SOURCE: Pla, Maurice. “A Masterpiece of Irony: Edward Gibbon's History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire.¹” Caliban 8 (1972): 55-70.

[In the following essay, Pla argues that Gibbon's frequent use of irony in the Decline and Fall, often directed at Christians, women, and powerful men, offers rich insight into the author and helps elevate the historical work to the level of literature.]

Can there possibly be such a thing as an English Voltaire? Can our caustic, grating ironist have a counterpart in a country which has long been known as the ideal ground for the flowering of the far gentler graces of humour? One notable exception immediately obtrudes itself as one name emerges: Jonathan Swift; and yet after reading the work of one of Swift's contemporaries, Edward Gibbon, and more especially his History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, one would no doubt experience pangs of remorse for having rashly stuck the label, not an inglorious after all, on the father of Gulliver.

Authoritative Gibbonian critics entertain no doubts on that matter. G. M. Young writes: “there is even more of France in him, more of the philosophe than I realized”,² and ungrudgingly grants Gibbon the command of the superior weapon: irony. R. B. Mowat, after pointing out Voltaire's influence on Gibbon, refers to the latter's outlook on life as redolent of Voltaireanism³. We shall first try and take to pieces the mechanisms of Gibbon's irony; we will next turn to examine its deadly effects and review the sad array of its victims; finally, turning from effects to causes, we will endeavour to bring out the underlying motives accounting for Gibbon's so constant use of that weapon.

If humour can be aptly described as a direct emanation of the author's personality, irony is somewhat more elaborate. We can safely expect much elaboration in Gibbon's irony once we know that his History is the fruit of patient labour. Gibbon spent seven years in preparing the materials of his book. Gibbon himself confesses: “three times did I compose the first chapter, twice the second and the third before I was tolerably satisfied with their effect”⁴. The History is no doubt “the fruit of exercise”⁵. Gibbon's irony constituting therefore an altogether sophisticated machinery, the surest way of investigating it is to examine first its simplest processes.

In the most elementary forms of irony, which can be labelled as verbal irony, one or several isolated words are the vehicle of the ironical intention. A mere prefix can even sometimes serve that purpose; thus when “the Governors of Thrace” are said to have “levied an ungenerous tax on the wants of the hungry Barbarians”⁶, or when the Roman Emperor has “the mortification of seeing his troops fly before an inconsiderable detachment of the Barbarians”⁷, Gibbon's reproval or indignation is as it were distanciated, made indirect by the negative forms under which normal behaviour (generous, considerable) is transparent and acts as a set-off.

Another simple way of ironizing is to place side by side two words which jar with each other; such are: “licentious bishops”⁸, “the reign of eunuchs”⁹, where the terms are normally antinomous. The mere collocation of words which do not belong to the same plane can have an explosive effect; thus when we are told that after a battle between Romans and Persians there ensued for the latter “a considerable loss of satraps and elephants,” we cannot but be sensitive to the insulting character of the collocation for the Persian high dignitaries. Gibbon could well have dispensed with administering to them the “coup de grâce” in a murderous afterthought: “… perhaps of equal value in the eyes of their Monarch”¹⁰. Illustrative of the same process is the sentence: “the obnoxious princes were deprived of their titles and noses”¹¹. Sometimes the contrasted antinomous words are separated; the effect then is no less effective for being less immediate: “the Emperor was obliged to consult his safety by a precipitate and ignominious retreat”¹². The words “consult” and “precipitate” are evidently mutually exclusive. The same jarring echoes are to be perceived in the following passage: “As the Great King passed under the walls of Amida, he resolved to try whether the majesty of his presence would not awe the garrison into immediate submission. The sacrilegious insult of a random dart, which glanced against the royal tiara, convinced him of his error; and the indignant monarch …”¹³. The words “Great King”, “majesty”, “monarch”, clash with “insult”; similarly “awe” is contrasted with “sacrilegious”, both words having religious connotations; “random dart” echoes “royal tiara” both on the level of structure and meaning. In other cases the collocation of two words has a less immediate effect; thus such a sentence as: “A cynic philosopher of intrepid sincerity”¹⁴ is richer in implications than could appear at first sight.

All the above instances could well be considered as utilizing the effect of contrast, which is known to be one of the sources of laughter. Indeed it is Bergson's contention that derisive laughter originates in the realization of a discrepancy, of a state of unbalance.

Another mainspring of irony is to be found in indirection. In fact, Gibbon is very often circumlocutory: “Fausta entertained a criminal connection with a slave”¹⁵; “after the full gratification of every military appetite …”¹⁶. The vagueness of the terms used in both cases saves the text from what would have otherwise appeared as unseasonable crudity. Gibbon often uses abstract terms where grossly concrete ones could have been expected: “The camp of the Huns was surprised in the midst of sleep and intemperance”¹⁷; after the sack of Rome, “the Vandals returned with a prosperous navigation to the Port of Carthage”¹⁸. We shall not fail to note in this case and the following ones the use of an almost exclusively Latin vocabulary.

Akin to the above-mentioned devices is the use of words belonging to a higher register than would have been normally required: “The chaste spouses of Christ”¹⁹; “the triumphant sufferers entered into the immediate fruition of eternal bliss, where, in the society of patriarchs, the apostles and the prophets, they reigned with Christ”²⁰. Such a use of overstatement is skilfully combined with that of the reverse process, understatement: “though he was indifferently skilled in the arts of rhetoric …”²¹.

Gibbon, as most ironists do, also excels in feigning candour and naivety, but in such a gross way as to deceive nobody. Rome has just been stormed by the Barbarians and Gibbon turns to the fate of the female population: “The want of youth, or beauty, or chastity, protected the greatest part of the Roman women from the danger of a rape”²². Obviously the word “protected” is somewhat misapplied, particularly in the third case. In the sentences: “the chastity of the Emperor was secured by the debility of his constitution”²³ and “the Roman Emperor confirmed the wavering faith of the Moorish nations”,²⁴, the verbs are similarly misapplied; in the second sentence “confirmed” seems to suggest moral, almost religious persuasion, while everyone guesses that the Emperor resorted to sheer physical coercion. Again, when we are told that “the Romans considered the marriage of cousins german as a species of imperfected incest”²⁵, we are well aware of the voluntary irrelevance of the word “imperfect”, Similarly, when Gibbon describes “the matrons and virgins of Babylon”, who “freely mingled with the men in licentious banquets and gradually and almost completely threw aside the encumbrance of dress”²⁶, we cannot but smile at a similar equivocation around the word “encumbrance”.

This frequent use of indirection adds a touch of slyness and elusiveness to Gibbon's personality. The reader is all the more baffled as the reverse process of abruptness is sometimes resorted to: trying to work out an estimate of the casualties in the battle at Cannae, Gibbon writes: “Livy is somewhat less bloody (than another historian); he slaughters only (so many) horse and (so many) foot”²⁷. This process is also exemplified in Gibbon's epigram against Voltaire, considered as an amateur historian: “Monsieur de Voltaire, unsupported by fact or probability, has generously bestowed the Canary Islands on the Roman Empire”²⁸.

All these forms of verbal irony are prolonged by what one could term “structural” irony; then the ironical message is no longer conveyed in isolated words but is, as it were, diluted in verbal structures.

In the simplest cases the irony can be located in certain word groups; thus in the sentence: “the divine admonitions which, as he declares himself, he frequently received in visions and ecstasies”²⁹, the ironical intention pierces in the redundancy “visions and ecstasies”; Gibbon makes a constant use of those redundant binary structures. Sometimes the irony lies within the limits of an individual clause. The latter may be in the middle of the sentence, in which case it constitutes a sort of parenthesis: “The divine admonitions, which, as he declares himself, he frequently received in visions and ecstasies”³⁰; a military tribunal, or rather scaffold, was erected”³¹; “Valentinian, drawing his sword (the only sword he had ever drawn) plunged it into the heart of the General …”³². Those clauses are as many asides to the reader; the author personally intervenes, thus forsaking his usual elusiveness. The irony then becomes exceptionally ponderous, whether he wants it to voice his scepticism (first quotation), his repressed indignation (second quotation) or his scorn (third quotation).

The “ironical clause” is not always a self-contained parenthesis: “The Emperor, after animating his soldiers, retired into a church at some distance from the field of battle”³³. The effect here is one of anticlimax: a certain foretaste of heroic behaviour had been given by the words “animating his soldiers” and the retirement into the church appears the more cowardly for that.

In most cases, the irony is concentrated at the end of a sentence and often stands in sharp contrast to the mood created in the course of that same sentence: “In the obscure freedom of a private station he indulged his taste for wine and women”³⁴; “The tender Ovid his pathetic, but sometimes unmanly lamentations”³⁵; “The destruction of every object which they wanted strength to remove, or taste to enjoy”³⁶; “The youth of Italy trembled at the sound of a trumpet”³⁷. Gibbon's familiarity with ancient oratory, for which “in cauda venenum” was a stock precept, no doubt accounts for the use of such devices.

The irony can pervade a whole sentence and be closely interwoven in its very texture. Such a sentence will often be built on an antithesis, which can be explicit: during the siege of Rome by the Vandals, “instead of a sally of the Roman youth there issued from the gates the unarmed and venerable procession of the Bishop at the head of the Clergy”³⁸, or implicit: “A select band of the fairest maidens of China was annually devoted to the rude embraces of the Huns”³⁹.

Gibbon does not always disdain the simplest ironical structures; thus when he writes: “his sleep was never clouded by the fumes of indigestion”⁴⁰, we recall the Prioress of The Canterbury Tales, whose refinement provided Chaucer with a set-off against the coarse table manners of the day:

“She leet no morsel from hir lippes falle,
Ne wette hir fingres in hir sauce depe”(41).

A more sophisticated device consists in using a structurally banal, hence apparently harmless sentence as a vehicle for a scathing ironical intention: “The poetical fame of Ausonius condemns the taste of his age”⁴². Sometimes the very rhythm of the sentence contributes to the ironical effect: “The divine admonitions which, as he declares himself, he frequently received in visions and ecstasies”, “the triumphant sufferers entered into the immediate fruition of eternal bliss, where, in the society of the patriarchs, the apostles and the prophets they reigned with Christ”⁴³; here we are unmistakably in presence of a parody of religious sermons. Gibbon's favourite style seems to be “a via media between the dull chronicle and the rhetorical (style)”⁴⁴. “Nurtured on the classics”⁴⁵, he readily resorts to the elaborate style. The meanderings of a full-bodied sentence constitute a choice medium for his ironical intention. Despite his admiration for Tacitus he never acquired an epigrammatic turn of mind. To the latter's highly effective conciseness he always preferred the innuendoes of the “senatorial style”⁴⁶; hence the impression of a “flow of language” the reader cannot fail to experience. He knows, however, how to avoid the pitfall of monotony, thanks to his “mastery of variation and surprise”⁴⁷.

Although one cannot say that Gibbon only relies on formulas, he however frequently falls back on favourite devices which lay him open to the danger of being parodied in his turn, and becoming the object of some adversary's irony. Here is one of the most significant instances: Professor Porson stigmatized the History as the work of “some debauchee, who, having from age, or accident, or excess, survived the practice of lust, still indulged himself in the luxury of speculation”⁴⁸. The triple alternative recalls the one in “The want of youth, or beauty, or chastity …”⁴⁹. The use of “speculation” is also typically Gibbonian (abstract, ethereal word expressing a somewhat base reality). Peter Quennell possibly had in mind that diatribe when he spoke of Gibbon's “speculative salacity”⁵⁰. But this is an isolated instance and Gibbon's mastery of irony sometimes enables him to transcend formulas. There are moments when the baffled reader is left wondering if some shaft has not escaped his scrutiny, if he has or has not caught a glimpse of the author's enigmatic smile. G. M. Young seems to voice this impression when he speaks of “a certain knowingness”⁵¹ and of the “many implications”⁵² to be found in Gibbon's work. Gibbon has no doubt felt that a constant use of irony, however varied its manifestations, would in the long run pall on the reader. One feels that he often curbs his propensity to ironize and some of his reprovals are directly expressed.

Gibbon could handle that redoubtable weapon with exceptional virtuosity; nor did he leave it unused, and numerous and varied were the victims of his murderous shafts.

In the vast gallery of Gibbon's butts, one category is undeniably given the lion's share: the clergy. In fact, one need not open the History to realize that Gibbon's anticlericalism was one of his best marked features. The publication of the work and especially of the first book, which is partly devoted to Primitive Christians, aroused a wave of indignant protest in the ranks of the clergy; and a furious controversy ensued. An important distinction should, however, be made between the Christian religion and the non-Christian ones. If Gibbon is strongly prejudiced against the religious attitude as a whole, he is none the less rather lenient with the second category, and particularly with Paganism. It could well be that he feels a nostalgic hankering after bygone things. One need only recall the scene Gibbon himself considers as the initial spark of his great work: “It was at Rome … as I sat musing amidst the ruins of the Capitol, while the barefooted friars 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”⁵³. There could hardly be a clearer representation of the triumph of Christianity over Paganism. When dealing with the latter, Gibbon's irony softens into humour: “He addressed his prayers to the great Jupiter, who immediately signified, by a clear and manifest omen …”⁵⁴; “Potent herbs and execrable rites … which could extort from the reluctant daemons the secrets of futurity”⁵⁵. Still more remarkable, the irony can be not only totally absent but even replaced by a secret emotional vibration normally irreconcilable with the ironist's mood: “Since the foundation of the City, the genius of Rome, the God Terminus, who guarded the boundaries of the Republic, had never retreated before the sword of a victorious enemy”⁵⁶. Similarly Gibbon can at times evoke the superstitions of backward peoples with astonishing earnestness and a sort of sentimental adherence. The Mahometan religion is equally spared by Gibbon. G. M. Young rightly speaks of “Gibbon's profound instinctive sympathy with Islam”⁵⁷.

But whenever the Christian religion comes to the fore, the mood and tone abruptly change: Rome is besieged by the Vandals: “Instead of a sally of the Roman youth, there issued from the gates an unarmed and venerable procession of the Bishop [Pope Leo] at the head of his clergy”⁵⁸. What is stigmatized here is the unmanliness of that “non muscular” Christianity. Gibbon often entertains strong doubts on the morality of the Clergy, which he openly voices in such phrases as “licentious bishops”⁵⁹ and implies in such as “the chaste spouses of Christ”⁶⁰. He also often questions the moral integrity of the Christians: “the text was guarded from the interpolations of pious fraud”⁶¹; “the divine admonitions which, as he declared himself, he frequently received in visions and ecstasies”⁶², in which sentence the sceptical parenthesis amounts to a charge of bad faith. One must, however, do Gibbon justice and recognise that his feelings towards the Christian religion could have given birth to more violent outbursts, or more poisonous stings. In particularly favourable cases one can even perceive a tinge of humour allaying the irony. One of Gibbon's staunchest opponents in the controversy referred to above, Dr. Watson, was rewarded for his zeal by the granting of a Bishopric, about which happening Gibbon writes: “I dare not boast of making Dr. Watson a Bishop”⁶³.

In true mediaeval fashion, another category finds its place in the host of Gibbon's victims: women. Much like clergymen, they afford easy foils to virile virtues and powers of action: after Attila's death the Huns “gashed their faces and bewailed their valiant leader as he deserved, not with the tears of women but with the blood of warriors”⁶⁴. Feminine lewdness is a recurrent theme in the History: the matrons of Babylon are described as taking the initiative of “[casting] aside the encumbrance of dress”⁶⁵. Women are also presented as a potential menace to men's virile integrity: “The first practice of castration is imputed to the cruel ingenuity of Semiramis”⁶⁶. The age-old theme of the temptress is taken up again by Gibbon, who throws a somewhat crude light on it: he recalls “the strange story of a young man who was chained naked on a bed of flowers, and assaulted by a beautiful and wanton courtesan. He quelled the rising temptation by biting off his tongue”⁶⁷. For once Gibbon will side with the young martyr against the Satanic feminine figure, and no room will be left for irony. But when from victimizers women turn into victims, then the ironical mood sets in again. The number of rapes recorded in the History is considerable, certainly beyond the requirements of an historical chronicle. It does not require great ingenuity to notice that the evocation of the misdeed does not arouse in Gibbon much indignation; the ironical mood in such cases betrays, on the contrary, Gibbon's half-conscious complicity: “Many thousand Romans chosen for some useful or agreeable qualification”⁶⁸. Rape is equally made light of in the following, already quoted passage: “The want of youth, or beauty, or chastity protected the greatest part of the Roman women from the danger of a rape”⁶⁹. If we notice in passing the statistical evidence afforded by this quotation (“greatest part”), we will have no doubts about the poor opinion Gibbon had on women. Peter Quennell was no doubt well entitled to write that “feminine virtue and religious faith were subjects on which Gibbon could seldom resist a jeer”⁷⁰.

Equally subject to Gibbon's ironical onslaughts were most of the high personages he came across in the course of his History. Such irreverence is also traditional and seems to strike its roots in the same tradition as the attacks on clergymen and women. Gibbon's irreligion is partly responsible for such an attitude: all the ancient sovereigns were invested with sacred powers, and Gibbon must have felt gratified by the desecrating, sacrilegious aspect of his derisive moods. He obviously revels in the picturing of those august, forbidding military leaders infamously taking to their heels in the course of disastrous campaigns: “Alaric escaped by the swiftness of his horse”⁷¹; “The Emperor was obliged to consult his safety by a precipitate and ignominious retreat⁷². Stress is usually laid on the indignation felt by the discomfited sovereign: “The Great King, who from an exalted throne beheld the misfortune of his arms, sounded, with reluctant indignation, the signal of the retreat”⁷³. Gibbon's shafts are indiscriminately levelled at Roman and Barbarian leaders. That he intended to attack an eternal figure rather than particular individuals is also made clear by his use of such aphorisms as “the virtues of domestic life, which seldom hold their residence in the palaces of kings”⁷⁴. It seems that effeminate features and sexual impotence constitute blemishes Gibbon likes to deride: “his wife died a virgin; the chastity of the Emperor was secured by the debility of his constitution; feeding poultry became his daily care”⁷⁵. Debauchery is another royal sin Gibbon often dwells on: “In the obscure freedom of a private station, he indulged his taste for wine and women”⁷⁶. One of the rare historical portraits drawn humorously rather than ironically is that of Attila: “He delighted in war … he had a custom of fiercely rolling his eyes”⁷⁷. The detail, because of the implications of the word “custom”, is more picturesque and amusing than terrifying; we feel that Gibbon had an unavowed sympathy for that traditionally monstrous figure. We are confirmed in this view by the subsequent rehabilitation: “he was not inaccessible to pity and was considered by his subjects as a just and indulgent master”⁷⁸.

Gibbon's all-embracing irony does not spare the common run of people; mankind's eternal shortcomings (greed, lust, hypocrisy) are pointed at. It is worth noticing that Gibbon's irony is somewhat softened, to the point of bordering on humour, when he deals with Barbarians. The illustrations are not wanting: Theodosius enlisted “the Iberian, the Arab and the Goth who gazed on each other with mutual astonishment”⁷⁹. What is attacked here is not the bewilderment of the Barbarians, but the indiscriminate unscrupulousness of the Roman Emperor. “A select band of the fairest maidens of China was annually devoted to the rude embraces of the Huns”⁸⁰; “the Vandals returned with a prosperous navigation to the Port of Carthage”⁸¹. Here the author obviously sides with the ravishing and pillaging savages; their very coarseness, so it would seem, appeals to him: “coarse provisions to satisfy the indelicate, but voracious appetite of a Gallic army”⁸². Such a transformation of irony into humour is hardly to be observed elsewhere. We have, however, already witnessed it when Gibbon sets right the errors of two fellow men-of-letters, Voltaire and Livy.

The above considerations make it clear that Gibbon's irony worked along certain well-defined lines and was used in certain specific cases. Now, a search of the reasons for the particular use Gibbon made of irony, and for the tendency he had to level his shafts at favourite victims, could well prove rich in revelations.

Let us first examine his attitude towards religion. Gibbon's hostility has no doubt doctrinal, theoretical bases: as G. M. Young points out, according to Gibbon's thesis, “the rise of Christianity and the fall of the Empire are parallel effects of a general collapse of the intellect under the pressure of a world tyranny”⁸³. Besides, Gibbon was considered as a staunch rationalist; he was even suspected of atheism: “There is even more of France in him, more of the philosophe than I realized”⁸⁴. His turn of mind betrayed leanings towards scepticism; the fact that the sceptic David Hume warmly praised the History is significant enough. When one considers, however, that Gibbon had unmistakable Romantic leanings, one hesitates to classify him as a dry rationalist. His youth was indelibly marked by the seal of religion: “Theology had very early absorbed him”⁸⁵. His successive conversions and re-conversions testify to a dramatic spiritual life. In his mature years, he had therefore affinities with that very special category of anti-religious people known as renegades, of whom Ernest Renan is another remarkable specimen. The crisis he must have undergone seems to have for ever embittered his feelings towards the Christian religion. Macaulay was well aware of that bitterness when he said that “Gibbon wrote of Christianity like a man who had received a personal injury”⁸⁶. In fact, Gibbon seems to have been throughout his life secretly haunted by the religious problem. Then his leniency with the non-Christian religions is not only ascribable to the fascination exerted on him by the East and Islam; it more probably derives from the realization of a common hostility towards Christianity. Besides, the weakness of their doctrinal foundations makes those religions harmless, therefore hardly worth ironizing about.

As regards his attitude toward women, biographical evidence and the information we can derive from his work make it clear that he held a grudge against them. Peter Quennell observes that “Gibbon showed few surface qualities that seemed likely to engage a woman”⁸⁷. And the exaltation of virility, which is one of the recurring themes in his History, could well stem from his misogyny. The abundance of the references to sexual matters testifies to their being an object of constant preoccupation for him; and the History would certainly constitute an abundant quarry for the psycho-analysts.

Moreover, as regards his repeated attacks on men in high positions, it is interesting to consider that Gibbon himself evinced certain public ambitions in the course of his life. He started on a political career and was for a time a member of Parliament; but the poorness of his oratorical gifts proved an obstacle to his political ascension. There is hardly any doubt that Gibbon went out of this struggle for power with a sense that he had not been rewarded according to his deserts. Besides, the unpleasant recollections of his army days may have further contributed to his bitter resentment against the self-sufficiency of those in power.

We shall notice, finally, that Gibbon hardly ever exerts his ironical powers against the lowest categories of people. His description of the African peoples is even completely divested of ironical implications; all he seems to feel is a sort of unimpassioned scorn: “Their rude ignorance has never invented any effectual weapons of defence or of destruction; they appear incapable of forming any extensive plans of government or conquest; and the obvious inferiority of their mental faculties …”⁸⁸. In fact such people can in no way be potential adversaries; they are harmless and the overwhelming sense of his superiority over them literally disarms Gibbon.

When all is said, Gibbon's irony appears as a defensive weapon, but none the less deadly for that. Thus, paradoxically enough, his redoubtable handling of it is a sign of his own vulnerability. He ironizes to dispel his secret fears and give vent to his deep-lying grievances; and the resulting image of him we could derive from those considerations is likely to be rather sombre. Such, in fact, is the common risk run by all great ironists. The constant use of irony leads one to the verge of sheer cynicism (“The two forcible instruments of persuasion, steel and gold”)⁸⁹ at the best of dilettantism. The ironical attitude is essentially negative; it stifles enthusiasm and rules out any earnest approach. It can turn things normally arousing strong emotions into objects of derision: “The birds of prey, who in that age enjoyed very frequent and delicious feasts”⁹⁰. Unlike the humorist, who “claims kinship with his own butts”, and is well aware of our common foibles, the ironist is liable to cut himself off from the community and fall back on his own “self-centred malice”⁹¹. Would then Gibbon's ferocity be only tempered by his urbanity? Can we honestly abide by such a dark estimate?

An unbiassed reading of the History will not fail to throw light on positive sides of Gibbon's personality. Thus the exaltation of virile virtues, for all its connections with misogyny, has a strong flavour of stoicism: “Slaughtered by the swords of the legions, the barbarians disdained to ask for mercy, and … still grasped their weapons in the agonies of death”⁹². Gibbon often voices his undisguised admiration for the Romans' indestructible solidity, best evinced on the battlefields: “… The strength of the heavy legions”⁹³; “the Germans possessed the superiority of strength and stature, the Romans that of discipline and temper”⁹⁴. Unexpectedly enough, Gibbon is sometimes caught on the brink of enthusiasm; the best evidence of that is his use of highly laudatory and emphatic terms: he thus exalts the Huns' “matchless dexterity”, “the incredible speed of their march”⁹⁵, the Scythians' “invincible courage”⁹⁶, “the admirable swiftness and spirit of the Arabian horses”⁹⁷; the Great Wall of China is described as “a stupendous work”⁹⁸. Such an attitude is perhaps to be ascribed to a Rousseauistic appreciation of the coarse, unsophisticated virtues of fairly good savages. In all these cases, however, stress is laid on merely physical qualities and this could well betray a perverted sense of values. But other instances prove that such was not the case with Gibbon; there is no doubt about the author's attitude in such a sentence as: “He consumed his vacant hours in the rural sports of hunting and hawking”⁹⁹. When Gibbon writes: “The destruction of every object which they wanted strength to remove, or taste to enjoy”¹⁰⁰, he unmistakably condemns a form of Philistinism and thus indirectly puts forward a plea for cultural and aesthetic values. He can therefore be acquitted from the charge of pure materialism; similarly the charge of total cynicism, that is to say of amoralism, can be dismissed with a few quotations: “An honourable death as [a] refuge against flight and infamy”¹⁰¹; Gibbon's evident adherence to such an attitude presupposes the acceptance of a code of honour. There can be no doubt either about his condemnation of the “inhuman combats of gladiators [which] polluted for the last time the amphitheatre of Rome”¹⁰². Most of the time, Gibbon personally intervenes in the course of the narrative: “A Gothic soldier was slain by the dagger of an Arab, and the hairy, naked savage, applying his lips to the wound, expressed a horrid delight while he sucked the blood of his vanquished enemy”¹⁰³; with one little but strong word (“horrid”), Gibbon, as it were, humanizes himself.

At other times, one can feel that emotional chords are struck in him: “The secret paths of the woods and mountains were marked with the footsteps of the trembling fugitives …”¹⁰⁴. We must not forget that in Rome Gibbon had been “gently moved by the taste for ruins, the melancholy of decay”¹⁰⁵, which emotions add a Romantic touch to his personality.

Examining Gibbon's attitude towards the individualized characters he came across in the course of his long journey down the centuries, G. M. Young writes: “Julian is the only character in his History for whom Gibbon seems to feel some affection”¹⁰⁶. It is true that Gibbon voices an undisguised admiration for the young emperor whom he describes as “a hero and a sage … [an] extraordinary man”, animated with “the love of virtue and of fame”, and whose death was “a splendid and glorious departure from this world”¹⁰⁷. But Julian is not the only one to be in Gibbon's “good books”. That privilege is shared by a few others. In Books II and III, the emperor Gratian is described as a “valiant and modest youth”¹⁰⁸. Majorian is also held in Gibbon's esteem: “Majorian was anxious to protect the monuments of those ages in which he would have desired and deserved to live”¹⁰⁹. Stilicho is equally praised, though more moderately. Even more laudable is Gibbon's effort at impartiality with a character against whom he could well have been strongly prejudiced: the emperor Constantine; he grants him “the domestic virtues of chastity and temperance” and praises his qualities as a “consummate general”; he adds, however: “but this hero degenerated into a cruel and dissolute monarch”¹¹⁰. Obviously, Gibbon endeavours to give a balanced account of that sovereign's qualities and shortcomings.

Finally, if we do not begrudge Gibbon the gift of humour, we will admit that all those saving graces somewhat take the edge off an otherwise too sharp irony.

In the hands of critics Gibbon's irony could well become a key thanks to which revealing aspects of an otherwise baffling and elusive personality could be laid open. As G. M. Young has aptly remarked, “irony personalizes his History” by enabling him to convey “his psychological appreciations in the narrative itself”¹¹¹. The History is one of the very rare works of its kind where we can almost constantly feel the presence of its author; “he is always there … as a presence that colours every scene¹¹². Of course, the objective reality is considerably refracted, perhaps distorted by the mirror Gibbon holds up for us; but again, the reader of the History is at no moment confronted with a mere record of “things past”, but with a genuine literary achievement.

Notes

1. Preliminary remarks:

   (a) Out of the seven books which constitute the History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire only two (Books II and III) have been utilized in this study.

   (b) The purpose of the italics in the quotations is to emphasize the significant words; none of these italicized forms is to be found in the original text.

   (c) The quotations refer to the 1910 edition of the History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire (J. M. Dent and Sons, London; E. P. Dutton and co inc., New York). Last reprinted: 1954.

   The abbreviation H will be used for the title.

2. G. M. Young, Gibbon (Rupert Hart Davis, London, 1948), p. 8.

3. R. B. Mowat, Gibbon (Arthur Barker, London, 1936), p. 179.

4. Quoted by G. M. Young (op. cit.) p. 172.

5. Ibid, p. 173.

6. H (Vol. III, ch. XXVI, p. 30).

7. H (Vol. II, ch. XVIII, p. 149).

8. H (Vol. II, ch. XVI).

9. H (Vol. II, ch. XIX, p. 176).

10. H (Vol. II, ch. XXIV, p. 438).

11. Quoted by G. M. Young (op. cit., p. 94).

12. H (Vol. II, ch. XVIII, p. 149).

13. H (Vol. II, ch. XVIII, p. 198).

14. H (Vol. II, ch. XXV).

15. H (Vol. II, ch. XVIII, p. 142).

16. H (Vol. II, ch. XXIV, p. 422).

17. H (Vol. III, ch. XXVI, p. 18).

18. H (Vol. III, ch. XXXVI, p. 411).

19. H (vol. II, ch. XVI, p. 26).

20. H (Vol. II, ch. XVI, p. 33).

21. H (Vol. II, ch. XVIII, p. 166).

22. H (Vol. III, ch. XXXI, p. 254).

23. H (Vol. III, ch. XXVII).

24. H (Vol. II, ch. XVIII, p. 174).

25. H (Vol. II, ch. XVIII, p. 154).

26. H (Vol. II, ch. XXIV, p. 426).

27. H (Vol. II).

28. Quoted by G. M. Young (op. cit. p. 82).

29. H (Vol. II, ch. XVI, p. 30).

30. Ibid.

31. H (Vol. II, ch. XVIII, p. 168).

32. Quoted by G. M. Young (op. cit., p. 91).

33. H (Vol. II, ch. XVIII, p. 171).

34. H (Vol. II, ch. XXIV, p. 444).

35. H (Vol. II, ch. XVIII, p. 147).

36. H (Vol. III, ch. XXVI, p. 59).

37. H (Vol. III, ch. XXXV, p. 386).

38. H (Vol. III, ch. XXXVI, p. 411).

39. H (Vol. III, ch. XXVI, pp. 17-18).

40. H (Vol. II, ch. XXII, p. 346).

41. Canterbury Tales: The Prologue, lines 128-129.

42. H (Vol. III, ch. XXVII, p. 98).

43. H (Vol. II, ch. XVI, p. 30 et p. 33).

44. R. B. Mowat (op. cit. p. 173).

45. G. M. Young (op. cit. p. 91).

46. Ibid. (p. 91).

47. Ibid (p. 93).

48. Quoted by Young (op. cit. p. 121).

49. H (Vol. III, ch. XXXI, p. 254).

50. Peter Quennell (Four Portraits, Collins, London, 1965), pp. 116-117.

51. G. M. Young (op. cit. p. 81).

52. Ibid., p. 95.

53. From Gibbon's Memoirs, quoted by R. B. Mowat (op. cit., p. 150).

54. H (Vol. II, ch. XXII, p. 331).

55. H (Vol. II, ch. XXIV).

56. H (Vol. II, ch. XXIV).

57. G. M. Young (op. cit. p. 156).

58. H (Vol. III, ch. XXXVI, p. 411).

59. H (Vol. II, ch. XVI).

60. H (Vol. II, ch. XVI, p. 26).

61. H (Vol. II, ch. XVI, p. 16).

62. H (Vol. II, ch. XVI, p. 30).

63. Quoted by R. B. Mowat (op. cit., p. 182).

64. H (Vol. III, ch. XXXV, p. 401).

65. H (Vol. II, ch. XXIV, p. 426).

66. H (Vol. II, ch. XIX, p. 176).

67. H (Vol. II, ch. XVI, p. 27).

68. H (Vol. III, ch. XXXVI, p. 412).

69. H (Vol. III, ch. XXXI, p. 254).

70. Peter Quennell (op. cit., p. 116).

71. H (Vol. III, ch. XXX, p. 187).

72. H (Vol. II, ch. XVIII, p. 149).

73. H (Vol. II, ch. XVIII, p. 162).

74. H (Vol. III, ch. XXVII, p. 98).

75. H (Vol. III, ch. XXVII).

76. H (Vol. II, ch. XXIV, p. 444).

77. H (Vol. III, ch. XXXIV, p. 346).

78. H (Vol. III, ch. XXXIV, p. 346).

79. H (Vol. III, ch. XXVII, p. 98).

80. H (Vol. III, ch. XXVI, pp. 17-18).

81. H (Vol. III, ch. XXXVI, p. 412).

82. H (Vol. II, ch. XXII, pp. 338-339).

83. G. M. Young (op. cit. pp. 101-102).

84. Ibid, p. 8.

85. P. Quennell (op. cit. p. 85).

86. Quoted by G. M. Young (op. cit., p. 100).

87. P. Quennell (op. cit., p. 90).

88. H (Vol. II, ch. XXV, p. 507).

89. H (Vol. II, ch. XXIV, p. 430).

90. H (Vol. III, ch. XXVI, p. 38)..

91. G. M. Young (op. cit., p. 81).

92. H (Vol. II, ch. XIX).

93. H (Vol. II, ch. XVIII, p. 160).

94. H (Vol. II, ch. XIX, p. 209).

95. H (Vol. III, ch. XXVI, p. 16).

96. H (Vol. III, ch. XXVI, p. 4).

97. H (Vol. III, ch. XXVI, p. 48).

98. H (Vol. III, ch. XXVI, p. 16).

99. H (Vol. II, ch. XVIII, p. 158).

100. H (Vol. III, ch. XXVI, p. 59).

101. H (Vol. III, ch. XXVI, p. 47).

102. H (Vol. III, ch. XXVI).

103. H (Vol. III, ch. XXVI, p. 48).

104. H (Vol. III, ch. XXVI, p. 48).

105. R. B. Mowat (op. cit. p. 170).

106. G. M. Young (op. cit., p. 121).

107. H (Vol. II, ch. XXIV, p. 442).

108. H (Vol. III, ch. XXVI, p. 51).

109. H (Vol. III, ch. XXXVI, p. 426).

110. H (Vol. II, ch. XVIII, p. 133).

111. G. M. Young (op. cit., p. 95).

112. P. Quennell (op. cit., p. 114).