Latest posts tagged with #DeclineAndFall on Bluesky
and, when the chastity of a queen of France was suspected, three hundred gallant nobles swore, without hesitation, that the infant prince had been actually begotten by her deceased husband.
(1194-1195) #edwardgibbon #declineandfall
Under the empire of Charlemagne, murder was universally punished with death; and the use of capital punishments has been liberally multiplied in the jurisprudence of modern Europe.
(1194) #edwardgibbon #declineandfall
Capital punishment as contagious innovation.
The captive monarch, with his wife and two children, was transported to Orleans, and buried alive in a deep well, by the stern command of the sons of Clovis; whose cruelty might derive some excuse from the maxims and examples of their barbarous age.
(1186) #edwardgibbon #declineandfall
The diligence and affability of their judge rendered him popular, the impartial wisdom of his decrees obtained their voluntary obedience, and the reign of Syagrius over the Franks and Burgundians seemed to revive the original institution of civil society.
(1179) #edwardgibbon #declineandfall
(1177) #edwardgibbon #declineandfall
Your imaginary freedom would be insulted and oppressed by a savage master; and the expulsion of the Romans would be succeeded by the eternal hostilities of the Barbarian conquerors.
(1176) #edwardgibbon #declineandfall #tacitus
Tacitus, paraphrased by Gibbon.
It is for your sake, not our own, that we guard the barrier of the Rhine against the ferocious Germans, who have so often attempted, and who will always desire, to exchange the solitude of their woods and morasses for the wealth and fertility of Gaul.
(1176) #edwardgibbon #declineandfall #tacitus
C’mon America- remove your idiot. Aren’t you humiliated enough?
#criminalenterprise #declineandfall #lategreatusa #mourningthegreatestexperiment
The Arian clergy surpassed, in religious cruelty, the king and his Vandals; but they were incapable of cultivating the spiritual vineyard which they were so desirous to possess.
(1168) #edwardgibbon #declineandfall
They excite the flame which they labor to extinguish; and it soon becomes necessary to chastise the contumacy, as well as the crime, of the offender.
(1167-1168) #edwardgibbon #declineandfall
They might work; but the vanity of spiritual perfection was tempted to disdain the exercise of manual labor, and the industry must be faint and languid which is not excited by the sense of personal interest.
(1155-1156) #edwardgibbon #declineandfall
(1155) #edwardgibbon #declineandfall
(1156 note 37) #edwardgibbon #declineandfall
Socrus Dei esse coepisti. Rufinus, who was justly scandalised, asks his adversary, From what Pagan poet he had stolen an expression so impious and absurd?
(1152 note 19) #edwardgibbon #declineandfall
(Again, this is why you want an edition with the footnotes! It ain’t the same without the dirt.)
Paula yielded to the persuasive eloquence of Jerom; and the profane title of mother-in-law of God tempted that illustrious widow to consecrate the virginity of her daughter Eustochium.
(1151) #edwardgibbon #declineandfall
Next, the pertinent footnote:
“If all the members of my body were changed into tongues, and if all my limbs resounded with a human voice, yet should I be incapable,” &c.
(1149 note 10) #edwardgibbon #declineandfall
So beware the ridiculously turgid exordiums, boys and girls! Make a note for next year!
The stories of Paul, Hilarion, and Malchus, by St. Jerom are admirably told; and the only defect of these pleasing compositions is the want of truth and common sense.
(1149 note 10) #edwardgibbon #declineandfall
Gibbon is beating up on his sources again; but who does it better?
but the Ascetics, who obeyed and abused the rigid precepts of the gospel, were inspired by the savage enthusiasms which represents [sic] man as a criminal and God as a tyrant.
(1147) #edwardgibbon #declineandfall
and the face of the city exhibited the strange contrast of stern cruelty and dissolute intemperance.
(1138) #edwardgibbon #declineandfall
We are ignorant of his motives; but in this obscure period our ignorance extends to the most public and important facts.
(1138 note 73) #edwardgibbon #declineandfall
nor does he appear to have been tormented by such a genius as cannot be amused or occupied unless by the administration of an empire.
(1137) #edwardgibbon #declineandfall
The clemency of the emperor was extorted from his weakness; and Ricimer suspended his ambitious designs, till he had secretly prepared the engines with which he resolved to subvert the throne of Anthemius.
(1137) #edwardgibbon #declineandfall
From the perils which he had escaped, Arvandus imbibed confidence rather than wisdom; and such was the various, though uniform, imprudence of his behaviour that his prosperity must appear much more surprising than his downfall.
(1134) #edwardgibbon #declineandfall
The preceding sentence ain’t bad, either:
In less than seven years the vestiges of the Gothic invasion were almost obliterated, and the city appeared to resume its former splendor and tranquility.
(995) #edwardgibbon #declineandfall
a mighty effort which perhaps can never be repeated, is silently consumed; and every hour that is wasted in negotiation accustoms the enemy to contemplate and examine those hostile terrors which, on their first appearance, he deemed irresistible.
(1131) #edwardgibbon #declineandfall
The monuments of consular, or Imperial, greatness were no longer revered as the immortal glory of the capital; they were only esteemed as an inexhaustible mine of materials, cheaper and more convenient than the distant quarry.
(1119) #edwardgibbon #declineandfall
and the motives of interest that afterwards operated without shame or control were severely checked by the taste and spirit of the emperor Majorian.
(1118-1119) #edwardgibbon #declineandfall
…[W]hen he looked back with unavailing regret on the secure pleasures of his former life, the emperor exclaimed, “O fortunate Damocles, thy reign began and ended with the same dinner”….
(1107) #edwardgibbon #declineandfall
If all the Barbarian conquerors had been annihilated in the same hour, their total destruction would not have restored the empire of the West; and, if Rome still survived, she survived the loss of freedom, of virtue, and of honour.
(1103) #edwardgibbon #declineandfall
and the report may be allowed to prove how seldom the image of that formidable Barbarian was absent from the mind of a Roman emperor.
(1099) #edwardgibbon #declineandfall
