The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire

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

Volume I

• Trajan was ambitious of fame; and as long as mankind shall continue to bestow more liberal applause on their destroyers than on their benefactors, the thirst of military glory will ever be the vice of the most exalted characters.
  • Chapter I

• The terror of the Roman arms added weight and dignity to the moderation of the emperors. They preserved peace by a constant preparation for war; and while justice regulated their conduct, they announced to the nations on their confines, that they were as little disposed to endure, as to offer an injury.
  • Chapter I

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

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

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

• The various modes of worship, which prevailed in the Roman world, were all considered by the people, as equally true; by the philosopher, as equally false; and by the magistrate, as equally useful.
  • Chapter II

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

• The influence of the clergy, in an age of superstition, might be usefully employed to assert the rights of mankind; but so intimate is the connection between the throne and the altar, that the banner of the church has very seldom been seen on the side of the people.
  • Chapter III

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Volume II

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Volume III

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Volume IV

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

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

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

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

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

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

Volume V

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

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

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

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

Volume VI

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

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

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

• By the Venetians, the use of gunpowder was communicated without reproach to the sultans of Egypt and Persia, their allies against the Ottoman power; the secret was soon propagated to the extremities of Asia; and the advantage of the European was confined to his easy victories over the savages of the new world. If we contrast the rapid progress of this mischievous discovery with the slow and laborious advances of reason, science, and the arts of peace, a philosopher, according to his temper, will laugh or weep at the folly of mankind.
  • Chapter LXV

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

About

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

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

External links

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