Chapter VII (1)

THE FIRST THREE VOLUMES OF THE DECLINE AND FALL.

The historian who is also an artist is exposed to a particular drawback from which his brethren in other fields are exempt. The mere lapse of time destroys the value and even the fidelity of his pictures. In other arts correct colouring and outline remain correct, and if they are combined with imaginative power, age rather enhances than diminishes their worth. But the historian lives under another law. His reproduction of a past age, however full and true it may appear to his contemporaries, appears less and less true to his successors. The way in which he saw things ceases to be satisfactory; we may admit his accuracy, but we add a qualification referring to the time when he wrote, the point of view that he occupied. And we feel that what was accurate for him is no longer accurate for us. This superannuation of historical work is not similar to the superseding of scientific work which is ever going on, and is the capital test of progress. Scientific books become rapidly old-fashioned, because the science to which they refer is in constant growth, and a work on chemistry or biology is out of date by reason of incompleteness or the discovery of unsuspected errors. The scientific side of history, if we allow it to have a scientific side, conforms to this rule, and presents no singularity. Closer inspection of our materials, the employment of the comparative method, occasionally the bringing to light of new authorities--all contribute to an increase of real knowledge, and historical studies in this respect do not differ from other branches of research. But this is not the sole or the chief cause of the renovation and transformation constantly needed in historic work. That depends on the ever-moving standpoint from which the past is regarded, so that society in looking back on its previous history never sees it for long together at quite the same angle, never sees, we may say, quite the same thing. The past changes to us as we move down the stream of time, as a distant mountain changes through the windings of the road on which we travel away from it. To drop figure and use language now becoming familiar, the social organism is in constant growth, and receiving new additions, and each new addition causes us to modify our view of the whole. The historian, in fact, is engaged in the study of an unfinished organism, whose development is constantly presenting him with surprises. It is as if the biologist were suddenly to come upon new and unheard-of species and families which would upset his old classification, or as if the chemist were to find his laws of combination replaced by others which were not only unknown to him, but which were really new and recent in the world. Other inquirers have the whole of the phenomena with which their science is concerned before them, and they may explore them at their leisure. The sociologist has only an instalment, most likely a very small instalment, of the phenomena with which his science is concerned before him. They have not yet happened, are not yet phenomena, and as they do happen and admit of investigation they necessarily lead to constant modification of his views and deductions. Not only does he acquire new knowledge like other inquirers, but he is constantly having the subject-matter from which he derives his knowledge augmented. Even in modern times society has thrown out with much suddenness rapid and unexpected developments, of such scope and volume that contemporaries have often lost self-possession at the sight of them, and wondered if social order could survive. The Reformation and the French Revolution are cases in point. And what a principal part do these two great events always play in any speculations instituted subsequent to them! How easy it is to see whether a writer lived before the Reign of Terror, or after it, from his gait and manner of approaching social inquiries! Is there any reason to suppose that such mutations are now at an end? None. The probability, well nigh a certainty, is that metamorphoses of the social organism are in store for us which will equal, if they do not vastly exceed, anything that the past has offered.

Considerations of this kind need to be kept in view if we would be just in our appreciation of historical writings which have already a certain age. It is impossible that a history composed a century ago should fully satisfy us now; but we must beware of blaming the writer for his supposed or real shortcomings, till we have ascertained how far they arose from his personal inadequacy to his task, and were not the result of his chronological position. It need not be said that this remark does not refer to many books which are called histories, but are really contemporary memoirs and original authorities subservient to history proper. The works of Clarendon and Burnet, for instance, can never lose a certain value on this account. The immortal book which all subsequent generations have agreed to call a possession for ever, is the unapproachable ideal of this class. But neither Thucydides nor Clarendon were historians in the sense in which Gibbon was an historian, that is, engaged in the delineation of a remote epoch by the help of such materials as have escaped the ravages of time. It is historians like Gibbon who are exposed to the particular unhappiness referred to a little way back--that of growing out of date through no fault of their own, but through the changed aspect presented by the past in consequence of the movement which has brought us to the present. But if this is the field of historical disaster, it is also the opportunity of historical genius. In proportion as a writer transcends the special limitations of his time, will "age fail to wither him." That he cannot entirely shake off the fetters which fasten him to his epoch is manifest. But in proportion as his vision is clear, in proportion as he has with singleness of eye striven to draw the past with reverent loyalty, will his bondage to his own time be loosened, and his work will remain faithful work for which due gratitude will not be withheld.

The sudden and rapid expansion of historic studies in the middle of the eighteenth century constitutes one of the great epochs in literature. Up to the year 1750 no great historical work had appeared in any modern language.[11] The instances that seem to make against this remark will be found to confirm it. They consist of memoirs, contemporary documents, in short materials for history, but not history itself. From Froissart and De Comines, or even from the earlier monastic writers to St. Simon (who was just finishing his incomparable Memoirs), history with wide outlook and the conception of social progress and interconnection of events did not exist. Yet history in its simple forms is one of the most spontaneous of human achievements. Stories of mighty deeds, of the prowess and death of heroes, are among the earliest productions of even semi-civilised man--the earliest subjects of epic and lyric verse. But this rudimentary form is never more than biographical. With increasing complexity of social evolution it dies away, and history proper, as distinct from annals and chronicle, does not arise till circumstances allow of general and synthetic views, till societies can be surveyed from a sufficient distance and elevation for their movements to be discerned. Thucydides, Livy, and Tacitus do not appear till Greece and Home have reached their highest point of homogeneous national life. The tardy dawn of history in the modern world was owing to its immense complexity. Materials also were wanting. They gradually emerged out of manuscript all over Europe, during what may be called the great pedant age (1550-1650), under the direction of meritorious antiquaries, Camden, Savile, Duchesne, Gale, and others. Still official documents and state papers were wanting, and had they been at hand would hardly have been used with competence. The national and religious limitations were still too marked and hostile to permit a free survey over the historic field. The eighteenth century, though it opened with a bloody war, was essentially peaceful in spirit: governments made war, but men and nations longed for rest. The increased interest in the past was shown by the publication nearly contemporary of the great historic collections of Rymer (A.D. 1704), Leibnitz (1707), and Muratori (1723). Before the middle of the century the historic muse had abundant oil to feed her lamp. Still the lamp would probably not have been lighted but for the singular pass to which French thought had come.

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 11: Mézeray's great history of France is next to valueless till he reaches the sixteenth century, that was a period bordering on his own. Thuanus deals with contemporary events.]

From the latter years of Louis XIV. till the third quarter of the eighteenth century was all but closed, France had a government at once so weak and wicked, so much below the culture of the people it oppressed, that the better minds of the nation turned away in disgust from their domestic ignominy, and sought consolation in contemplating foreign virtue wherever they thought it was to be found; in short, they became cosmopolitan. The country which has since been the birthplace of Chauvinism, put away national pride almost with passion. But this was not all. The country whose king was called the Eldest Son of the Church, and with which untold pains had been taken to keep it orthodox, had lapsed into such an abhorrence of the Church and of orthodoxy that anything seemed preferable to them in its eyes.

Thus, as if by enchantment, the old barriers disappeared, both national and religious. Man and his fortunes, in all climes and all ages, became topics of intense interest, especially when they tended to degrade by contrast the detested condition of things at home. This was the weak side of historical speculation in France: it was essentially polemical; prompted less by genuine interest in the past than by strong hatred of the present. Of this perturbation note must be taken. But it is none the less true that the disengagement of French thought from the narrow limits of nation and creed produced, as it were in a moment, a lofty conception of history such as subsequent ages may equal, but can hardly surpass.

The influence of French thought was European, and nowhere more beneficial than in England. In other countries it was too despotic, and produced in Germany, at least, Lessing's memorable reaction. But the robust national and political life of England reduced it to a welcome flavouring of our insular temperament. The Scotch, who had a traditional connection with France, were the first importers of the new views. Hume, who had practically grown in the same soil as Voltaire, was only three years behind him in the historic field. The _Age of Louis XIV._ was published in 1751, and the first volume of the _History of England_ in 1754. Hume was no disciple of Voltaire; he simply wrote under the stimulus of the same order of ideas. Robertson, who shortly followed him, no doubt drew direct inspiration from Voltaire, and his weightiest achievement, the View of the State of Europe, prefixed to his _History of Charles V._, was largely influenced, if it was not absolutely suggested, by the _Essay on Manners_. But both Hume and Robertson surpassed their masters, if we allow, as seems right, that the French were their masters. The Scotch writers had no quarrel with their country or their age as the French had. One was a Tory, the other a Whig; and Hume allowed himself to be unworthily affected by party bias in his historical judgment. But neither was tempted to turn history into a covert attack on the condition of things amid which they lived. Hence a calmness and dignity of tone and language, very different from the petulant brilliancy of Voltaire, who is never so happy as when he can make the past look mean and ridiculous, merely because it was the parent of the odious present. But, excellent as were the Scotch historians--Hume, in style nearly perfect; Robertson, admirable for gravity and shrewd sense--they yet left much to be desired. Hume had despatched his five quartos, containing the whole history of England from the Roman period to the Revolution, in nine years. Considering that the subject was new to him when he began, such rapidity made genuine research out of the question. Robertson had the oddest way of consulting his friends as to what subject it would be advisable for him to treat, and was open to proposals from any quarter with exemplary impartiality; this only showed how little the stern conditions of real historic inquiry were appreciated by him. In fact it is not doing them injustice to say that these eminent men were a sort of modern Livies, chiefly occupied with the rhetorical part of their work, and not over inclined to waste their time in ungrateful digging in the deep mines of historic lore. Obviously the place was open for a writer who should unite all the broad spirit of comprehensive survey, with the thorough and minute patience of a Benedictine; whose subject, mellowed by long brooding, should have sought him rather than he it; whose whole previous course of study had been an unconscious preparation for one great effort which was to fill his life. When Gibbon sat down to write his book, the man had been found who united these difficult conditions.

The decline and fall of Rome is the greatest event in history. It occupied a larger portion of the earth's surface, it affected the lives and fortunes of a larger number of human beings, than any other revolution on record. For it was essentially one, though it took centuries to consummate, and though it had for its theatre the civilised world. Great evolutions and catastrophes happened before it, and have happened since, but nothing which can compare with it in volume and mere physical size. Nor was it less morally. The destruction of Rome was not only a destruction of an empire, it was the destruction of a phase of human thought, of a system of human beliefs, of morals, politics, civilisation, as all these had existed in the world for ages. The drama is so vast, the cataclysm so appalling, that even at this day we are hardly removed from it far enough to take it fully in. The mind is oppressed, the imagination flags under the load imposed upon it. The capture and sack of a town one can fairly conceive: the massacre, outrage, the flaming roofs, the desolation. Even the devastation of a province can be approximately reproduced in thought. But what thought can embrace the devastation and destruction of all the civilised portions of Europe, Africa, and Asia? Who can realise a Thirty Years War lasting five hundred years? a devastation of the Palatinate extending through fifteen generations? If we try to insert into the picture, as we undoubtedly should do, the founding of the new, which was going on beside this destruction of the old, the settling down of the barbarian hosts in the conquered provinces, the expansion of the victorious Church, driving paganism from the towns to the country and at last extinguishing it entirely, the effort becomes more difficult than ever. The legend of the Seven Sleepers testifies to the need men felt, even before the tragedy had come to an end, to symbolize in a manageable form the tremendous changes they saw going on around them. But the legend only refers to the changes in religion. The fall of Rome was much more than that. It was the death of the old pagan world and the birth of the new Christian world--the greatest transition in history.

This, and no less than this, is Gibbon's subject.

He has treated it in such a way as even now fills competent judges with something like astonishment. His accuracy, coupled with the extraordinary range of his matter, the variety of his topics, the complexity of his undertaking, the fulness and thoroughness of his knowledge, never failing at any point over the vast field, the ease and mastery with which he lifts the enormous load, are appreciated in proportion to the information and abilities of his critic. One testimonial will suffice. Mr. Freeman says: "That Gibbon should ever be displaced seems impossible. That wonderful man monopolised, so to speak, the historical genius and the historical learning of a whole generation, and left little, indeed, of either for his contemporaries. He remains the one historian of the eighteenth century whom modern research has neither set aside nor threatened to set aside. We may correct and improve from the stores which have been opened since Gibbon's time; we may write again large parts of his story from other and often truer and more wholesome points of view, but the work of Gibbon as a whole, as the encyclopædic history of 1300 years, as the grandest of historical designs, carried out alike with wonderful power and with wonderful accuracy, must ever keep its place. Whatever else is read, Gibbon must be read too."

Gibbon's immense scheme did not unfold itself to him at once: he passed through at least two distinct stages in the conception of his work. The original idea had been confined to the decline and fall of the city of Rome. Before he began to write, this had been expanded to the fall of the empire of the West. The first volume, which we saw him publish in the last chapter, was only an instalment, limited to the accession of Constantine, through a doubt as to how his labours would be received. The two following volumes, published in 1781, completed his primitive plan. Then he paused exactly a year before he resolved to carry on his work to its true end, the taking of Constantinople by the Turks in 1453. The latter portion he achieved in three volumes more, which he gave to the world on his fifty-first birthday, in 1788. Thus the work naturally falls into two equal parts. It will be more convenient to disregard in our remarks the interval of five years which separated the publication of the first volume from its two immediate companions. The first three volumes constitute a whole in themselves, which we will now consider.

From the accession of Commodus, A.D. 180, to the last of the Western Cæsars, A.D. 476, three centuries elapsed. The first date is a real point of departure, the commencement of a new stage of decay in the empire. The second is a mere official record of the final disappearance of a series of phantom sovereigns, whose vanishing was hardly noticed. Between these limits the empire passed from the autumnal calm of the Antonine period, through the dreadful century of anarchy between Pertinax and Diocletian, through the relative peace brought about by Diocletian's reforms, the civil wars of the sons of Constantine, the disastrous defeat of Julian, the calamities of the Gothic war, the short respite under Theodosius, the growing anarchy and misery under his incompetent sons, the three sieges of Rome and its sack by the Goths, the awful appearance of Attila and his Huns, the final submergence of the Western Empire under the barbarians, and the universal ruin which marked the close of the fifth century. This was the temporal side of affairs. On the spiritual, we have the silent occult growth of the early Church, the conversion of Constantine, the tremendous conflict of hostile sects, the heresy of Arius, the final triumph of Athanasius, the spread of monasticism, the extinction of paganism. Antiquity has ended, the middle ages have begun.

Over all this immense field Gibbon moves with a striking attitude of power, which arose from his consciousness of complete preparation. What there was to be known of his subject he felt sure that he knew. His method of treatment is very simple, one might say primitive, but it is very effective. He masters his materials, and then condenses and clarifies them into a broad, well-filled narrative, which is always or nearly always perfectly lucid through his skill in grouping events and characters, and his fine boldness in neglecting chronological sequence for the sake of clearness and unity of action. It is doing the book injustice to consult it only as a work of reference, or even to read it in detached portions. It should be read through, if we would appreciate the art with which the story is told. No part can be fairly judged without regard to the remainder. In fact, Gibbon was much more an artist than perhaps be suspected, and less of a philosophic thinker on history than he would have been willing to allow. His shortcomings in this latter respect will be adverted to presently; we are now considering his merits. And among these the very high one of lofty and vigorous narrative stands pre-eminent. The campaigns of Julian, Belisarius, and Heraclius are painted with a dash and clearness which few civil historians have equalled. His descriptive power is also very great. The picture of Constantinople in the seventeenth chapter is, as the writer of these pages can testify, a wonderful achievement, both for fidelity and brilliancy, coming from a man who had never seen the place.

"If we survey Byzantium in the extent which it acquired with
the august name of Constantinople, the figure of the
imperial city may be represented under that of an unequal
triangle. The obtuse point, which advances towards the east
and the shores of Asia, meets and repels the waves of the
Thracian Bosphorus. The northern side of the city is bounded
by the harbour; and the southern is washed by the Propontis,
or Sea of Marmora. The basis of the triangle is opposed to
the west, and terminates the continent of Europe. But the
admirable form and division of the circumjacent land and
water cannot, without a more ample explanation, be clearly
or sufficiently understood.

"The winding channel through which the waters of the Euxine
flow with rapid and incessant course towards the
Mediterranean received the appellation of Bosphorus, a name
not less celebrated in the history than in the fables of
antiquity. A crowd of temples and of votive altars,
profusely scattered along its steep and woody banks,
attested the unskilfulness, the terrors, and the devotion of
the Grecian navigators, who, after the example of the
Argonauts, explored the dangers of the inhospitable Euxine.
On these banks tradition long preserved the memory of the
palace of Phineus, infested by the obscene Harpies, and of
the sylvan reign of Amycus, who defied the son of Leda to
the combat of the cestus. The straits of the Bosphorus are
terminated by the Cyanean rocks, which, according to the
description of the poets, had once floated on the surface of
the waters, and were destined by the gods to protect the
entrance of the Euxine against the eye of profane curiosity.
From the Cyanean rocks to the point and harbour of Byzantium
the winding length of the Bosphorus extends about sixteen
miles, and its most ordinary breadth may be computed at
about one mile and a half. The _new_ castles of Europe and
Asia are constructed on either continent upon the
foundations of two celebrated temples of Serapis and Jupiter
Urius. The _old_ castles, a work of the Greek emperors,
command the narrowest part of the channel, in a place where
the opposite banks advance within five hundred yards of each
other. These fortresses were destroyed and strengthened by
Mahomet the Second when he meditated the siege of
Constantinople; but the Turkish conqueror was most probably
ignorant that near two thousand years before his reign
Darius had chosen the same situation to connect the two
continents by a bridge of boats. At a small distance from
the old castles we discover the little town of Chrysopolis
or Scutari, which may almost be considered as the Asiatic
suburb of Constantinople. The Bosphorus, as it begins to
open into the Propontis, passes between Byzantium and
Chalcedon. The latter of these two cities was built by the
Greeks a few years before the former, and the blindness of
its founders, who overlooked the superior advantages of the
opposite coast, has been stigmatised by a proverbial
expression of contempt.

"The harbour of Constantinople, which may be considered as
an arm of the Bosphorus, obtained in a very remote period,
the denomination of the _Golden Horn_. The curve which it
describes might be compared to the horn of a stag, or as it
should seem with more propriety, to that of an ox. The
epithet of _golden_ was expressive of the riches which every
wind wafted from the most distant countries into the secure
and capacious port of Constantinople. The river Lycus,
formed by the conflux of two little streams, pours into the
harbour a perpetual supply of fresh water, which serves to
cleanse the bottom and to invite the periodical shoals of
fish to seek their retreat in that convenient recess. As the
vicissitudes of the tides are scarcely felt in those seas,
the constant depth of the harbour allows goods to be landed
on the quays without the assistance of boats, and it has
been observed that in many places the largest vessels may
rest their prows against the houses while their sterns are
floating in the water. From the mouth of the Lycus to that
of the harbour, this arm of the Bosphorus is more than seven
miles in length. The entrance is about five hundred yards
broad, and a strong chain could be occasionally drawn across
it, to guard the port and the city from the attack of an
hostile navy.

"Between the Bosphorus and the Hellespont, the shores of
Europe and Asia receding on either side include the Sea of
Marmora, which was known to the ancients by the denomination
of the Propontis. The navigation from the issue of the
Bosphorus to the entrance of the Hellespont is about one
hundred and twenty miles. Those who steer their westward
course through the middle of the Propontis may at once
descry the highlands of Thrace and Bithynia and never lose
sight of the lofty summit of Mount Olympus, covered with
eternal snows. They leave on the left a deep gulf, at the
bottom of which Nicomedia was seated, the imperial residence
of Diocletian, and they pass the small islands of Cyzicus
and Proconnesus before they cast anchor at Gallipoli, where
the sea which separates Asia from Europe is again contracted
to a narrow channel.

"The geographers, who with the most skilful accuracy have
surveyed the form and extent of the Hellespont, assign about
sixty miles for the winding course and about three miles for
the ordinary breadth of those celebrated straits. But the
narrowest part of the channel is found to the northward of
the old Turkish castles between the cities of Sestos and
Abydos. It was here that the adventurous Leander braved the
passage of the flood for the possession of his mistress. It
was here, likewise, in a place where the distance between
the opposite banks cannot exceed five hundred paces, that
Xerxes imposed a stupendous bridge of boats for the purpose
of transporting into Europe an hundred and seventy myriads
of barbarians. A sea contracted within such narrow limits
may seem but ill to deserve the singular epithet of _broad_,
which Homer, as well as Orpheus, has frequently bestowed on
the Hellespont. But our ideas of greatness are of a relative
nature; the traveller, and especially the poet, who sailed
along the Hellespont, who pursued the windings of the stream
and contemplated the rural scenery which appeared on every
side to terminate the prospect, insensibly lost the
remembrance of the sea, and his fancy painted those
celebrated straits with all the attributes of a mighty river
flowing with a swift current in the midst of a woody and
inland country, and at length through a wide mouth
discharging itself into the Ægean or Archipelago. Ancient
Troy, seated on an eminence at the foot of Mount Ida,
overlooked the mouth of the Hellespont, which scarcely
received an accession of waters from the tribute of those
immortal rivulets the Simois and Scamander. The Grecian camp
had stretched twelve miles along the shore from the Sigæan
to the Rhætian promontory, and the flanks of the army were
guarded by the bravest chiefs who fought under the banners
of Agamemnon. The first of these promontories was occupied
by Achilles with his invincible Myrmidons, and the dauntless
Ajax pitched his tents on the other. After Ajax had fallen a
sacrifice to his disappointed pride and to the ingratitude
of the Greeks, his sepulchre was erected on the ground where
he had defended the navy against the rage of Jove and
Hector, and the citizens of the rising town of Rhætium
celebrated his memory with divine honours. Before
Constantine gave a just preference to the situation of
Byzantium he had conceived the design of erecting the seat
of empire on this celebrated spot, from whence the Romans
derived their fabulous origin. The extensive plain which
lies below ancient Troy towards the Rhætian promontory was
first chosen for his new capital; and though the undertaking
was soon relinquished, the stately remains of unfinished
walls and towers attracted the notice of all who sailed
through the straits of the Hellespont.

"We are at present qualified to view the advantageous
position of Constantinople; which appears to have been
formed by nature for the centre and capital of a great
monarchy. Situated in the forty-first degree of latitude,
the imperial city commanded from her seven hills the
opposite shores of Europe and Asia; the climate was healthy
and temperate; the soil fertile; the harbour secure and
capacious; and the approach on the side of the continent was
of small extent and easy defence. The Bosphorus and the
Hellespont may be considered as the two gates of
Constantinople, and the prince who possesses those important
passages could always shut them against a naval enemy and
open them to the fleets of commerce. The preservation of the
eastern provinces may in some degree be ascribed to the
policy of Constantine, as the barbarians of the Euxine, who
in the preceding age had poured their armaments into the
heart of the Mediterranean, soon desisted from the exercise
of piracy, and despaired of forcing this insurmountable
barrier. When the gates of the Hellespont and Bosphorus were
shut, the capital still enjoyed within their spacious
inclosure every production which could supply the wants or
gratify the luxury of its numerous inhabitants. The
sea-coasts of Thrace and Bithynia, which languish under the
weight of Turkish oppression, still exhibit a rich prospect
of vineyards, of gardens, and of plentiful harvests; and the
Propontis has ever been renowned for an inexhaustible store
of the most exquisite fish that are taken in their stated
seasons without skill and almost without labour. But when
the passages of the straits were thrown open for trade, they
alternately admitted the natural and artificial riches of
the north and south, of the Euxine and the Mediterranean.
Whatever rude commodities were collected in the forests of
Germany and Scythia, and as far as the sources of the Tanais
and Borysthenes; whatsoever was manufactured by the skill of
Europe or Asia, the corn of Egypt, the gems and spices of
the furthest India, were brought by the varying winds into
the port of Constantinople, which for many ages attracted
the commerce of the ancient world.

"The prospect of beauty, of safety, and of wealth united in
a single spot was sufficient to justify the choice of
Constantine. But as some mixture of prodigy and fable has in
every age been supposed to reflect a becoming majesty on the
origin of great cities, the emperor was desirous of
ascribing his resolution not so much to the uncertain
counsels of human policy as to the eternal and infallible
decrees of divine wisdom. In one of his laws he has been
careful to instruct posterity that in obedience to the
commands of God he laid the everlasting foundations of
Constantinople, and though he has not condescended to relate
in what manner the celestial inspiration was communicated to
his mind, the defect of his modest silence has been
liberally supplied by the ingenuity of succeeding writers,
who describe the nocturnal vision which appeared to the
fancy of Constantine as he slept within the walls of
Byzantium. The tutelar genius of the city, a venerable
matron sinking under the weight of years and infirmities,
was suddenly transformed into a blooming maid, whom his own
hands adorned with all the symbols of imperial greatness.
The monarch awoke, interpreted the auspicious omen, and
obeyed without hesitation the will of Heaven. The day which
gave birth to a city or a colony was celebrated by the
Romans with such ceremonies as had been ordained by a
generous superstition: and though Constantine might omit
some rites which savoured too strongly of their pagan
origin, yet he was anxious to leave a deep impression of
hope and respect on the minds of the spectators. On foot,
with a lance in his hand, the emperor himself led the solemn
procession: and directed the line which was traced as the
boundary of the destined capital: till the growing
circumference was observed with astonishment by the
assistants, who at length ventured to observe that he had
already exceeded the most ample measure of a great city. 'I
shall still advance,' replied Constantine, 'till HE, the
invisible Guide who marches before me, thinks proper to
stop.'"

Gibbon proceeds to describe the extent, limits, and edifices of Constantinople. Unfortunately the limits of our space prevent us from giving more than a portion of his brilliant picture.

"In the actual state of the city the palace and gardens of
the Seraglio occupy the eastern promontory, the first of the
seven hills, and cover about one hundred and fifty acres of
our own measure. The seat of Turkish jealousy and despotism
is erected on the foundations of a Grecian republic: but it
may be supposed that the Byzantines were tempted by the
conveniency of the harbour to extend their habitations on
that side beyond the modern limits of the Seraglio. The new
walls of Constantine stretched from the port to the
Propontis across the enlarged breadth of the triangle, at
the distance of fifteen stadia from the ancient
fortifications: and with the city of Byzantium they inclosed
five of the seven hills, which to the eyes of those who
approach Constantinople appear to rise above each other in
beautiful order. About a century after the death of the
founder the new buildings, extending on one side up the
harbour, and on the other the Propontis, already covered the
narrow ridge of the sixth and the broad summit of the
seventh hill. The necessity of protecting those suburbs from
the incessant inroads of the barbarians engaged the younger
Theodosius to surround his capital with an adequate and
permanent inclosure of walls. From the eastern promontory to
the Golden Gate, the extreme length of Constantinople was
above three Roman miles; the circumference measured between
ten and eleven; and the surface might be computed as equal
to about two thousand English acres. It is impossible to
justify the vain and credulous exaggerations of modern
travellers, who have sometimes stretched the limits of
Constantinople over the adjacent villages of the European
and even Asiatic coasts. But the suburbs of Pera and Galata,
though situate beyond the harbour, may deserve to be
considered as a part of the city, and this addition may
perhaps authorise the measure of a Byzantine historian, who
assigns sixteen Greek (about sixteen Roman) miles for the
circumference of his native city. Such an extent may seem
not unworthy of an imperial residence. Yet Constantinople
must yield to Babylon and Thebes, to ancient Rome, to
London, and even to Paris....

"Some estimate may be formed of the expense bestowed with
imperial liberality on Constantinople, by the allowance of
about two millions five hundred thousand pounds for the
construction of the walls, the porticoes, and the aqueducts.
The forests that overshadowed the shores of the Euxine, and
the celebrated quarries of white marble in the little
island of Proconnesus, supplied an inexhaustible stock of
materials ready to be conveyed by the convenience of a short
water carriage to the harbour of Byzantium. A multitude of
labourers and artificers urged the conclusion of the work
with incessant toil, but the impatience of Constantine soon
discovered that in the decline of the arts the skill as well
as the number of his architects bore a very unequal
proportion to the greatness of his design.... The buildings
of the new city were executed by such artificers as the age
of Constantine could afford, but they were decorated by the
hands of the most celebrated masters of the age of Pericles
and Alexander.... By Constantine's command the cities of
Greece and Asia were despoiled of their most valuable
ornaments. The trophies of memorable wars, the objects of
religious veneration, the most finished statues of the gods
and heroes, of the sages and poets of ancient times,
contributed to the splendid triumph of Constantinople.

"... The Circus, or Hippodrome, was a stately building of
about four hundred paces in length and one hundred in
breadth. The space between the two _metæ_, or goals, was
filled with statues and obelisks, and we may still remark a
very singular fragment of antiquity--the bodies of three
serpents twisted into one pillar of brass. Their triple
heads had once supported the golden tripod which, after the
defeat of Xerxes, was consecrated in the temple of Delphi by
the victorious Greeks. The beauty of the Hippodrome has been
long since defaced by the rude hands of the Turkish
conquerors; but, under the similar appellation of Atmeidan,
it still serves as a place of exercise for their horses.
From the throne whence the emperor viewed the Circensian
games a winding staircase descended to the palace, a
magnificent edifice, which scarcely yielded to the residence
of Rome itself, and which, together with the dependent
courts, gardens, and porticoes, covered a considerable
extent of ground upon the banks of the Propontis between the
Hippodrome and the church of St. Sophia. We might likewise
celebrate the baths, which still retained the name of
Zeuxippus, after they had been enriched by the magnificence
of Constantine with lofty columns, various marbles, and
above three score statues of bronze. But we should deviate
from the design of this history if we attempted minutely to
describe the different buildings or quarters of the city....
A particular description, composed about a century after its
foundation, enumerates a capitol or school of learning, a
circus, two theatres, eight public and one hundred and
fifty-three private baths, fifty-two porticoes, five
granaries, eight aqueducts or reservoirs of water, four
spacious halls for the meeting of the senate or courts of
justice, fourteen churches, fourteen palaces, and four
thousand three hundred and eighty-eight houses, which for
their size or beauty deserved to be distinguished from the
multitude of plebeian habitations."

Gibbon's conception of history was that of a spacious panorama, in which a series of tableaux pass in succession before the reader's eye. He adverts but little, far too little, to that side of events which does not strike the visual sense. He rarely generalises or sums up a widely-scattered mass of facts into pregnant synthetic views. But possibly he owes some of the permanence of his fame to this very defect. As soon as ever a writer begins to support a thesis, to prove a point, he runs imminent danger of one-sidedness and partiality in his presentation of events. Gibbon's faithful transcript of the past has neither the merit nor the drawback of generalisation, and he has come in consequence to be regarded as a common mine of authentic facts to which all speculators can resort.

The first volume, which was received with such warm acclamation, is inferior to those that followed. He seems to have been partly aware of this himself, and speaks of the "concise and superficial narrative from Commodus to Alexander." But the whole volume lacks the grasp and easy mastery which distinguish its successors. No doubt the subject-matter was comparatively meagre and ungrateful. The century between Commodus and Diocletian was one long spasm of anarchy and violence, which was, as Niebuhr said, incapable of historical treatment. The obscure confusion of the age is aggravated into almost complete darkness by the wretched materials which alone have survived, and the attempt to found a dignified narrative on such scanty and imperfect authorities was hardly wise. Gibbon would have shown a greater sense of historic proportion if he had passed over this period with a few bold strokes, and summed up with brevity such general results as may be fairly deduced. We may say of the first volume that it was tentative in every way. In it the author not only sounded his public, but he was also trying his instrument, running over the keys in preparatory search for the right note. He strikes it full and clear in the two final chapters on the Early Church; these, whatever objections may be made against them on other grounds, are the real commencement of the Decline and Fall.

From this point onwards he marches with the steady and measured tramp of a Roman legion. His materials improve both in number and quality. The fourth century, though a period of frightful anarchy and disaster if compared to a settled epoch, is a period of relative peace and order when compared to the third century. The fifth was calamitous beyond example; but ecclesiastical history comes to the support of secular history in a way which might have excited more gratitude in Gibbon than it did. From Constantine to Augustulus Gibbon is able to put forth all his strength. His style is less superfine, as his matter becomes more copious; and the more definite cleavage of events brought about by the separation between the Eastern and Western Empires, enables him to display the higher qualities which marked him as an historian.

The merit of his work, it is again necessary to point out, will not be justly estimated unless the considerations suggested at the beginning of this chapter be kept in view. We have to remember that his culture was chiefly French, and that his opinions were those which prevailed in France in the latter half of the eighteenth century. He was the friend of Voltaire, Helvétius, and D'Holbach; that is, of men who regarded the past as one long nightmare of crime, imposture, and folly, instigated by the selfish machinations of kings and priests. A strong infusion of the spirit which animated not only Voltaire's _Essay on Manners_, but certain parts of Hume's _History of England_ might have been expected as a matter of course. It is essentially absent. Gibbon's private opinions may have been what they will, but he has approved his high title to the character of an historian by keeping them well in abeyance. When he turned his eyes to the past and viewed it with intense gaze, he was absorbed in the spectacle, his peculiar prejudices were hushed, he thought only of the object before him and of reproducing it as well as he could. This is not the common opinion, but, nevertheless, a great deal can be said to support it.

It will be as well to take two concrete tests--his treatment of two topics which of all others were most likely to betray him into deviations from historic candour. If he stands these, he may be admitted to stand any less severe. Let them be his account of Julian, and his method of dealing with Christianity.

The snare that was spread by Julian's apostasy for the philosophers of the last century, and their haste to fall into it, are well known. The spectacle of a philosopher on the throne who proclaimed toleration, and contempt for Christianity, was too tempting and too useful controversially to allow of much circumspection in handling it. The odious comparisons it offered were so exactly what was wanted for depreciating the Most Christian king and his courtly Church, that all further inquiry into the apostate's merits seemed useless. Voltaire finds that Julian had all the qualities of Trajan without his defects; all the virtues of Cato without his ill-humour; all that one admires in Julius Cæsar without his vices; he had the continency of Scipio, and was in all ways equal to Marcus Aurelius, the first of men. Nay, more. If he had only lived longer, he would have retarded the fall of the Roman Empire, if he could not arrest it entirely. We here see the length to which "polemical fury" could hurry a man of rare insight. Julian had been a subject of contention for years between the hostile factions. While one party made it a point of honour to prove that he was a monster, warring consciously against the Most High, the other was equally determined to prove that he was a paragon of all virtue, by reason of his enmity to the Christian religion. The deep interest attaching to the pagan reaction in the fourth century, and the social and moral problems it suggests, were perceived by neither side, and it is not difficult to see why they were not. The very word reaction, in its modern sense, will hardly be found in the eighteenth century, and the thing that it expresses was very imperfectly conceived. We, who have been surrounded by reactions, real or supposed, in politics, in religion, in philosophy, recognise an old acquaintance in the efforts of the limited, intense Julian to stem the tide of progress as represented in the Christian Church. It is a fine instance of the way in which the ever-unfolding present is constantly lighting up the past. Julian and his party were the Ultramontanes of their day in matters of religion, and the Romantics in matters of literature. Those radical innovators and reformers, the Christians, were marching from conquest to conquest, over the old faith, making no concealment of their revolutionary aims and intentions to wipe out the past as speedily as possible. The conservatives of those times, after long despising the reformers, passed easily to fearing them and hating them as their success became threatening. "The attachment to paganism," says Neander, "lingered especially in many of the ancient and noble families of Greece and Rome." Old families, or new rich ones who wished to be thought old, would be sure to take up the cause of ancestral wisdom as against modern innovation. Before Julian came to the throne, a pagan reaction was imminent, as Neander points out. Julian himself was a remarkable man, as men of his class usually are. In the breaking up of old modes of belief, as Mill has said, "the most strong-minded and discerning, next to those who head the movement, are generally those who bring up the rear." The energy of his mind and character was quite exceptional, and if we reflect that he only reigned sixteen months, and died in his thirty-second year, we must admit that the mark he has left in history is very surprising. He and his policy are now discussed with entire calm by inquirers of all schools, and sincere Christians like Neander and Dean Milman are as little disposed to attack him with acrimony, as those of a different way of thought are inclined to make him a subject of unlimited panegyric.

Through this difficult subject Gibbon has found his way with a prudence and true insight which extorted admiration, even in his own day. His account of Julian is essentially a modern account. The influence of his private opinions can hardly be traced in the brilliant chapters that he has devoted to the Apostate. He sees through Julian's weaknesses in a way in which Voltaire never saw or cared to see. His pitiful superstition, his huge vanity, his weak affectation are brought out with an incisive clearness and subtle penetration into character which Gibbon was not always so ready to display. At the same time he does full justice to Julian's real merits. And this is perhaps the most striking evidence of his penetration. An error on the side of injustice to Julian is very natural in a man who, having renounced allegiance to Christianity, yet fully realises the futility of attempting to arrest it in the fourth century. A certain intellectual disdain for the reactionary emperor is difficult to avoid. Gibbon surmounts it completely, and he does so, not in consequence of a general conception of the reactionary spirit, as a constantly emerging element in society, but by sheer historical insight, clear vision of the fact before him. It may be added that nowhere is Gibbon's command of vivid narrative seen to greater advantage than in the chapters that he has devoted to Julian. The daring march from Gaul to Illyricum is told with immense spirit; but the account of Julian's final campaign and death in Persia is still better, and can hardly be surpassed. It has every merit of clearness and rapidity, yet is full of dignity, which culminates in this fine passage referring to the night before the emperor received his mortal wound.

"While Julian struggled with the almost insuperable
difficulties of his situation, the silent hours of the night
were still devoted to study and contemplation. Whenever he
closed his eyes in short and interrupted slumbers, his mind
was agitated by painful anxiety; nor can it be thought
surprising that the Genius of the empire should once more
appear before him, covering with a funereal veil his head
and his horn of abundance, and slowly retiring from the
Imperial tent. The monarch started from his couch, and,
stepping forth to refresh his wearied spirits with the
coolness of the midnight air, he beheld a fiery meteor,
which shot athwart the sky and suddenly vanished. Julian was
convinced that he had seen the menacing countenance of the
god of war: the council which he summoned, of Tuscan
Haruspices, unanimously pronounced that he should abstain
from action; but on this occasion necessity and reason were
more prevalent than superstition, and the trumpets sounded
at the break of day."[12]

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 12: It is interesting to compare Gibbon's admirable picture with the harsh original Latin of his authority, Ammianus Marcellinus. "Ipse autem ad sollicitam suspensamque quietem paullisper protractus, cum somno (ut solebat) depulso, ad æmulationem Cæsaris Julii quædam sub pellibus scribens, obscuro noctis altitudine sensus cujusdam philosophi teneretur, vidit squalidius, ut confessus est proximis, speciem illam Genii publici, quam quum ad Augustum surgeret culmen, conspexit in Galliis, velata cum capite cornucopia per aulæa tristius discedentem. Et quamquam ad momentum hæsit, stupore defixus, omni tamen superior metu, ventura decretis cælestibus commendabat; relicto humi strato cubili, adulta jam excitus nocte, et numinibus per sacra depulsoria supplicans, flagrantissimam facem cadenti similem visam, aëris parte sulcata evanuisse existimavit: horroreque perfusus est, ne ita aperte minax Martis adparuerit sidus."--_Amm. Marc._ lib. xxv. cap. 2.]

It will not be so easy to absolve Gibbon from the charge of prejudice in reference to his treatment of the Early Church. It cannot be denied that in the two famous chapters, at least, which concluded his first volume, he adopted a tone which must be pronounced offensive, not only from the Christian point of view, but on the broad ground of historical equity. His preconceived opinions were too strong for him on this occasion, and obstructed his generally clear vision. Yet a distinction must be made. The offensive tone in question is confined to these two chapters. We need not think that it was in consequence of the clamour they raised that he adopted a different style with reference to church matters in his subsequent volumes. A more creditable explanation of his different tone, which will be presently suggested, is at least as probable. In any case, these two chapters remain the chief slur on his historical impartiality, and it is worth while to examine what his offence amounts to.