Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Vol. 1, The
Edward Gibbon
Number of quotes: 12
Book ID: 320 Page: 50
Section: 1A
The vanquished nations, blended into one great people, resigned the hope, nay even the wish, of resuming their independence, and scarcely considered their own existence as distinct from the existence of Rome.
Quote ID: 8185
Time Periods: 12
Book ID: 320 Page: 88
Section: 3B
The two Antonines (for it is of them that we are now speaking) governed the Roman world forty-two years, with the same invariable spirit of wisdom and virtue.
Quote ID: 8186
Time Periods: 2
Book ID: 320 Page: 90
Section: 3B
If a man were called to fix the period in the history of the world, during which the condition of the human race was most happy and prosperous, he would, without hesitation, name that which elapsed from the death of Domitian to the accession of Commodus. The vast extent of the Roman empire was governed by absolute power, under the guidance of virtue and wisdom.
Quote ID: 8187
Time Periods: 2
Book ID: 320 Page: 355/356
Section: 4B,3B2
*John’s note: With the election of the senator Tacitius to be emperor, and then his sudden death.*
Circular epistles were sent, without delay, to all the principal cities of the empire – Treves, Milan, Aquileia, Thessalonica, Corinth, Athens, Antioch, Alexandria, and Carthage – to claim their obedience, and to inform them of the happy revolution which had restored the Roman senate to its ancient dignity. Two of these epistles are still extant. We likewise possess two very singular fragments of the private correspondence of the senators on this occasion. They discover the most excessive joy and the most unbounded hopes. ‘Cast away your indolence,’ it is thus that one of the senators addresses his friend, ‘emerge from your retirements of Baiae and Puteoli. Give yourself to the city, to the senate. Rome flourishes, the whole republic flourishes. Thanks to the Roman army, to an army truly Roman, at length we have recovered our just authority, the end of all our desires. We hear appeals. We appoint proconsuls, we create emperors; perhaps, too, we may restrain them – to the wise a word is sufficient.’{1} These lofty expectations were, however, soon disappointed; nor, indeed, was it possible that the armies and the provinces should long obey the luxurious and unwarlike nobles of Rome. On the slightest touch the unsupported fabric of their pride and power fell to the ground. The expiring senate displayed a sudden lustre, blazed for a moment, and was extinguished for ever.
Quote ID: 9030
Time Periods: 3
Book ID: 320 Page: 416
Section: 1A,3B
In the eyes of posterity, this triumph is remarkable by a distinction of a less honourable kind. It was the last that Rome ever beheld. Soon after this period the emperors ceased to vanquish, and Rome ceased to be the capital of the empire.John’s note: A.D. 302.
Ppl still guessing about the end.
Quote ID: 7724
Time Periods: 14
Book ID: 320 Page: 416
Section: 2E3
The spot on which Rome was founded had been consecrated by ancient ceremonies and imaginary miracles. The presence of some god, or the memory of some hero, seemed to animate every part of the city, and the empire of the world had been promised to the Capitol.² The native Romans felt and confessed the power of this agreeable illusion. It was derived from their ancestors, had grown up with their earliest habits of life, and was protected, in some measure, by the opinion of political utility.….
² Livy gives us a speech of Camillus on that subject (v. 51-54), full of eloquence and sensibility, in opposition to a design of removing the seat of government from Rome to the neighboring city of Veii.
Quote ID: 7725
Time Periods: 0
Book ID: 320 Page: 418/403
Section: 3B
The dislike expressed by Diocletian towards Rome and Roman freedom was not the effect of momentary caprice, but the result of the most artful policy. That crafty prince had framed a new system of Imperial government, which was afterwards competed by the family of Constantine; and as the image of the old constitution was religiously preserved in the senate, he resolved to deprive that order of its small remains of power and consideration.John’s note: Add note marked on page 403.
….
The reduction of Egypt was immediately followed by the Persian war. It was reserved for the reign of Diocletian to vanquish that powerful nation, and to extort a confession from the successors of Artaxerxes of the superior majesty of the Roman empire.
Quote ID: 7726
Time Periods: 34
Book ID: 320 Page: 420
Section: 3B
The senate of Rome, losing all connection with the Imperial court and the actual constitution, was left a venerable but useless monument of antiquity on the Capitoline hill.
Quote ID: 7728
Time Periods: 1
Book ID: 320 Page: 421
Section: 2C
Even the attributes, or at least the titles, of the DIVINITY were usurped by Diocletian and Maximian, who transmitted them to a succession of Christian emperors.²
Quote ID: 7729
Time Periods: 3
Book ID: 320 Page: 422
Section: 3B
The pride, or rather the policy, of Diocletian, engaged that artful prince to introduce the stately magnificence of the court of Persia.¹ He ventured to assume the diadem, an ornament detested by the Romans as the odious ensign of royalty, and the use of which had been considered as the most desperate act of the madness of Caligula.
Quote ID: 7730
Time Periods: 34
Book ID: 320 Page: 422
Section: 3B
When a subject was at length admitted to the Imperial presence, he was obliged, whatever might be his rank, to fall prostrate on the ground, and to adore, according to the eastern fashion, the divinity of his lord and master.²
Quote ID: 7731
Time Periods: 34
Book ID: 320 Page: 424/425
Section: 3C
According to his religion and situation, each writer chooses either Diocletian, or Constantine, or Valens, or Theodosius, for the object of his invectives; but they unanimously agree in representing the burden of the public impositions, and particularly the land-tax and capitation, as the intolerable and increasing grievance of their own times. From such a concurrence, an impartial historian, who is obliged to extract truth from satire, as well as from panegyric, will be inclined to divide the blame among the princes whom they accuse, and to ascribe their exactions much less to their personal vices than to the uniform system of their administration.
Quote ID: 7732
Time Periods: 4
End of quotes