No, I can't possibly comment on Gibbon; "reckless to consult, impertinent to commend", as was said of a different "damned thick square book". I can just keep a commonplace-book of presently apt quotations.
There are some that particularly need context. The Project Gutenberg edition has at least two sets of editorial footnotes, each with useful added archaeological discoveries; the first is also sputteringly devoted to arguing that Gibbon abused eloquence to make Christianity look less moral and successful than it was. The second editor is mostly interested in defending Gibbon from charges of historical inaccuracy; on the point of evangelicism, he says:
It is idle, it is disingenuous, to deny or to dissemble the early depravations of Christianity, its gradual but rapid departure from its primitive simplicity and purity, still more, from its spirit of universal love. It may be no unsalutary lesson to the Christian world, that this silent, this unavoidable, perhaps, yet fatal change shall have been drawn by an impartial, or even an hostile hand. The Christianity of every age may take warning, lest by its own narrow views, its want of wisdom, and its want of charity, it give the same advantage to the future unfriendly historian, and disparage the cause of true religion.
Where the defender of the faith really goes off the rails is in his complaint that Gibbon does not recognize the slowly-ameliorated condition of slaves in the late Empire as the unavoidable result of Christianity. The second editor cites various authorities on the mixed causes of improvement; among them; but completely spikes the argument in one sentence:
Gibbon, it should be added, was one of the first and most consistent opponents of the African slave-trade.
Contextless quotes, following:
...a degenerate race of princes...
(Try that aloud.)
These disadvantages, which now operate in their fullest extent, were formerly corrected by the labors of a numerous people, and the active protection of a wise government. The hills were clothed with rich beds of artificial mould, the rain was collected in vast cisterns, a supply of fresh water was conveyed by pipes and aqueducts to the dry lands. The breed of cattle was encouraged in those parts which were not adapted for tillage, and almost every spot was compelled to yield some production for the use of the inhabitants.
(A footnote, in an extensive argument over whether Gibbon was wronging Christianity by describing the Middle East as agriculturally poor. I find the argument itself bewildering, and I'm sure the old scholarship has been surpassed; but I like the details of "making two blades of grass grow where one grew before". )
The policy of the emperors and the senate, as far as it concerned religion, was happily seconded by the reflections of the enlightened, and by the habits of the superstitious, part of their subjects. 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. And thus toleration produced not only mutual indulgence, but even religious concord.
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.
In the commonwealths of Athens and Rome, the modest simplicity of private houses announced the equal condition of freedom; whilst the sovereignty of the people was represented in the majestic edifices designed to the public use; nor was this republican spirit totally extinguished by the introduction of wealth and monarchy.
The solitudes of Asia and Africa were once covered with flourishing cities, whose populousness, and even whose existence, was derived from such artificial supplies of a perennial stream of fresh water.
More later. I had to decant some bookmarks because I had screenfuls, on my Palm. It is annoying to lose track of who's writing a given footnote, but on the other hand I'm finding Gibbon easy to absorb in measured little doses.
Project Gutenberg text #731; there's also a HTML version, file 890.
So wrote clew in
History.
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