The Vindication of Brutus

The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire is as much political allegory as it is history. It is both a celebration and a warning; a celebration of the Imperial achievment and a warning over the sources of decay. For the man who walked through the ruined Forum, reflecting on the vanished glory of Rome, as his ears were filled with the chants of barefooted friars, was as much Marcus Brutus as he was Edward Gibbon. For Gibbon, in the guise of Brutus, the root cause of Roman decline was neither Christianity nor was it Barbarians: it was the willful the abdication of the old republican virtues of freedom and public service.

I consider this passage

If a man were called to fix a 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.

It is an age of tolerance, of domestic peace and of social harmony. But yet something is missing; and that something is what Gibbon refers to as the 'inestimable gift of freedom.' I am not talking here about 'democracy', which for Gibbon was a dangerous thing, but the concept of the 'balanced constitution'; of law, social responsibility, civic duty and good governance all working in harmony; the kind of constitution that emerged in 1689 after the Glorious Revolution in England.

It is, if you like, also the constitution of the old Roman Republic at its zenith, before it was destroyed by mob violence, class conflict and civil war. For Gibbon civilized life has to be based on an ideal combination of order and 'rational freedom', created by the Republic but lost by the Empire. The Empire, even the Empire of the Antonines, was based on despotism, and as such was "destitute of constitutional freedom." The Antonine state was, as he puts it, "an absolute monarchy disguised by the forms of the commonwealth." In other words, if the rule of the Antonines was benevolent it was benevolent by chance alone. It gave rise to Marcus Aurelius; but it could just as easily give way to Commodus.

The contrast Gibbon draws between Aurelius, the father, and Commodus, the son, was intended to highlight the fragility of the whole Antonine age. Benevolence had been created by chance, not by design, the fundamental truth that lies at the root of all despotism. The image of liberty, to put this another way, was not the same as true liberty. Gibbon admired Marcus Aurelius-just as he admired Frederick the Great-for his personal qualities; but imperial rule was still "absolute and without control." For Gibbon it is a mark of a truly good society that no single individual should be entrusted with absolute power-"Unless public liberty is protected by intrepid and vigilant guardians the authority of so formidable a magistrate will degenerate into despotism." After all, virtue and wisdom are not hereditary. Would not Brutus nod his head in agreement?

The other point connected to this-and herein lies the real explanation for the subsequent and relentless decline of the Roman world-is that benevolent despotism is demoralising and enervating. Under the Antonines the days of Cicero and the free nobility are long gone; private comfort has replaced civic responsibility: the Empire is set to decline because the 'will to freedom' has been lost-"as long as they [the nobility] were indulged in the enjoyment of their baths, their theatres and their villas, they cheerfully resigned the more dangerous cares of empire." More than this, in public felicity lay the latent causes of corruption-"The Roman monarchy, having attained its full strength and maturity, began to verge towards its decline." The causes are internal, and the Empire could never have fallen to Barbarians, or been undermined by the Christians, if it had not already been corrupted from within. The Romans may have retained personal valour, but they no longer "possessed that public courage, which is nourished by the love of independence."

Ultimately, Gibbon's view of the whole Roman world, no matter his residual sympathy, is one condescension and superiority; of celebration of his own time, of the age of virtue and progress. The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire is Brutus' final vindication.

Edward Gibbon on Muhammad

Edward Gibbon was first and foremost a historian, one that engages too closely with his subject, perhaps, for contemporary taste, but a remarkable one nontheless. He could be highly critical of the impact of forms of religious belief on civil society, and the contribution they made to the corruption of the perfect ideal of the Roman state, so much so that The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire was placed on the list of banned books by the Catholic Church.

He says many things about the Prophet Muhammad, which I dare say that Muslim scholars would object to; but it is not all accusation, and he looks at Muhammed's life from the point of view of a historian, not a Christian polemicist. I have a copy of the Decline and Fall in front of me, in the 1978 reprint of the six volume Everyman edition, first published in 1910. Gibbon's remarks are too lengthy to quote in full, but here is some of his summation of Muhammad's life from volume five, pages 273-4:

The author of a mighty revolution appears to have been endowed with a pious and contemplative disposition: so soon as marriage had raised him above the pressure of want, he avoided the paths of ambition and avarice; and till the age of forty he lived in innocence, and would have died withut a name. The unity of God was an idea most congenial to nature and reason; and a slight conversation with the Jews and the Christians would teach him to despise and detest the idolatry of Mecca. It was the duty of a man and a citizen to impart the doctrine of salvation, and to rescue his country from the dominion of sin and error. The energy of a mind incessantly bent on the same object would convert a general obligation into a particular call; the warm suggestions of the understanding or the fancy would be felt as he inspiration of Heaven; the labour of the thought would expire in rapture and vision; and the inward sensation, the invisible monitor, would be described with the forms and the attributes of an angel of God...Charity may believe that the original motives of Mohammed were those of pure and genuine benevolence; but the human misssionary is incapable of cherising the obstinate unbelievers who reject his claims, despise his arguments, and persecute his life; he might forgive his personal adversaries, he may lawfully hate the enemies of God; the stern passions of pride and revenge were kindled in the bosom of Muhammed, and he sighed, like the prophet of Nineveh, for the destruction of the rebels whom he had condemned.

This is fairly typical of Gibbon, and there are indeed more critical passages; but there is nothing that bears any similarity to 'Show me just what Muhammad brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman...' There may be much in Gibbon with which Muslims would take issue; but he makes a sincere attempt to be honest in his judgements and scrupulous in his facts.