The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, Vol 6

Title: The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, Vol 6

Author: Edward Gibbon

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

ISBN: 9780679435938

Pages: 684

 

The journey of a lifetime ends with this volume several months after it started with Gibbon observing vespers-chanting friars among the ruins of Rome’ Capitol. It took Gibbon twenty years to research and write this epic piece which took me nine months to complete – only to make a cursory study of the contents. The language is enticing and difficult at the same time. Even now, I can’t claim to have grasped all the nuances the author had cleverly hidden behind and between the lines. But the flowery prose does not hinder Gibbon in evaluating the topic lucidly and making a clear and direct observation of the state of things. This volume contains chapters 57 to 71 and the storyline runs from the Latin conquest of Constantinople and ends with its irrecoverable fall to the Turks. It also includes an analysis of the rise of Mongols, Seljuks and Ottoman Turks, the plight of the city of Rome in the middle ages and the crusades. The growth of the papacy utilizing the state of no sovereigns residing in the city or Italy is also described.

 

This book portrays a pathetic picture of the inroads of Islam to Asia Minor and then to Eastern Europe with its savagery exceeding that of the times. By the eleventh century, Turkish occupation of Anatolia was complete, with their capital situated hardly 100 km away from Constantinople. With the payment of tribute and guaranteeing perpetual servitude, Christians were permitted limited exercise of their religion. But their most holy churches were profaned and bishops were regularly insulted. Gibbon sardonically remarks that ‘many thousand children were marked by the knife of circumcision and many thousand captives were devoted to the service or pleasure of their masters’ (p.31). The sultans then found an easy way to supply a professional military corps to their army. Christian children were forcibly taken away from their parents as slaves and converted to Islam. They were then given a strict training imparting lessons of discipline and valour. Having thus cut their roots off their families, these slaves sometimes astonished their masters in their religious bigotry and attacks over the Christians. The sultans treated the entire Christian community as war booty and demanded a fifth part of them as the sultan’s share. The fifth child of Christian families were snatched away from them and converted to become the special force known as Janissaries in adulthood. The author also narrates the position of Athens under the suffocating yoke of Turkish rule. He remarks that the Athenians walked with supine indifference among the glorious ruins of antiquity and such was the debasement of their character that they were incapable of admiring the genius of their predecessors. The modern language of Athens is the most corrupt and barbarous of the seventy dialects of the vulgar Greek.

 

Muslim fanatics even now claim the Crusades as a gross injustice perpetrated by Christendom on the Islamic kingdoms of the Middle East in the middle ages. It is curious to examine their claims of victimhood from the information provided by this book. The question is whether the Christians were justified in reclaiming their holiest places from sacrilege. We now turn to what the author has to say. Caliph Omar subdued Jerusalem in the seventh century and by the year 1000, three-fourths of the Palestinians had become Muslim. The Fatimite caliph Hakem of Egypt demolished the Church of the Resurrection in Jerusalem to its foundations and interrupted Easter prayers. He also damaged the holiest Church of Holy Sepulchre. Seljuk Turks captured Jerusalem in the eleventh century and their fanaticism alienated and oppressed the Christian pilgrims to the holy land. The Turks insulted the clergy of every sect and the Patriarch was dragged by the hair along the streets and cast into a dungeon to extract a hefty ransom. With this level of humiliation, no person having even a trace of self-respect can continue to watch it impotently and Europe erupted in attack. A new spirit had arisen in Europe of religious chivalry and papal dominion. A nerve was touched of exquisite feeling and the sensation vibrated to the heart of Europe – that’s how Gibbon poetically frames it.

 

There were seven crusades in all, but all except the early ones were poorly motivated and inadequately taken up. The armed ‘pilgrims’ of Europe marched into Palestine with a determination to wrest Jerusalem at any cost or fall a martyr. In a sense, this was the moment when Europe instilled a spirit of ‘jihad’ in the Christian cause. The first crusaders were unprepared for the task they undertook at a moment’s notice. 300,000 of them perished before a single city was rescued from the Turks. Yet, the myriads that survived, marched and pressed forwards were a subject of astonishment to themselves and to the Eastern Greeks. The crusaders’ march through Constantinople alarmed the Eastern Emperor and he heaved a sigh of relief when the last of the troops moved on from his city. But in 1204, the situation became very nasty and they turned against the emperor and sacked Constantinople. This was reclaimed by the Greeks six decades later. The crusades were successful as far as the immediate goals were concerned. They re-took Jerusalem and obtained control of the holiest shrines of Christianity, but Gibbon mockingly concludes that their objective was ‘possessing a tombstone 2000 miles from their country’ (p.116). But the Muslims were relentlessly rampaging against the crusader kingdoms and finally Saladin took it back from the Christians. This book also notes the social implications of the crusades in European society. Feudalism in Europe suffered greatly as a consequence. The estates of the barons were dissipated and their race extinguished in these costly and penniless expeditions. Their poverty unlocked the fetters of the slave and extorted their charters of freedom. The crusades also opened up a lucrative field transporting holy relics to European churches where they were displayed and worshipped. Devotees flocked to such places in large numbers and the churches made a windfall in revenue. These relics included such objects as the true cross, crown of thorns, baby linen of Jesus, the lance, the sponge and the chain of the Passion, the rod of Moses and part of the skull of John the Baptist.

 

The fall of Constantinople is an epoch-making event in history and Gibbon traces the ascent of Turks around the city for nearly a century before they finally decided to take the plunge. Ottomans established their rule around Constantinople and encircled the city. The namesake Greek emperor was forced to serve as their vassal. He paid generous tributes and even sent troop contingents to fight alongside the Ottomans against other Christian kingdoms. They were also made to present their princesses to the Sultan’s harems. Functionally, they were thus similar to Rajputs under Mughals. The property and person of the Christian nobles were not above the frowns of the Sultan. On suspicion of sedition, Sultan Murad commanded Emperor John Palaeologus to blind his own son Andronicus and his infant grandson John, which he meekly carried out. The Ottomans could have taken Constantinople anytime, but they hesitated to do it fearing a possible backlash from the Christian kingdoms that might unite in a second and more formidable crusade. Then came the invasion of Timur which pulverized the Ottomans and their defeated Sultan Bayazid was taken to Samarkand in an animal cage. This put back the fall of Constantinople by fifty years.

 

Curtains fall with the victory of Mehmet II over Constantinople and the perpetual doom of the Greek church. Eastern emperors desperately tried to patch up their religious differences with the western powers under the spiritual guidance of the pope. The nobles openly repudiated their sect and joined the pope in communion. But the dispute over a supernatural concept cannot be resolved by arguments to reason. They can only be settled by conquest, whether physical or spiritual. The eastern clergy forcibly opposed the efforts of union and saw it only as a ruse to involve European Christendom in the former’s fight for survival against the Ottomans. This interaction had other effects such as helping to diffuse the Greek language in western courts and thus smoothing the way to renaissance. The timing was perfect. The Italian soil was prepared for the cultivation of the seeds of knowledge before they were scattered by the Turkish winds. Gibbon provides a detailed review of the sack of Constantinople and the sacrilege of Christian holy places and people that followed it. The Cathedral of St. Sophia was immediately converted to a mosque. He also tells the miserable story of how the victors selected their victims and pressed them into the meanest slavery.

 

This volume ends with a survey of the vicissitudes of papal power from its temporal and spiritual rivals. By the fifteenth century, Pope’s rule was firmly established at Rome. As a personal curiosity, Gibbon investigates the reasons behind the heavy ruin of ancient monuments in Rome. Even though invaders performed a small part in the outcome, the substantial cause is ascribed to the avarice of native Romans who pillaged the material for other buildings from the remains of ancient ones. At the end of the volume and series which took twenty years of the author’s life, Gibbon hopes that he may come up with another series on a suitable topic in future. Unfortunately, it never materialized.

 

The book is highly recommended.

 

Rating: 4 Star

 

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