Gibbon had always been interested in the surviving remains of Roman structures in Rome, and they were important in shaping his ideas: 'I can never forget nor express the strong emotions which agitated my mind as I first approached and entered the eternal City’ (Gibbon 1966:134). 'After a sleepless night [Gibbon] trod with a lofty step the ruins of the Forum; each memorable spot where Romulus stood, or Tully spoke, or Caesar fell was at once present to [his] eye’ (ibid.). This was also the location in which Gibbon says that he first got the idea for writing his work: 'it was among the ruins of the Capitol, that I first conceived the idea’ (DF VI: 1085). Gibbon took an interest in the remains themselves, not devoting himself entirely to the classical sources; indeed his first intention was not to write about the Roman Empire as a whole but simply the 'decay of the City’ (1966:136). At this time there were many antiquarian and archaeological studies connected with the Roman period and there was a surge in the popularity of classical antiquities, especially amongst the British aristocracy; in the words of Moatti (1989: 59), 'Rome and its remains were in everyone’s heart’.11 There was an emphasis placed on classics in education, with knowledge of Latin becoming a symbol of both erudition and class distinction (Farrell 2001: 97). On the Grand Tour, travellers equated themselves with the Roman elite (J. Black 1985:235).
Stukeley’s society, the Equites Romani (Society of the Roman Knights), was founded in 1722 and the Society of Dilettanti was founded in 1732. Members visited sites, compared findings, discussed future projects, adopted Roman names, and organised Roman-style banquets (Ayres 1997: 61,92), as if continuing the Roman lifestyle and civilisation. Gibbon also founded the Roman Club in 1765 (ibid.: 61), which in his memoirs he terms a 'weekly convivial meeting’ (G. B. Hill 1900:169) although he does not record its activities.20 These celebrations of Rome contrasted with depictions of pre-Roman Britain, such as in Philip James de Loutherbourg’s etching, The Britons (1793), which illustrates a scythe-wheeled chariot and war gear next to a standing stone; Smiles (1994: 218-19) suggests that the words 'The Britons’ in classical type cut across the image effectively imposes civilisation on these primitive peoples.
2.4.1 Gibbon and antiquarianism
Gibbon’s interest in the city of Rome and its remains can be seen in the material that he read; he records how, through this, he began to 'collect the substance of my Roman decay’ (1966: 146). In Lausanne in 1763, for instance, he read the fourth volume of Graevius’ Thesaurus antiquitatum Romanorum (1694-9) containing Nardini’s Roma Antica (1666), which describes all the Roman period remains in Rome (Ghosh 1997: 281).21 Gibbon also read the works of the English antiquaries such as Whitaker, Gale, Stukeley, Camden, Dugdale, and Horsley (Womersley 1994: xii), and he drew upon and commented on many of their writings. More problematic was his use of the forged work of Richard of Cirencester (1335-1401) on the history of Roman Britain by Charles Bertrum (1723-65), which, although described by Gibbon as 'feeble’ (DF II: 999, n. 111), was not challenged (Sweet 2004: 178).22 Drawing on this bogus work, Gibbon wrote of the nine colonies in Britain 'ofwhich London, Colchester, Lincoln, Chester, Gloucester, and Bath still remain considerable cities’ (DF I: 64).
In his study of Roman roads Gibbon refers to the itineraries of 'Gale and Stukeley for Britain, and M. d’Anville for Gaul and Italy’ (DF I: 77,n. 85). For Britain under the Empire he refers to 'our own antiquarians, Camden and Horsley’ (DF I: 33, n. 8), valuing Camden especially highly: He was 'the British Strabo’ and 'the father of our antiquities’ (DF II: 997, n. 109; III: 22, n. 11). Gibbon was able to use the material critically: 'Dr. Stukely [sic] in particular has devoted a large volume to the British emperor [Carausius]. I have used his materials, and rejected most of his fanciful conjections’ (DF I: 366, n. 28). Gibbon also referred to antiquaries from other countries, including France, Germany, and Italy (DF III: 138, n. 55; III: 488, n. 113).
He was especially interested in antiquarian work carried out within towns, and large parts of the text are devoted to Rome, which is seen as reflecting the Roman Empire as a whole. In Chapters LXIXand LXXI Gibbon describes Rome in the twelfth and fourteenth centuries after its 'decline’. By the twelfth century 'Rome had been already stripped of her trophies’ but there remained the 'venerable aspect of her ruins, and the memory of past greatness’ (DF VI: 978-9). Gibbon refers to the remarks of Poggio Bracciolini, the Italian Rennaissance humanist (1380-1459), that the 'forum of the Roman people, where they assembled to enact their laws and elect their magistrates, is now enclosed for cultivation of pot-herbs, or thrown open for the reception of swine and buffaloes’ (DF VI: 1063), and this echoes Gibbon’s own comments about cattle now grazing within the amphitheatre at Lambesa in Algeria (DF IV: 645). By describing the Empire in ruins in this way Gibbon was demonstrating its decline but also, by contrast, emphasising the greatness of the Golden Age of Rome, an era he saw as comparable to his own time: one of increasing wealth and colonial exploits (Kelly 1997: 48).
Gibbon envisaged and described the decline ofthe Roman Empire through the physical destruction of its public buildings and monuments, but he also recognised the importance of the remains in providing access to the past grandeur of the Empire, similar access to that later valued by archaeological projects of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. He stated, for example, that 'the splendour of Verona can be traced in its remains’ (DF I: 75), whilst in Volume III he lamented that 'the ruin of the fairest structures of antiquity still displays the ravages of those Barbarians’ (DF III: 81). For Gibbon, they were 'Majestic ruins’ (DF I: 70), and he was irritated that in medieval Rome 'the forms of ancient architecture were disregarded by a people insensible of their use and beauty [because of their barbarism]’ (DF VI: 1072). This is linked to his understanding of and attitude to 'archaeological’ investigation: 'the resurrection [of statues and other remains] was fortunately delayed till a safer and more enlightened age’ (DF VI: 1082). The remains were thus interpreted through the 'enlightened’ mindset with the resultant emphasis on the grandeur and monumental nature of buildings.
Apart from the work on prehistoric monuments, such as that by Stukeley and Aubrey, and interests in Celts and Druids (Morse 2005; Smiles 1994),23 much of'archaeology’, especially for Gibbon, was concerned with the Roman period and he was well aware of activities at the time: '[T]he map, the description, the monuments of ancient Rome, have been elucidated by the diligence of the antiquarian and the student’ (DF III: 1084). Other excavations included those at Pompeii, Herculaneum, and the Palace of Domitian (Matthews 1997: 27; Moatti 1989: 70-4; Parslow 1995). These excavations will have affected Gibbon’s views regarding the splendour and comfort of the Roman Empire and its subsequent decline.
2.4.2 Gibbon’s writing style
Gibbon’s language and unique style, such as the conversation he provides in his footnotes (Womersley 2002:1-2), was also an important part of the work’s popularity. He rewrote parts of the text numerous times to achieve his required effect. For Gibbon, history was a form of literature intended not only to instruct but also to entertain (Craddock 1989); the art of story telling, of narrative, was important and is one major reason why the work is still being read today. Gibbon knew his audience and wrote what they wanted to read; his writing was supporting social and political attitudes of the day. Consequently, situations, events, and descriptions will have been exaggerated, overdramatic, and idealised. Within The Decline and Fall, the language used to describe changes to the Empire and the fortunes of individuals was very much related to images of the structural decline of physical buildings that Gibbon had witnessed himself in Rome, and the words 'decay’ and 'ruin’ appear frequently. He speaks of the 'ruin of the Pagan religion’ (DF III: 90), the 'decay of taste and genius’ (DF VI: 391), the 'Ruin of Abundantius’ and 'the destruction of Timasius’, figures of the late Empire (DF III: 242), and the 'Desolation of Africa’ (DF III: 284).
Gibbon’s literary technique, which deliberately used language in the classical style (Ayres 1997: 60-1), required a build-up of extravagance and grandeur, the Golden Age, before he could contrast this with decline and fall. The end of the attributes of elite civilisation valued by Gibbon could only be portrayed by him as decline. Indeed, even the prospect of reading texts in vulgar Latin as research for his work, as opposed to those written by his 'assiduous companions’ (Gibbon 1966: 132) of classical Rome, repelled him, as did Byzantine culture. This intensified the image he portrayed of decline and the 'darkness of the middle ages’ (ibid.: 147; also see Dawson 1934: 171; McKitterick 1997: 166). Gibbon speaks of 'the declining age of learning and of mankind’ and the 'decline of arts and of empire’, showing his attitude to this later period. As Matthews (1997: 32) has suggested, this method of studying the late Roman period, and judging it by the standards of an earlier age, has certainly survived to this day (e. g., B. Ward-Perkins 2005).
This contrasts greatly with the language used by Gibbon to describe cities and public buildings before the decline. Of the public buildings and other monuments, Gibbon declares that their 'greatness alone, or their beauty, might deserve our attention’ but they were also important because they connected 'the agreeable history of the arts with the more useful of human manners’ because many were built at 'private expense’ for 'public benefit’ (DF I: 70). Bathhouses had been constructed 'with Imperial magnificence’ and 'elegance of design’ (DF III: 184); the Forum of Rome was described by Gibbon as being 'proud’ because it was 'decorated with the statues of so many gods and heroes’ (DF III: 204). For Gibbon, these 'exquisite statues... displayed the triumph of the arts’ (DF III: 81). Buildings had 'beauty’, examples being the circus at Constantinople (DF II: 597) and the 'majestic dome of the Pantheon in Rome’ (DF III: 80). With the emphasis Gibbon placed upon magnitude, grandeur, and convenience, the aqueducts were seen as the 'noblest monuments’ (DF I: 74) and 'stupendous’ (DF III: 184).
That Gibbon considered the public buildings to be the most important features of a Roman city is also shown by the language he used to describe their later histories: The 'fairest forms of architecture were rudely defaced’ (DF III: 374), the 'most exquisite works of art were roughly handled’, and the palaces were 'rudely stripped of their splendid and costly furniture’ (DFIII: 204). Cities and their public buildings were central to the Roman Empire; through the violation of the city, Roman civilisation was threatened.
2.4.3 Gates and civilisation
Gibbon’s distaste for the 'swarms of barbarians’ (DF 1:276), and what they did to the towns and public buildings in the late Roman period, is reflected in the violence that is expressed as they approached city gates and entered ‘civilisation’. The gates of Carthage, for example, were described as being ‘thrown open’ in a. d. 535, and the invaders ‘burst open the gates’ of Naples in a. d. 537 (DF IV: 631, 656). Similarly, the gates of Constantinople were ‘thrown open’ and at a later date ‘three gates were burst open’ (DF VI: 683, 690). In other instances Gibbon describes the danger of barbarians pressing up against the gates of the cities: The barbarians spread ‘terror as far as the gates of Rome’ (DF 1:296) and in the time of Aurelian ‘the barbarians were hourly expected at the gates of Rome’ (DF I: 309). At a later time, the barbarian Rhodogast ‘marched from the northern extremities of Germany almost to the gates of Rome’ (DF III: 143). In Rome the untrustworthy masses, ‘an innumerable people’, ‘pressed, with impetuous zeal, against the gates of the palace’ (DF III: 42). Gates could admit beneficial or bar harmful events: ‘the citizens refused to open their gates’ (DF I: 369); ‘the gates of the city were shut against [Maxentius]’ (DF I: 423); ‘[Severus] found on his arrival the gates of the city shut against him’ (DF I: 409); but ‘Tarsus opened its gates, and the soldiers of Florianus... delivered the empire from civil war’
(DF I: 335).
Gates were also used as geographical markers of civilisation: Theodosius had his headquarters at Thessalonica, for instance, so that ‘the irregular motions of the Barbarians’ could be watched ‘from the gates of Constantinople to the shores of the Hadriatic’ (DF II: 1075). Other references include ‘as far as the gates of Ctesiphon’ (DF I: 313), the ‘long march from Thessalonica to the gates of Constantinople’ (DF III: 136), and reference to Alaric, who resolved to ‘conquer or die before the gates of Rome’ (DF III: 136). The city gates for Gibbon were important for controlling movement, and by seeing them in this way he largely divorces towns from the rest of the landscape.
2.4.4 Gibbon and pre-Roman settlement
The pre-Roman significance of landscapes played little role in Gibbon’s understanding of the Roman town, except for the way in which they were transformed: ‘[T]he spirit of improvement had passed the Alps, and been felt even in the woods of Britain, which were gradually cleared away to open a free space for convenient and elegant habitations. York was the seat of government; London was already enriched by commerce; and Bath was celebrated for the salutary effects of the medicinal waters’ (DF I: 74-5). Here Gibbon is clearly applying his modern views of the towns to the past.
Of course, at the time in which Gibbon was writing, there was very limited knowledge in Britain of pre-Roman settlement sites such as oppida. Work by William Camden (1551-1623) and John Speed (1542-1629) linked names mentioned within the classical texts with those found on pre-Roman coinage, such as Ver for Verulamium and Camv for Camulodunon (Hingley 2006a: 333); Horsley’s Britannia Romana (1974; originally published in 1732) also demonstrates awareness of sites of pre-Roman Britain. This suggests that, at this early date, pre-Roman peoples were being linked with known places and monuments in the landscape (ibid.), which Gibbon would have been able to draw upon for his understanding of Roman and pre-Roman Britain. These places were being identified at a period in time when the ways of understanding and interpreting landscape and urbanism were changing rapidly (see Chapters 3 and 4). It is not possible to criticise Gibbon’s approach to pre-Roman settlement because 'archaeology’ and ‘prehistory’ in their modern sense had no meaning in work at this time (cf. Hingley 20o8).
It is useful, however, to examine the way in which Gibbon described the settlement of the period. His attitude to the role of woodland, wetlands, and other natural places in the lives of the indigenous peoples drew upon the classical texts but also the political context in which Gibbon was writing. This context had little or nothing to do with attitudes in prehistory or the Roman period. Gibbon writes, for example, that the ‘only temples in Germany were dark and ancient groves, consecrated by the reverence of succeeding generations’ (DF I: 245) and ‘[T]he sacred wood, described with such sublime horror by Lucan, was in the neighbourhood of Marseilles; but there were many of the same kind in Germany’ (DF I: 245, n. 63).With regard to the Suebi, Gibbon draws on the writings of Tacitus in the Germania. ‘In that part of Upper Saxony beyond the Elbe, which is at present called the Marquisate of Lusace, there existed, in ancient times, a sacred wood, the awful seat of the superstition of the Suebi’ (DF 1:271).17 He also refers to the Alamanni with their ‘native deities of the woods and rivers’ (DF IV: 759-60).
For indigenous, that is barbarian, settlements, Gibbon drew on descriptions in Caesar’s Bellum Gallicum, which describes strongholds of woods and marshes: ‘[W]e can only suppose them to have been rude fortifications, constructed in the centre of the woods, and designed to secure the women, children and cattle, whilst the warriors of the tribe marched out to repel a sudden invasion’ (DF I: 235).18 Woods were used by Gibbon as a method of emphasising the savagery and danger of the barbarians. Attacks from barbarians came from woods, in contrast to the civilisation of walled towns: ‘The crafty barbarians, who had lined the woods, suddenly attacked the legions’ (DF I: 308-9). Other phrases include ‘the savage warriors of Scythia issued from their forests’ (DF III: 121), ‘a crowd of naked savages rushed from the woods’ (DF III: 281), ‘the secret paths of the woods’ (DF II: 1066), ‘dark recesses of the woods’ (DF II: 1077), and the ‘thick and gloomy woods’ (DF II: 124).
The term ‘woods and morasses’ (bogs or marshes) occurs a number of times throughout the work, emphasising the barbarity of the indigenous peoples compared with the civilisation of the Romans. Woodland clearance and the drainage of marshland by the Romans were considered to represent improvement, civilisation, and rationalisation, as
16 Marcus Annaeus Lucanus (a. d. 39-69) was a poet whose works included (his only surviving work) the ten-volume Pharsalia (The Civil War), describing the contest between Caesar and the Senate. In Book III he describes a sacred grove in the vicinity of Marseilles (Luc. III, 399-432).
17 On this subject Tacitus, to whom Gibbon refers in footnote 8i of Chapter X, wrote that ‘at fixed seasons all tribes of the same name and blood gather through their delegations at a certain forest and after publicly offering up a human life, they celebrated the grim initiation of their barbarous worship’ (Germ. XXXIX).
18 Caesar refers to the significance of woodland for the indigenous peoples: The Suebi sent ‘their children and all their stuff to the woods’ (B Gall. IV.19) and the ‘Menapii had all hidden in their densest forests’ (IV.38). On Caesar’s second invasion ofBritain he mentions how Cassivellaunus ‘concealed himselfin entangled positions among the woods’ (V.19) and that the stronghold of Cassivellaunus was ‘fenced by woods and marshes’ (V.21). Caesar goes on to write that ‘the Britons call it a stronghold when they have fortified a thick-set woodland with rampart and trench’ (V.21).
Was the drainage of the Fenland in Gibbon’s time (Darby 1973; Rogers 2007). Economic exploitation of woods and land was to be favoured, as it was within the British colonies of Gibbon’s day, where Western concepts of'landscape’ were implanted on other regions.24 Commenting on more recent times, Gibbon wrote that, in Germany, the 'immense woods have been gradually cleared’ and the 'morasses have been drained’ (DF I: 232). It 'is the happy consequence of the progress of arts and agriculture’ that instead of 'some rude villages, thinly scattered among its woods and morasses, Germany produced a list of two thousand three hundred walled towns’ (DF III: 512). He then uses the imagery of woodland and marsh to illustrate the 'decline’ of the West after Rome: 'Gaul was again overspread with woods’ (DF III: 481), and in Britain 'an ample space of wood and morass was resigned to the vague dominion of nature’ with areas returned to their primitive state of a 'savage and solitary forest’ (DF III: 502-3).
It is clear from these passages that Gibbon did think about the impact of Roman conquest on the pre-Roman indigenous settlements and natural places, but he also considered these pre-Roman places to be inferior to the towns and civilisation that the Romans were introducing. Our knowledge of pre-Roman Britain now indicates that there was much woodland clearance before the conquest (Haselgrove 1999), but areas of trees and other natural places, such as watery contexts, are likely to have been special places (Chapter 3). More significant, however, was Gibbon’s metaphorical use of these landscape features as images of barbarity to demonstrate the benefits of civilisation. The changes to towns in the late Roman period were envisaged by Gibbon as equivalent to the decline of civilisation as he understood it, and the commencement ofthe fall. Gibbon’s attitudes to pre-Roman and late Roman settlement have remained influential in the interpretations of the archaeology of these periods. New approaches have been taken in Iron Age studies, but late Roman studies also have to be transformed.
World History
