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Decline and Fall
ROMAN EMPIRE
HISTORY OF THE DECLINE AND FALL OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE
Edward Gibbon, Esq.
With notes by the Rev. H. H. Milman
Vol. 1
1782 (Written), 1845 (Revised)
http://www.gutenberg.org/files/731/731-h/731-h.htm
Summary & Extracts
Wikipedia Entries - Edward Gibbon (author)
Edward Gibbon
1737 – 1794
English historian and Member of Parliament
The Decline and Fall
known for
- quality and irony of its prose
- use of primary sources
- open criticism of organised religion
Unusually for 18th century:
- Gibbon not content with second-hand accounts when the primary sources were accessible
- But: most of these were drawn from well-known printed editions
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Grandfather, also named Edward
lost all of his assets
result of the South Sea Bubble stock market collapse in 1720
... but regained much of his wealth in time
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Maternal neglect
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Westminster School
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Westminster_School
{ Royal College of St Peter in Westminster }
boarder
independent school within
precincts of Westminster Abbey
earliest recorded evidence of the school dates from 1371
in Westminster Abbey's muniments {land titles records}
buildings now used date back to 11th century
originally part of the Anglo-Saxon Abbey at Westminster
1540
Henry VIII ordered the dissolution of the monasteries in England
personally ensured the School's survival by royal charter
College of St. Peter carried on
with forty "King's Scholars" financed from the royal purse
available to members of the public from across the country,
so long as they could pay their own costs,
rather than private tuition provided to the nobility
Mary I's brief reign
Abbey was reinstated as a Roman Catholic monastery
but the school continued
Elizabeth I
re-founded the School in 1560
1560 is now gen. taken as date school was "founded"
Located primarily in the precincts of
former medieval monastery of Westminster Abbey
Also at school site:
Church House
HQ of the Church of England
Rooftop Ornament:
The phoenix which was placed on the roof of school in the 1950s to commemorate the school's resurgence after World War II.
[comment: phoenix looks a lot like a peacock to me. must be a Persian thing -- ie the mythical bird and the Yezidis peacock]
highest Oxford and Cambridge acceptance
rates of any secondary school or college in the world
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Further education:
Magdalen College, Oxford
enrolled as a gentleman-commoner
Expelled from Oxford for religious subversion [ here ]
[Dodgy Wikipedia can't even publish the truth of a dead author's bio. Got the 'expelled' from Oxford from alternate source.]
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1753
conversion to Roman Catholicism at Oxford
Sent to Switzerland [on expulsion from Oxford]
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Switzerland
reconversion to Protestantism
father threatened to disinherit him, Christmas Day 1754,
re: reconversion to Protestantism
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influence of deist or rationalist theologian Conyers Middleton denied
Gibbon's claim to having been converted by a reading of Middleton is very unlikely
It is claimed:
Gibbon fabricated Middleton story retrospectively in his anxiety about the impact of the French Revolution and Edmund Burke's claim that it was provoked by the French philosophes, so influential on Gibbon.
further "corrupted" by the 'free thinking' deism:
playwright/poet couple David and Lucy Mallet
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1759 - 1770
served on active duty & reserve
South Hampshire militia
1762 deactivation
coinciding with the militia's dispersal
end of Seven Years' War
*must have remained a reservist given 1770 date?
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Father died 1770
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1763 - Grand Tour
Grand Tour (of continental Europe)
included a visit to Rome
Claimed he:
first conceived the idea of composing a history Rome
later extended to the entire empire
incident known as: the "Capitoline vision"
"It was at Rome, on the fifteenth of October 1764, as I sat musing amidst the ruins of the Capitol, while the barefooted fryars were singing Vespers in the temple of Jupiter, that the idea of writing the decline and fall of the City first started to my mind." [Edward Gibbon]
Oxford Dictionary of National Biography
disputes this as:
- "creation of memory" or a "literary invention"
- given that Gibbon journal is undated
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"Ruins of the Forum
looking towards the Capitol, 1742, by Carnaletto"
image source | roberthorvath30.wordpress.com
see also
‘Capitoline Vision’ of Edward Gibbon
https://roberthorvat30.wordpress.com/2013/10/15/the-capitoline-vision-of-edward-gibbon-on-this-day-in-history/
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Other
US Mercantile Empire
Modelled on Roman Empire
US Mimicry
[image source: wikipedia - public domain]
"Capitol"
Latin
associated with Roman temple
to Jupiter
Optimus Maximus on Capitoline Hill
USA
established upon ratification
United States Constitution
formally began: Mar. 1789
New York remained home to Congress
1790 - Residence Act
passed to pave the way for a permanent capital
Philadelphia was chosen as a temporary capital
for ten years (to Dec. 1800)
until capital in Washington, D.C. would be ready
US Capitol
aka called Capitol Hill
in Washington, D.C.
is the seat of the US Congress, the legislative branch of the US
federal govt
original building was completed in the year 1800
subsequently expanded
distinctive neoclassical style and has a white exterior
War of 1812
Capitol was partially burned
by the British - 1814
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Capitol
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1774
initiated a freemason of the Premier Grand Lodge of England
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Became the archetypal back-bencher
benignly "mute" and "indifferent"
support of the Whig ministry invariably automatic
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Decline & Fall well received by public
Rapid & lasting fame
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Medical
extreme case: scrotal swelling, prob. hydrocele testis
- chronic inflammation
- numerous procedures
- last of series, caused
- unremitting peritonitis (inflammation of membrane that lines abdominal cavity)
- inflammation set in and spread
- caused death
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Death
"English giant of the Enlightenment"
died: 12:45 pm, 16 January 1794 - age 56
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Decline & Fall
criticised for scathing view of Christianity
chapters XV and XVI.
... resulted in the banning of the book in several countries
... alleged crime was disrespecting ... character of sacred Christian doctrine, by:
"treat[ing] the Christian church as a phenomenon of general history, not a special case admitting supernatural explanations and disallowing criticism of its adherents"
... the chapters excoriated the church for:
"supplanting in an unnecessarily destructive way the great culture that preceded it" and for "the outrage of [practising] religious intolerance and warfare"
... assumed to be entirely anti-religion
... was supportive of religion to extent that work/history Decline and Fall was not influenced and swayed by official church doctrine
... Christianity chapters are heavily ironical & cutting about religion
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Gibbon verdict on the history of the Middle Ages:
"I have described the triumph of barbarism and religion."
But:
... politically, he aligned himself with the conservative Edmund Burke's rejection of the democratic movements of the time as well as with Burke's dismissal of the "rights of man."
Winston Churchill
"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."
Modelled his writings on that of Edward Gibbon
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edward_Gibbon
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COMMENT
Glad I looked up Edward Gibbon.
His history is a history of place and time, and it touches on significant movements of the period -- which contrast with the Dark Ages that followed the Fall of Rome and are relevant to religion etc.
Churchill
"Democracy is not some harlot in the street," he said in condemning the Greek Communists toward the end of World War II, "to be picked up by some man with a Tommy gun. Democracy is based on reason, a sense of fair play, and freedom and a respect for the rights of other people." [ here]
On the contrary, both Democracy & Religion are the harlots of the beneficiaries of wealth and privilege and are both probably the 'opium of the people' in a sense ... in terms of conditions that involve illusion, at least.
1931 Paris - Opium Den
Skimming the editor's and author's introductions and noting how Decline and Fall was banned in several countries, as it did not preserve the special protections this harlot of privilege and power enjoyed, filled me with disgust.
Very interested in the Fall of the Roman empire, because I see what appears, to me, to be the fall of Europe right now.
Not sure how I'll go with reading Decline and Fall seated at a desktop. It will take me forever.
Drawn to the chapters on Christianity.
Do not understand why the beliefs of a break-away religious sect/cult from the Middle East were adopted by Europe: why this was adopted over one's own traditions.
The worship of a foreign mortal and the blend of foreign religion with pagan religion that resulted is intriguing -- as is the role that religion may have played in the decline of the Roman Empire.
Even today, religions receive special protections. I don't think that should be the case at all. Organised religion deserves no special regard. It is organised fraud perpetuated perpetrated for political ends, and this organisation is an expression of a host of other things that are tied to personal and group identity, psychology and so much more.
What Carl has to say looks interesting. Might check this out before I launch into the Gibbon's chapters on Christianity.
PS
Struggling reading what Marx has to say. Sounds like he's opposed to the old order of the German empire. Struggling with it because each sentence seems to be packed with so much weight. The manner of presenting unfamiliar ideas is also hard to follow. But I guess the more you know the easier that becomes to understand? lol
Might set Marx aside and pop over to visit Christianity destroying the Roman empire. lol
* Even though this book would be outdated, I think it will be an interesting read.
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