Hello Dear Reader,

It's inauguration time, so this is part 1 of 3 and we'll be talking the fall of the Roman empire. I know these pages are usually devoted to fiction and novelists, and the subject does sound pretty heavy. But once you've read it, there won't be any way for you not to recommend the Penguin Classic The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire (Abridged Edition, by Edward Gibbon, ed. David Womersley, 764 pages) to everybody you know.

Gibbon originally issued his masterpiece in six volumes between 1776 and 1788 just as America was declaring itself a republic. Gibbon lived a typical English bachelor's existence for his time, meaning he knew a few royals (Lord and Lady Sheffield), was unlucky in love, did his best work before fifty-five, and then was dead of a simple post-operative infection at fifty-seven. (Doctors tried to relieve a groin swelling Gibbon described as being "the size of a small child." Ouch.)
As you read him, you learn as much about Gibbon's dry, circumspect worldview as you do about the ancient world. He called his first school, Westminster, "a cavern of fear and sorrow." He knew Voltaire socially. Horace Walpole (The Castle of Otranto) reviewed him. He did a long stint in the military and was an MP twice. The research for his undertaking required mastery of hundreds of untranslated sources in French, Latin, Greek, German, and others. The work covers thirteen centuries of world history exhaustively and mentions, by name, literally thousands of emperors, empresses, generals, popes and bishops, wars and battles, barbarian tribes, victories, defeats, sieges, massacres, assassinations, betrayals, exiles, imprisonments, enforced marriages, political errors, fatal mistakes and collateral damage one incurs while, well, falling. Gibbon didn't really like empires, saying, "There is nothing perhaps more adverse to nature and reason than to hold in obedience remote countries…"
In the intro, Womersley notes that Gibbon's style "el and that is no lie. He comes at things from such a high angle that you will find yourself reading a line five times just to know if he's kidding or not. The Roman empire fell in stages, but in Gibbon's history, it feels like a single thousand-year tribal uprising and revolution, punctuated by dozens of civil skirmishes, coups, and assassinations. First, the Western part of the empire fell when Christians dismantled Paganism and German barbarians and Scythians (Attila the Hun) invaded. Then, the Eastern part fell to Arabian peoples who followed Mahomet (Mohammad). It was finally all over when the "Moslems" or "Musulmans" (Turk”usulmans" (Turks), led by Mahomet, toppled Constantinople in 1453.

Gibbon's story starts in the second century with a happy period of "the five good emperors" who were Nerva, Trajan, Hadrian, and the two Antonines. Hadrian and Trajan were both known to teach sword fighting to the troops. Rome's standing army of 375,000 was not that impressive, but they sometimes coerced groups of barbarians into fighting alongside them. Britain, except for nine Roman colonies, was then divided between 30 tribes. Syria, Phoenicia (Turkey), and Palestine were sometimes combined into a single Syrian territory. All in all, the empire spanned 2,000 miles in width and 3,000 in length. Through the Pagan faith (Gibbon says), "Every virtue, and even vice, acquired its divine representative." The culture was diverse and inclusive except regarding Druids and "the Egyptian superstition" (Isis worship). Also, every Italian was considered a citizen of Rome, and that included 35 tribes. But slaves or "men who endured the weight, without sharing the benefits, of society" were so numerous a single noble might own five to ten thousand. And, though it was possible to be freed, the "traces of a servile origin" might drag your family's fortunes down for four generations. Gibbon thinks the Roman population numbered 120 million, but only seven million were called citizens, and the rest were women, children, or slaves.
This vast people lived in the 1,197 Italian cities covering the region. Apparently, this world was divided badly, confining the arts and luxury to the East and exposing the West to constant war with barbarian tribes. The vast earnings gap between citizens and everyone else was slightly reduced by trade in the luxuries that citizens wanted and the have-nots in surrounding nations could provide. Demand for female ornament brought in gold, silver, pearls, and diamonds but sent Roman cash reserves out of the country. Peace reigned at times, but that only caused Roman society to become weak and decadent and less able to control the monarch which was a full-time job. Gibbon praises the Romans for their "martial nobility," "stubborn common[er]s possessed of arms," and "constitutional assemblies" to keep the aspiring prince in check. But he finds fault with the veto powers Romans granted their executives. He also takes exception to the military leaders who could draft whoever they wished, even citizens, and sell them into slavery if they objected. At one time, Rome did have assemblies of the people with a say in elections, but those were abolished and election oversight went to the senate. Judicial power also rested in their hands but, nonetheless, the real authority of veto power still belonged to the emperor. A wise monarch hid this by insisting they were only enforcing the will of the people.

Gibbon never really says so, but it's shocking how short an emperor's reign could be, how rare was a peaceful transfer of power, and how often monarchs were removed by assassination through a coup. One especially infamous year (238 AD) was the Year of Six Emperors. The emperor's bodyguard unit, the Praetorian Guard, was even known to lose faith in the executive now and then, rise up and kill them. On occasion, two or even three princes dominant in different parts of the empire, put forth by a military faction, claimed to be emperor at the same time. When the empire finally split into East and West, two emperors ruled at once. Gibbon lays blame for the turmoil at the feet of the first true emperor, Augustus, who, coming to power after the murder of Julius Caesar, destroyed the balance of power with a series of sweeping constitutional rewrites. Gibbon's main point about monarchy is, when you put one person in charge, the entire world is just a prison for their enemies. Only hereditary monarchy was worse, but at least it solved the question of who ruled next.
Gibbon describes Rome after Augustus steals the senate's power as "a vast scene of confusion." In the third century, a monster of a man arose from the ranks of the military, able to wrestle and defeat 18 challengers in a row, named Maximin, who seized power when the military murdered Emperor Alexander Severus. Then he emptied the treasuries of all the states for his own use, and then, within 3 years, was murdered along with his son by the Praetorians, on orders from the senate. Two emperors next arose to take Maximin's place -- Maximus and Balbinus. But one day, with the palace empty for a celebration of the Capitoline games, Praetorians stormed in and killed both. Gibbon spends many pages on the eunuchs of the palace who were a separate branch of the ruling class with more power than most noble women, but less than a fully intact man. A few became great and held the highest offices in Rome. But Gibbon keeps returning to the point that the whole system really functioned for the benefit of the army which could wield the violence needed to settle civil uprisings and the Germanic tribes. The Goths to the north, sensing growing weakness and disorder, began to encroach again during Diocletian's reign. He is the emperor who divides the empire into four pieces (The East and Italy and the Danube and the Rhine) under four princes. But as far as the undermining of the Roman way goes, what's about to happen with the tribes is nothing compared to the progress and spread of Christianity -- and that's where Gibbon turns his attention next.

A movie that's definitely worth a look this time is Norman's Rare Guitars which pays homage to lots of great players, and a California institution on its way out, while introducing some amazing new shredders on the block.

For any new readers: My novel, Tania the Revolutionary, is available on Amazon for Kindle and paperback or Barnes & Noble for eBook.

The Fall of the Roman Empire Pt 1

Why Goth and Romance Are Still Taking Over Fiction