The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, Vol 5

Title: The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, Vol 5

Author: Edward Gibbon

Publisher: Everyman’s Library, 1993 (First published 1788)

ISBN: 9780679435938

Pages: 662

 

This volume is vast in its geographical and chronological extent. In one giant leap, Gibbon crosses six centuries of time and the great expanse of land from Spain to Afghanistan. The author continues the tale from Heraclius when Islam reared its head in Arabia and stops just short of the Latin conquest of Constantinople in the Fourth Crusade in 1204. The number of monarchs is so large that readers lose track of their pedigree and posterity. It is also the era in which Islam miraculously catapulted itself to the brink of world dominion in the first two centuries of its existence and then its political arm invariably followed the path of decline and fall. Gibbon notes the striking similarities – especially in decline – between the Roman and Islamic empires both of which found its trunk cut off by the arms and weapons of the barbarians. The term ‘barbarian’ should not be confused with the plain dictionary meaning. Gibbon only intends the people residing outside the original pale of the empire. We find that these people faithfully imitate the practices of the citizens and aspire to be the masters of the empire eventually. Another notable feature of this volume is the increase in ferocity of religious wars. The winning side often extends only the two alternatives of death or conversion to the losing side. We also find southern Europe dominated by Muslim kings in this period. The author omits all references to the crusades. Perhaps he reserves it for the final volume. The rise of the Pope as the spiritual as well as temporal power is discernible in this interval which also meant the impossibility of reconciliation between the different sects of Christianity. This volume contains chapters from 47 to 56.

 

Gibbon begins with an analysis of the fissure in Christian society as it spread universally. Since the core beliefs were borrowed from Judaism, Christian Jews found no problem in reconciling themselves with the concept of trinity in which Jesus was retained as human with all attendant vulnerabilities of the flesh. When the new religion was preached to the gentiles and then to Romans, who were steeped in idolatry, the new converts wanted to deify Jesus. This led to severe disputes and controversies. Early Christian sects were more solicitous to explore the nature of Christ rather than obeying his laws. One such theory ascribed to Christ the body of a phantom which seemed to suffer on the cross while the divine spirit, which was a part of the first person of the trinity, remained unperturbed. It was clear that a person who suffered pain and ignominy at death cannot be sold to the pagans who expected their objects of worship to be superhuman. Hence a theory was put forward that specified ‘a substantial, indissoluble and everlasting union of a perfect god with a perfect man, or the second person of the trinity, with a reasonable soul and human flesh’. The fanaticism of the early converts was legendary. An incident in the life of Cyril, hailed as the saint of Alexandria, is given. His accomplices waylaid the female mathematician Hypatia, stripped her naked, dragged to the church and inhumanly butchered her by scraping the flesh from bones with the help of sharp oyster-shells (p.18). “May those who divide Christ be divided with the sword, may they be hewn in pieces, may they be burnt alive” were the charitable wishes of a synod (p.32).

 

Gibbon fast forwards his narrative from Heraclius in 627 to Andronicus in 1204 when Constantinople was conquered by the Latins. 600 years saw the reign of sixty emperors. The succession was rapid and broken and the name of a successful candidate is speedily erased by a more fortunate competitor. The favourites of the soldiers, people, senate, clergy, royal women or eunuchs were alternately clothed with the purple but their end was often contemptible and tragic. Their condition was most pregnant with fear and the least hopeful. The army was licentious without spirit, the nation turbulent without freedom, the barbarians pressed on the monarchy and the loss of the provinces was terminated by the final servitude of the capital. The Muslims invaded from all sides and Syria and Asia Minor were soon under the caliph’s reign. The caliph was also pestered by barbarians belonging to his own religion and these fierce fighters demanded and enjoyed large sums as subsidy from the Greek emperor.

 

While the Eastern Roman empire was declining to the point of downfall, interesting things were happening on the western front. No semblance of an emperor was entertained in Italy and the Frankish and German tribes practiced their own ideas of monarchy. The spectre of Christianity was forever forfeited by the Eastern empire and it eventually settled in the hands of powerful kings like Charlemagne or Frederick. Islam was surging north from their foothold in Spain in a bid to overwhelm the entire continent. Charles Martel stopped their influx with a magnificent victory in the Battle of Tours in 732. Surprisingly, this victory permanently eliminated the Islamic threat. Pepin and Charlemagne were Charles’ descendants and the Popes used these princes to subdue Lombards and deliver Rome from captivity. With the royal residence going out of Italy, the Pope became the absolute ruler of Rome and its surrounding provinces. We read of many Popes who persevered to install a temporal kingdom of their own. Pope Adrian I issued a forged document which conferred the right of administration of Rome as a gift from Emperor Constantine when St. Sylvester had cured him of leprosy with baptismal water. This document is now universally rejected as forgery, but it still forms the foundation of canon law. Gibbon also presents the Normans as a formidable force to reckon with. Likewise, the Scandinavians and Russians also enter the stage at this point.

 

Gibbon is excited about the birth of Islam to the point of partiality. The book includes a long chapter on Mohammed and his life which is presented in an exalting and uncritical manner. This chapter is superfluous to the thread of narrative on Roman history, but makes for interesting reading. This also seems to be the only chapter in which Gibbon blindly repeats secondary sources. The birth of the final prophet of Islam was fortunately placed in the most degenerate and disorderly period of the Romans, Persians and the barbarians of Europe. The author then makes a wry comment that ‘the empires of Trajan or even of Constantine and Charlemagne would have repelled the assaults of the naked Saracens, and the torrent of fanaticism might have been obscurely lost in the sands of Arabia’ (p.331). The spread of Islam is given due importance. Its conquest of Syria, Persia, Egypt, North Africa and Spain materialized in the first few decades after Mohammed’s death. Christianity was in theory tolerated by paying the tribute of Jizya charged per head. But the ground realities were markedly different. Only a century later, bigotry marginalized the Christian communities to numerical irrelevance. The author laments that the northern coast of Africa was the only land in which the light of the Gospel, after a long and perfect establishment, has been totally extinguished (p.424).

 

This volume introduces the hefty load of servitude the Muslim caliphs imposed on their Christian subjects who painfully suffered the indignities of abuse and discrimination. Instead of horses or mules, Christians were condemned to ride on asses, in the manner of women. Their private and public buildings must be smaller. It was their duty to give way in the street or bath even to the meanest Muslim (p.428). The pomp of processions, the sound of church bells or psalmody were prohibited. Infringing on the religious services of Christians, the preachers were forced to include a decent reverence to Islam in their sermons to the laity. Christians were forbidden to convert a Muslim to their religion but the reverse was encouraged and shamelessly incentivized. Gibbon addresses the question of the quick downfall of the caliphate after one or two centuries and unthinkingly gurgles out the traditional Islamic explanation that the latter caliphs deviated from the path of austerity and righteousness set by the prophet and his companions. It is claimed that temporal and spiritual conquest had been the sole occupation of the first caliphs who did not indulge in luxury. However, the Abbasids were after pomp and grandeur. Their stern enthusiasm was softened by time and prosperity. They sought riches in the occupation of industry, fame in the pursuit of literature and happiness in the tranquility of domestic life. This in fact means that when the Muslims turned away from fanaticism to the belief systems of normal people, they lost steam and alienated worldly power.

 

As in the previous volumes, some mention of Gibbon’s white-supremacist and racist references should be pointed out. Introducing the St. Thomas Christians of Kerala, he remarks condescendingly that ‘in arms, in arts and possibly in virtue, they excelled the natives of Hindostan’ (p.63). In a double whammy on Nestorian creed and black people, he claims that the ancient kingdom of Nubia accepted the Monophysite sect, but ‘a metaphorical religion may appear too refined for the capacity of the Negro race: yet a black or a parrot might be taught to repeat the words of the Chalcedonian or Monophysite creed’ (p.78). Then he takes his aim on Asians and hits hard: ‘the arts and genius of history have ever been unknown to the Asiatics; they are ignorant of the laws of criticism; and our monkish chronicles of the same period may be compared to their most popular works, which are never vivified by the spirit of philosophy or freedom’ (p.332). It is in this xenophobic intellectual climate that the British historian Thomas Babington Macaulay blurted out barely half a century later that ‘a single shelf of a good European library was worth the whole native literature of India and Arabia’. It is also indicative of how prejudiced and narrow were the vision of the most legendary scholars of Britain when race was pushed into their consideration.

 

The book is highly recommended.

 

Rating: 4 Star

The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, Vol 4

Title: The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, Vol 4

Author: Edward Gibbon

Publisher: Everyman’s Library, 1993 (First published 1788)

ISBN: 9780679435938

Pages: 598

 

This volume includes chapters 37 to 46, which begins with Zeno’s reign in Constantinople and Clovis’ rise as the dictator of the Franks and ends with the decisive victory of Heraclius over the Persians which left both the Roman and Persian empires desolate and vulnerable to the Islamic caliphate which had just originated contemporaneously. The time period of this volume is from 476 to 628 CE. Gibbon had originally intended to complete the work in three volumes till 476 CE, with the fall of the Western empire. Later he decided to carry it over to the fall of the Eastern empire in 1453. As such, this volume incorporates an introduction by Hugh Trevor-Roper which is much shorter than the one he wrote for the first volume. Trevor-Roper emphasizes Gibbon’s lack of enthusiasm for the Byzantine empire.

 

In Volume 3, Gibbon had described the downward spiral of the empire without going into the mechanics of it. He is much more forthright in this volume and the decay of Rome is ascribed to immoderate greatness. He suggests that instead of enquiring why the Roman empire was destroyed, we should be surprised that it had subsisted for so long. The seeds of degeneration were germinated in the military ranks. The victorious legions acquired the vices of strangers and mercenaries which led them to oppress the freedom of the republic and afterwards to violate the majesty of the rulers. The emperors were reduced to corrupting the military discipline and its fighting spirit sagged. We read about sovereigns trembling at the rebellion of soldiers and utilizing the kingdom’s scarce resources to vainly placate the misbehaving troops. Seldom did the military commanders preside over citizen troops. When barbarians attacked, the citizens and their ruler cowered and sought asylum behind the city’s walls leading to a siege that caused immense pain as it got elongated. When famine conditions become unbearable, they submit to the humiliating terms of the conquerors and a ruthless pillage follows. All wealth that can be found would be taken away and the ablest and fairest inhabitants of both sexes would be forced into slavery. We read about several such episodes.

 

Gibbon alleges that Christianity also had some influence on the decline and fall. It had reached the pinnacle of unquestioned spiritual glory by this time as the one and only faith of the empire. The clergy preached the doctrine of patience and pusillanimity. The last remains of military spirit were buried in monasteries. Monastic life in general and in Egypt and Syria in particular demanded the most severe penances. Sometimes they even abandoned costumes. These destroyed the sensibility of the mind and body. These fanatics were unable of any lively affection for mankind. A cruel, unfeeling temper distinguished the monks of every age and country. Their indifference was inflamed by religious hatred. A large portion of the public and private wealth was consecrated to the specious demands of charity and devotion. Theological discord led to the birth of sects whose internecine conflicts were sometimes bloody and implacable. The attention of the emperors was diverted from military camps to religious synods. The persecuted sects became the secret enemy of their country. All these factors took its toll in varying proportions on the empire’s downfall.

 

A central figure in this stage of Roman history is Emperor Justinian and he is given due recognition in the book. He ruled for 38 years and conveyed a façade of stability to the regime though on a personal level his talents were only mediocre at its best. His name is eclipsed by that of his victorious generals such as Belisarius and Narses who subjugated the rebellious provinces like Africa and Italy. Gibbon comments on his florid style that Justinian was neither beloved in his life nor regretted in his death. Rather than directing the empire’s legions against the enemy, he played one barbarian group against the other – Goths against Vandals, Avars against Lombards. Religious bigotry forced him to close down the philosophic schools of Athens as a permanent rupture with paganism and Greek culture. This act is conventionally taken as the beginning of Dark Ages. As he officially ended the long line of Greek philosophers that extended a millennium before, seven of them escaped to the Persian court of Chosroes. But they were soon disenchanted with the despotism and venality of the Persian court and wanted to come back to Greece. Chosroes mediated a pardon for the seven sages that they should be exempted from the penal laws enacted against pagan subjects. Justinian’s reign also witnessed some traces of the intermingling of social classes. The emperor was probably the first monarch to marry an actress! His wife Theodora was a celebrity at the theatre. She was a bold woman who performed nude scenes on stage. Justinian scrapped the rule prohibiting marriage of patricians with people of low birth and accepted her as an equal and independent colleague on the throne. We read about her stratagems to concentrate power in her hands and to destroy her enemies, sometimes physically.

 

This volume includes a survey of Roman jurisprudence and law codes that existed at the time of Justinian. Some curious aspects of the Roman law are elucidated by Gibbon and we see in them the height of patriarchy at its invasive best. The father was perpetually dominant over his offspring. An adult son can enjoy the privileges of a citizen in public, but at home he was the personal property of his father. He could even be sold as a slave and only with the third sale would he be relieved of his filial obligations. The patriarch possessed the power of life and death over his children. When Justinian ascended the throne, the reform of Roman jurisprudence was long overdue. In the space of ten centuries, the infinite variety of laws and legal opinions had filled many thousand volumes, which no one could procure or study in any detail. Justinian appointed seventeen lawyers with Tribonian at their head to exercise an absolute jurisdiction over the works of their predecessors and to come up with an updated code of law. The modern Common Law is based on Justinian’s code.

 

Volume 4 ends at a potent stage in which profound changes are in the air. The Romans and Persians, the two most powerful empires in the world at that time, are locked in a mortal combat which would thoroughly exhaust the former and would prove fatal for the latter. Heraclius was on the Roman throne. He was attacked from the European side by Avars on Persian behest and from the Asian side by Persians under Chosroes II. The Persian emperor had a dream run in the beginning like his ancestor Darius did more than a millennium ago and this time they conquered Egypt and Carthage. Roman empire was reduced to the walls of Constantinople and the remnants of Greece, Italy and Africa. Christians were persecuted by the Zoroastrians. Heraclius made an unbelievable comeback and chased Chosroes to the gates of his own palace at Ctesiphon. In 627, at the nadir of defeat, Chosroes was usurped by his son, but he could not safely keep the throne which was ascended by nine kings in four years. It was this emaciated Persian Empire that fell victim to the Islamic thrust from Arabia, leading one to wonder how history would have run differently had the two great empires were on more friendly terms. We read about Prophet Mohammed’s epistle to Chosroes exhorting him to embrace Islam and the emperor tearing away the letter in disgust.

 

The scholar in Gibbon laments that the commerce between Rome and China brought silk instead of printing which was already in existence there. Great works of Rome could have been preserved in that way. Writing in parchment ran the tedious task of re-copying every few centuries and thus making the text vulnerable to errors or modifications by the copyists. It is amusing to note occasional eruptions of colonial pride or even blatant racism in Gibbon’s text which was not at all offensive to the public sentiment in his time. Regarding the people of Colchis he says, “The curled hair and swarthy complexion of Africa no longer disfigure the most perfect of the human race” (p.350). On another occasion he is more blunt: “The hand of nature has flattened the noses of the Negroes, covered their heads with shaggy wool and tinged their skin with inherent and indelible blackness” (p.362).

 

The book is highly recommended.

Rating: 4 Star

 

The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, Vol 3

Title: The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, Vol 3

Author: Edward Gibbon

Publisher: Everyman’s Library, 1993 (First published 1788)

ISBN: 9781857150957

Pages: 556

 

At the end of the third volume, we stand at the desolate pavements of Rome whose claims and privileges as the capital of the Western empire were cruelly ripped off by the terrible arms of the barbarians. This volume includes chapters 26 to 36, which begins narration with the ascent of Gratian, successor of Valentinian I, in 367 CE and ends with the deposing of Romulus in 476 CE in which year the Germanic prince Odoacer ends the royal line and starts ruling in his own name. This century saw not merely the eclipse of the western half, but the growth of barbarians first as servants, then allies and finally masters of the empire. At the height of the empire’s growth, a vast multitude of people with all possible variations of culture came under its ambit. The citizens and officials of the metropolitan state then indulged in luxury and leisure, leaving the hard areas of governance, including waging wars against neighbours, to trusted servants who happen to be those very same barbarians who had been defeated and tamed only a few decades back. Over time, the barbarians learn the skills of their masters and excel on the military front. The empire is then never safe from the neighbours or their mercenaries in the empire’s own legions who are ironically tasked with the duty to protect its borders. We read about Rome being sacked many times in this period, beginning with Alaric in 410 CE. We also see in the successful spread of the barbarians the germination of the future nations of Europe. At the end of this volume, the Western Empire is extinguished for all practical purposes and the Eastern half begins its precarious existence till 1453 CE.

 

Since Rome’s eclipse took place at the behest of the barbarians, Gibbon starts the volume with a survey of the nomadic way of life. Scythians and Tartars are taken as the examples to identify a common framework on which the society is organized. The camp, and not the soil, is the native country of the genuine Tartar. Within the precincts of the camp, his family, companions and property were always included. This helps the nomad to surround himself with the objects which are dear and valuable to him even in the most distant marches. Their migrations were in search of a more plentiful subsistence or a less formidable enemy. Agriculture was not widely practiced by the nomads, making pastoral life the preferred career that was undoubtedly ideal as compared to farming or manufactures. The Tartars assigned their captives to servile and assiduous duties. The shepherd’s leisure was devoted to hunting either for killing or to tame and train the strong and serviceable breed of horses.

 

The author is usually harsh on religious practices and worship which do not benefit the society. By the time Volume 3 starts, Christianity had become the religion of the emperor and most of the aristocracy.After paganism was subdued, fanatics among the Christian clergy targeted heretical sects among their own co-religionists. For the next century we see persecution and counter persecutions by the Arians and Orthodox/Catholic Christianity. The major schism of the Christian faith which we observe today had not come into being. Emperor Theodosius inaugurated the era of persecution of heretic Christian sects by the state with the declared aim to root out Arian heresy. The heretical teachers were excluded from the privileges and emoluments so liberally granted to Orthodox clergy. Prohibition of building places of worship was also in place. On the practice of religion involving mysteries and miracles, the old customs took on a new form. The progress of Christianity had silenced the oracles of Delphi and Dodona. In their stead, Christian monks turned to prophesy. John of Lycopolis in Egypt dwelt for fifty years on the summit of a lofty mountain in a crude cell. He never opened the door and lived without seeing the face of a woman and without tasting any food that was prepared by fire or any human art. Five days of the week he spent on prayer and on Saturdays and Sundays he opened a small window and gave audience to the crowd of supplicants. Paganism’s downfall is linked to the lack of organisation and concerted action. The obstinate zeal to stand by their gods was not congenial to the loose and careless temper of polytheism. The violent and repeated strokes of the Orthodox princes were broken only by the soft and yielding substance and ready obedience of paganism. Instead of asserting or maintaining the superiority of their gods, they desisted with a ‘plaintive murmur’ from the use of those sacred rites which their sovereign had condemned. Chapter 28 is an enlightening piece on how Christianity overwhelmed the traditional religion which provides some illuminating lessons on what happened in some parts of India from the modern representatives of the same religion. So rapid was the fall of paganism that only 28 years after the death of Theodosius, its minutest vestiges were no longer visible.

 

We have seen fortune’s wheel turn to transform Christianity from the role of the persecuted to that of the religion of the emperor. With this advent of spiritual power, clergy began to intervene in civil affairs of the state over which they had no moral or sacerdotal duty or obligation. Ambrose was the archbishop of Milan who was greatly revered by the flock as well as Emperor Theodosius who afforded every civil measure of the government to exalt the position of the bishop. But Ambrose was a fanatic too who claimed that the toleration accorded to the Jewish community in itself was a persecution of the Christian religion. The birth of antisemitism thus occurred in the Roman empire. Ambrose boldly intervened in political disputes and succession struggles also. When Eugenius usurped the Western throne by killing young Valentinian, Ambrose stoutly denied him the glories of sovereignty. He rejected the gifts of Eugenius, declined his correspondence and withdrew from Milan till the usurper was killed by Theodosius in battle.

 

So, what caused the downfall of Rome and the victory of their barbarian neighbours? Gibbon does not disclose the answer in a simple sentence or paragraph or even a chapter, but his idea permeates the book which become legible once the reader applies his mind to look at the direction various hints are pointing to. The loss of martial spirit was the single reason caused by enervation that set in following a life of luxury and well-regulated freedom. The more secure and established the rule of law, the less likely that the citizens care to take up arms, be it for the empire or for their own safety. The barbarians too readily succumbed to the mentally corrosive indulgence of civilization over time. But the empire slowly lost its power to diffuse its culture and enroll more of them as citizens before they came in hordes to overwhelm the metropolis. Pusillanimous indolence and relaxation of discipline accelerated the downfall. The citizen soldiers complained about the weight of armour and obtained permission for laying aside their cuirasses and helmets. This made them very vulnerable to archers in battle which was the specialty of barbarians such as the Goths, Huns and Alani. The emperors could not even enforce discipline and punishment over those barbarians recruited for imperial service. Alaric the Goth invaded the province of Greece and robbed the citizens of their riches, but he was quickly forgiven with impunity and was made the master-general of Illyricum and king of the Visigoths by the Emperor of the East.

 

The sack of Rome in 410 CE by Alaric is graphically described. Even though Rome was not the centre of the Sovereign’s residence, it still commanded great respect in the whole of the empire. The life inside the city on the face of the long siege prior to its capture is given special attention. The description of the enormous wealth accumulated in the city over the ages deeply impresses the readers of the high level of trade and commerce. The nominal emperor watched the proceedings from Ravenna, situated on the other side of Italy’s long coast. However, the Goths of Alaric were intent only to negotiate a treaty with the emperor rather than usurping him. Once this was achieved, they cheerfully vacated Rome with their captured treasures and entered into imperial service. In fact, the barbarians were in de facto total control of Italy and the provinces when the Western empire was finally extinguished.

 

We read about the great pioneers of Christian spirituality in this volume with the likes of Ambrose of Milan, Martin of Tours, John Chrysostom of Antioch, Leo of Rome and several others. All of them came into contact with the empire and either got persecuted or was offered the most reverent submission of the ruler. The Arian sect still exerted its defiant influence, often at the irritation of the Orthodox/Catholic faith. Gibbon’s treatment of the Mongols presents an amusing fact to Indian readers. While narrating the upheaval and influx of barbarian hordes, the Mongols play a prominent role, but Gibbon calls them Moguls which in the strictest sense must be addressed to the Muslim dynasty that ruled India for two centuries and claimed their descent from the Mongols. In the eighteenth century when this book was first published, both these terms must have seemed ambiguous to scholars.

 

The book is highly recommended.

Rating: 4 Star