heart, he attributes the austere morals of the
early Christians to their care for their reputation. The ascetic
temper, one of the most widely manifested in history, was beyond his
comprehension.
The fifth cause was the union and discipline of the Christian
republic. For the last time the effect figures as the cause. Union and
discipline we know are powerful, but we know also that they are the
result of deep antecedent forces, and that prudence and policy alone
never produced them.
It can surprise no one that Gibbon has treated the early Church in a
way which is highly unsatisfactory if judged by a modern standard. Not
only is it a period which criticism has gone over again and again with
a microscope, but the standpoint from which such periods are observed
has materially changed since his day. That dim epoch of nascent faith,
full of tender and subdued tints, with a high light on the brows of
the Crucified, was not one in which he could see clearly, or properly
see at all. He has as little insight into the religious condition of
the pagan world, as of the Christian. It is singular how he passes
over facts which were plain before him, which he knew quite well, as
he knew nearly everything connected with his subject, but the real
significance of which he missed. Thus he attributes to the scepticism
of the pagan world the easy introduction of Christianity. Misled by
the "eloquence of Cicero and the wit of Lucian," he supposes the
second century to have been vacant of beliefs, in which a "fashion of
incredulity" was widely diffused, and "many were almost disengaged
from artificial prejudices." He was evidently unaware of the striking
religious revival which uplifted paganism in the age of Hadrian, and
grew with the sinking empire: the first stirrings of it may even be
discerned in Tacitus, and go on increasing till we reach the theurgy
of the Neoplatonists. A growing fear of the gods, a weariness of life
and longing for death, a disposition to look for compensation for the
miseries of this world to a brighter one beyond the grave--these
traits are common in the literature of the second century, and show
the change which had come over the minds of men. Gibbon is
colour-blind to these shades of the religious spirit: he can only see
the banter of Lucian.[13] In reference to these matters he was a true
son of his age, and could hardly be expected to transcend it.
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 13: On the religious revival of the second century, see
Hausrath's _Neutestamentliche Zeitgeschichte_, vol. iii., especially
the sections, "Hadrian's Mysticismus" and "Religiöse Tendenzen in
Kunst und Literatur," where this interesting subject is handled with a
freshness and insight quite remarkable.]
He cannot be cleared of this reproach. On the other hand, we must
remember that Gibbon's hard and accurate criticism set a good example
in one respect. The fertile fancy of the middle ages had run into wild
exaggerations of the number of the primitive martyrs, and their
legends had not always been submitted to impartial scrutiny even in
the eighteenth century. We may admit that Gibbon was not without bias
of another kind, and that his tone is often very offensive when he
seeks to depreciate the evidence of the sufferings of the early
confessors. His computation, which will allow of "an annual
consumption of a hundred and fifty martyrs," is nothing short of
cynical. Still he did good service in insisting on chapter and verse
and fair historical proof of these frightful stories, before they were
admitted. Dean Milman acknowledges so much, and defends him against
the hot zeal of M. Guizot, justly adding that "truth must not be
sacrificed even to well-grounded moral indignation," in which
sentiment all now will no doubt be willing to concur.
The difference between the Church in the Catacombs, and the Church in
the Palaces at Constantinople or Ravenna, measures the difference
between Gibbon's treatment of early Christian history and his
treatment of ecclesiastical history. Just as the simple-hearted
emotions of God-fearing men were a puzzle and an irritation to him, so
he was completely at home in exposing the intrigues of courtly bishops
and in the metaphysics of theological controversy. His mode of dealing
with Church matters from this point onward is hardly ever unfair, and
has given rise to few protestations. He has not succeeded in pleasing
everybody. What Church historian ever does? But he is candid,
impartial, and discerning. His account of the conversion of
Constantine is remarkably just, and he is more generous to the first
Christian Emperor than Niebuhr or Neander. He plunges into the Arian
controversy with manifest delight, and has given in a few pages one of
the clearest and most memorable _résumés_ of that great struggle. But
it is when he comes to the hero of that struggle, to an historic
character who can be seen with clearness, that he shows his wonted
tact and insight. A great man hardly ever fails to awaken Gibbon into
admiration and sympathy. The "Great Athanasius," as he often calls
him, caught his eye at once, and the impulse to draw a fine character,
promptly silenced any prejudices which might interfere with faithful
portraiture. "Athanasius stands out more grandly in Gibbon, than in
the pages of the orthodox ecclesiastical historians"--Dr. Newman has
said,--a judge whose competence will not be questioned. And as if to
show how much insight depends on sympathy, Gibbon is immediately more
just and open to the merits of the Christian community, than he had
been hitherto. He now sees "that the privileges of the Church had
already revived a sense of order and freedom in the Roman government."
His chapter on the rise of monasticism is more fair and discriminating
than the average Protestant treatment of that subject. He distinctly
acknowledges the debt we owe the monks for their attention to
agriculture, the useful trades, and the preservation of ancient
literature. The more disgusting forms of asceticism he touches with
light irony, which is quite as effective as the vehement denunciations
of non-Catholic writers. It must not be forgotten that his
ecclesiastical history derives a great superiority of clearness and
proportion by its interweaving with the general history of the times,
and this fact of itself suffices to give Gibbon's picture a permanent
value even beside the master works of German erudition which have been
devoted exclusively to Church matters. If we lay down Gibbon and take
up Neander, for instance, we are conscious that with all the greater
fulness of detail, engaging candour, and sympathetic insight of the
great Berlin Professor, the general impression of the times is less
distinct and lasting. There is no specialism in Gibbon; his book is a
broad sociological picture in which the whole age is portrayed.
To sum up. In two memorable chapters Gibbon has allowed his prejudices
to mar his work as an historian. But two chapters out of seventy-one
constitute a small proportion. In the remainder of his work he is as
free from bias and unfairness as human frailty can well allow. The
annotated editions of Milman and Guizot are guarantees of this. Their
critical animadversions become very few and far between after the
first volume is passed. If he had been animated by a polemical object
in writing; if he had used the past as an arsenal from which to draw
weapons to attack the present, we may depend that a swift blight would
have shrivelled his labours, as it did so many famous works of the
eighteenth century, when the great day of reaction set in. His mild
rebuke of the Abbé Raynal should not be forgotten. He admired the
_History of the Indies_. It is one of the few books that he has
honoured with mention and praise in the text of his own work. But he
points out that the "zeal of the philosophic historian for the rights
of mankind" had led him into a blunder. It was not only Gibbon's
scholarly accuracy which saved him from such blunders. Perhaps he had
less zeal for the rights of mankind than men like Raynal, whose
general views he shared. But it is certain that he did not write with
their settled _parti pris_ of making history a vehicle of controversy.
His object was to be a faithful historian, and due regard being had to
his limitations, he attained to it.
If we now consider the defects of the _Decline and Fall_--which the
progress of historic study, and still more the lapse of time, have
gradually rendered visible, they will be found, as was to be expected,
to consist in the author's limited conception of society, and of the
multitudinous forces which mould and modify it. We are constantly
reminded by the tone of remark that he sees chiefly the surface of
events, and that the deeper causes which produce them have not been
seen with the same clearness. In proportion as an age is remote, and
therefore different from that in which a historian writes, does it
behove him to remember that the social and general side of history is
more important than the individual and particular. In reference to a
period adjacent to our own the fortunes of individuals properly take a
prominent place, the social conditions amid which they worked are
familiar to us, and we understand them and their position without
effort. But with regard to a remote age the case is different. Here
our difficulty is to understand the social conditions, so unlike those
with which we are acquainted, and as society is greater than man, so
we feel that society, and not individual men, should occupy the chief
place in the picture. Not that individuals are to be suppressed or
neglected, but their subordination to the large historic background
must be well maintained. The social, religious, and philosophic
conditions amid which they played their parts should dominate the
scene, and dwarf by their grandeur and importance the human actors who
move across it. The higher historical style now demands what may be
called compound narrative, that is narrative having reference to two
sets of phenomena--one the obvious surface events, the other the
larger and wider, but less obvious, sociological condition. A better
example could hardly be given than Grote's account of the mutilation
of the Hermæ. The fact of the mutilation is told in the briefest way
in a few lines, but the social condition which overarched it, and made
the disfiguring of a number of half-statues "one of the most
extraordinary events in Greek history," demands five pages of
reflections and commentary to bring out its full significance. Grote
insists on the duty "to take reasonable pains to realise in our minds
the religious and political associations of the Athenians," and helps
us to do it by a train of argument and illustration. The larger part
of the strength of the modern historical school lies in this method,
and in able hands it has produced great results.
It would be unfair to compare Gibbon to these writers. They had a
training in social studies which he had not. But it is not certain
that he has always acquitted himself well, even if compared to his
contemporaries and predecessors, Montesquieu, Mably, and Voltaire. In
any case his narrative is generally wanting in historic perspective
and suggestive background. It adheres closely to the obvious surface
of events with little attempt to place behind them the deeper sky of
social evolution. In many of his crowded chapters one cannot see the
wood for the trees. The story is not lifted up and made lucid by
general points of view, but drags or hurries along in the hollow of
events, over which the author never seems to raise himself into a
position of commanding survey. The thirty-sixth chapter is a marked
instance of this defect. But the defect is general. The vigorous and
skilful narrative, and a certain grandeur and weightiness of language,
make us overlook it. It is only when we try to attain clear and
succinct views, which condense into portable propositions the enormous
mass of facts collected before us, that we feel that the writer has
not often surveyed his subject from a height and distance sufficient
to allow the great features of the epoch to be seen in bold outline.
By the side of the history of concrete events, we miss the
presentation of those others which are none the less events for being
vague, irregular, and wide-reaching, and requiring centuries for their
accomplishment. Gibbon's manner of dealing with the first is always
good, and sometimes consummate, and equal to anything in historical
literature. The thirty-first chapter, with its description of Rome,
soon to fall a prey to the Goths and Alaric, is a masterpiece,
artistic and spacious in the highest degree; though it is unnecessary
to cite particular instances, as nearly every chapter contains
passages of admirable historic power. But the noble flood of narrative
never stops in meditative pause to review the situation, and point out
with pregnant brevity what is happening in the sum total, abstraction
made of all confusing details. Besides the facts of the time, we seek
to have the tendencies of the age brought before us in their flow and
expansion, the filiation of events over long periods deduced in clear
sequence, a synoptical view which is to the mind what a picture is to
the eye. In this respect Gibbon's method leaves not a little to be
desired.
Take for instance two of the most important aspects of the subject
that he treated: the barbarian invasions, and the causes of the
decline and fall of the Roman empire. To the concrete side of both he
has done ample justice. The rational and abstract side of neither has
received the attention from him which it deserved. On the interesting
question of the introduction of the barbarians into the frontier
provinces, and their incorporation into the legions, he never seems to
have quite made up his mind. In the twelfth chapter he calls it a
"great and beneficial plan." Subsequently he calls it a disgraceful
and fatal expedient. He recurs frequently to the subject in isolated
passages, but never collects the facts, into a focus, with a view of
deducing their real meaning. Yet the point is second to none in
importance. Its elucidation throws more light on the fall of Rome than
any other considerations whatever. The question is, Whether Rome was
conquered by the barbarians in the ordinary sense of the word,
conquered. We know that it was not, and Gibbon knew that it was not.
Yet perhaps most people rise from reading his book with an impression
that the empire succumbed to the invasion of the barbarians, as
Carthage, Gaul, and Greece had succumbed to the invasion of the
Romans; that the struggle lay between classic Rome and outside
uncivilised foes; and that after two centuries of hard fighting the
latter were victorious. The fact that the struggle lay between
barbarians, who were within and friendly to the empire, and barbarians
who were without it, and hostile rather to their more fortunate
brethren, than to the empire which employed them, is implicitly
involved in Gibbon's narrative, but it is not explicitly brought out.
Romanised Goths, Vandals, and Franks were the defenders, nearly the
only defenders, of the empire against other tribes and nations who
were not Romanised, and nothing can be more plain than that Gibbon saw
this as well as any one since, but he has not set it forth with
prominence and clearness. With his complete mastery of the subject he
would have done it admirably, if he had assumed the necessary point of
view.
Similarly, with regard to the causes of the fall of the empire. It is
quite evident that he was not at all unconscious of the deep economic
and social vices which undermined the great fabric. Depopulation,
decay of agriculture, fiscal oppression, the general prostration
begotten of despotism--all these sources of the great collapse may be
traced in his text, or his wonderful notes, hinted very often with a
flashing insight which anticipates the most recent inquiries into the
subject. But these considerations are not brought together to a
luminous point, nor made to yield clear and tangible results. They lie
scattered, isolated, and barren over three volumes, and are easily
overlooked. One may say that generalised and synthetic views are
conspicuous by their absence in Gibbon.
But what of that? These reflections, even if they be well founded,
hardly dim the majesty of the _Decline and Fall_. The book is such a
marvel of knowledge at once wide and minute, that even now, after
numbers of labourers have gone over the same ground, with only special
objects in view, small segments of the great circle which Gibbon fills
alone, his word is still one of the weightiest that can be quoted.
Modern research has unquestionably opened out points of view to which
he did not attain. But when it comes to close investigation of any
particular question, we rarely fail to find that he has seen it,
dropped some pregnant hint about it, more valuable than the
dissertations of other men. As Mr. Freeman says, "Whatever else is
read, Gibbon must be read too."