Chapter XI, which is mostly about Aurelian
Read it here, here or here.
1) Good quotes
On how the citizens of Autun received no reward for their loyalty: Such, indeed, is the policy of civil war: severely to remember injuries, and to forget the most important services. Revenge is profitable, gratitude is expensive.
Tweaking an earlier historian: [Vobsicus] relates the particulars [of Aurelian's triumph] with his usual minuteness; and on this occasion they happen to be interesting.
I have to say that Gibbon occasionally deteriorates to the point where that latter quote is in pot-calling-kettle-black territory. But it is rare.
2) Summary
A chapter full of thrilling incident. The catastrophic Gallienus is replaced by Claudius II, and he in turn very quickly by Aurelian, who conducts a series of successful military campaigns - against the Goths, reconquering Gaul and then also defeating the fascinating Zenobia of Palmyra - before being in turn assassinated.
3) Points arising
i) The Balkans
A lot of this chapter plays out in the Balkans, a region I happen to know very well; indeed some of the key events take place in Serbia. I have been to Naissus, now Niš, where I found a decent McDonald's but was disappointed in the quality of my hotel. I know Sirmium as Sremska Mitrovica, a rather nice Habsburg town which embodies the diversity of the Vojvodina. Aurelian's cutting the Dacians loose effectively founded the modern nation of Romania (which was not even an idea until decades after Gibbon's death). But the political geography is completely different these days; the Balkans have been pulled east and north much more than west in recent centuries, with Istanbul, Vienna, and Moscow being far more important than Italy and France (though both have had their flings in the region; as indeed have the British). Now the EU has recreated a continental block which is more or less centred to the west of the continent, and the Balkan countries are trying to get into it (and some indeed have succeeded).
ii) Zenobia
We've established in earlier chapters that Gibbon is pretty misogynistic, but the story of Zenobia offers further illumination. He starts off rather well: Modern Europe has produced several illustrious women who have sustained with glory the weight of empire; nor is our own age destitute of such distinguished characters. But if we except the doubtful achievements of Semiramis, Zenobia is perhaps the only female whose superior genius broke through the servile indolence imposed on her sex by the climate and manners of Asia.
But then almost immediately he is giving her good marks for not having sex with her husband, except when absolutely necessary: She claimed her descent from the Macedonian kings of Egypt, equalled in beauty her ancestor Cleopatra, and far surpassed that princess in chastity55 and valour.
55 She never admitted her husband's embraces but for the sake of posterity. If her hopes were baffled, in the ensuing month she reiterated the experiment.
Yet Gibbon is more complimentary about her as a ruler than he is about most Roman emperors: Instead of the little passions which so frequently perplex a female reign, the steady administration of Zenobia was guided by the most judicious maxims of policy. If it was expedient to pardon, she could calm her resentment; if it was necessary to punish, she could impose silence on the voice of pity. Her strict economy was accused of avarice; yet on every proper occasion she appeared magnificent and liberal. The neighbouring states of Arabia, Armenia, and Persia, dreaded her enmity, and solicited her alliance. To the dominions of Odenathus, which extended from the Euphrates to the frontiers of Bithynia, his widow added the inheritance of her ancestors, the populous and fertile kingdom of Egypt.
Gibbon also tones down Aurelian's comments on Zenobia: "The Roman people," says Aurelian, in an original letter, "speak with contempt of the war which I am waging against a woman. They are ignorant both of the character and of the power of Zenobia.["]
Compare the original from the Historia Augusta, Aurelian ch 26 (original, translation): Romani me modo dicunt bellum contra feminam gerere, quasi sola mecum Zenobia et suis viribus pugnet, atque hostium quantum si vir a me oppugnandus esset, illa conscientia et timore longe deteriore.
The Romans are saying that I am merely waging a war with a woman, just as if Zenobia alone and with her own forces only were fighting against me, and yet, as a matter of fact, there is as great a force of the enemy as if I had to make war against a man, while she, because of her fear and her sense of guilt, is a much baser foe.
I'm not sure that I read the original Latin as being quite as strongly worded as Magie's translation, but I am sure that Gibbon has not only paraphrased but considerably toned it down. However, he cuts her no slack in the moment of defeat: But as female fortitude is commonly artificial, so it is seldom steady or consistent. The courage of Zenobia deserted her in the hour of trial; she trembled at the angry clamours of the soldiers, who called aloud for her immediate execution, forgot the generous despair of Cleopatra, which she had proposed as her model, and ignominiously purchased life by the sacrifice of her fame and her friends. It was to their counsels, which governed the weakness of her sex, that she imputed the guilt of her obstinate resistance; it was on their heads that she directed the vengeance of the cruel Aurelian.
Zenobia's story is indeed a fascinating one, and I have to say that my own reaction from reading the half-chapter of Gibbon about her was to go and read more: the Arab woman who challenged the Roman empire in the name of her dead husband and infant son, and who lived to a ripe old age in the Lazio foothills after her defeat. I think Gibbon shared my fascination. His major criticism of her, after all, is not how she behaved when she was winning, but how she handled her defeat.
4) Coming next
Chapter XII: Conduct of the army and senate after the death of Aurelian; the reigns of Tacitus, Probus, and Carus, and his sons. Read it here, here or here.
1) Good quotes
On how the citizens of Autun received no reward for their loyalty: Such, indeed, is the policy of civil war: severely to remember injuries, and to forget the most important services. Revenge is profitable, gratitude is expensive.
Tweaking an earlier historian: [Vobsicus] relates the particulars [of Aurelian's triumph] with his usual minuteness; and on this occasion they happen to be interesting.
I have to say that Gibbon occasionally deteriorates to the point where that latter quote is in pot-calling-kettle-black territory. But it is rare.
2) Summary
A chapter full of thrilling incident. The catastrophic Gallienus is replaced by Claudius II, and he in turn very quickly by Aurelian, who conducts a series of successful military campaigns - against the Goths, reconquering Gaul and then also defeating the fascinating Zenobia of Palmyra - before being in turn assassinated.
3) Points arising
i) The Balkans
A lot of this chapter plays out in the Balkans, a region I happen to know very well; indeed some of the key events take place in Serbia. I have been to Naissus, now Niš, where I found a decent McDonald's but was disappointed in the quality of my hotel. I know Sirmium as Sremska Mitrovica, a rather nice Habsburg town which embodies the diversity of the Vojvodina. Aurelian's cutting the Dacians loose effectively founded the modern nation of Romania (which was not even an idea until decades after Gibbon's death). But the political geography is completely different these days; the Balkans have been pulled east and north much more than west in recent centuries, with Istanbul, Vienna, and Moscow being far more important than Italy and France (though both have had their flings in the region; as indeed have the British). Now the EU has recreated a continental block which is more or less centred to the west of the continent, and the Balkan countries are trying to get into it (and some indeed have succeeded).
ii) Zenobia
We've established in earlier chapters that Gibbon is pretty misogynistic, but the story of Zenobia offers further illumination. He starts off rather well: Modern Europe has produced several illustrious women who have sustained with glory the weight of empire; nor is our own age destitute of such distinguished characters. But if we except the doubtful achievements of Semiramis, Zenobia is perhaps the only female whose superior genius broke through the servile indolence imposed on her sex by the climate and manners of Asia.
But then almost immediately he is giving her good marks for not having sex with her husband, except when absolutely necessary: She claimed her descent from the Macedonian kings of Egypt, equalled in beauty her ancestor Cleopatra, and far surpassed that princess in chastity55 and valour.
55 She never admitted her husband's embraces but for the sake of posterity. If her hopes were baffled, in the ensuing month she reiterated the experiment.
Yet Gibbon is more complimentary about her as a ruler than he is about most Roman emperors: Instead of the little passions which so frequently perplex a female reign, the steady administration of Zenobia was guided by the most judicious maxims of policy. If it was expedient to pardon, she could calm her resentment; if it was necessary to punish, she could impose silence on the voice of pity. Her strict economy was accused of avarice; yet on every proper occasion she appeared magnificent and liberal. The neighbouring states of Arabia, Armenia, and Persia, dreaded her enmity, and solicited her alliance. To the dominions of Odenathus, which extended from the Euphrates to the frontiers of Bithynia, his widow added the inheritance of her ancestors, the populous and fertile kingdom of Egypt.
Gibbon also tones down Aurelian's comments on Zenobia: "The Roman people," says Aurelian, in an original letter, "speak with contempt of the war which I am waging against a woman. They are ignorant both of the character and of the power of Zenobia.["]
Compare the original from the Historia Augusta, Aurelian ch 26 (original, translation): Romani me modo dicunt bellum contra feminam gerere, quasi sola mecum Zenobia et suis viribus pugnet, atque hostium quantum si vir a me oppugnandus esset, illa conscientia et timore longe deteriore.
The Romans are saying that I am merely waging a war with a woman, just as if Zenobia alone and with her own forces only were fighting against me, and yet, as a matter of fact, there is as great a force of the enemy as if I had to make war against a man, while she, because of her fear and her sense of guilt, is a much baser foe.
I'm not sure that I read the original Latin as being quite as strongly worded as Magie's translation, but I am sure that Gibbon has not only paraphrased but considerably toned it down. However, he cuts her no slack in the moment of defeat: But as female fortitude is commonly artificial, so it is seldom steady or consistent. The courage of Zenobia deserted her in the hour of trial; she trembled at the angry clamours of the soldiers, who called aloud for her immediate execution, forgot the generous despair of Cleopatra, which she had proposed as her model, and ignominiously purchased life by the sacrifice of her fame and her friends. It was to their counsels, which governed the weakness of her sex, that she imputed the guilt of her obstinate resistance; it was on their heads that she directed the vengeance of the cruel Aurelian.
Zenobia's story is indeed a fascinating one, and I have to say that my own reaction from reading the half-chapter of Gibbon about her was to go and read more: the Arab woman who challenged the Roman empire in the name of her dead husband and infant son, and who lived to a ripe old age in the Lazio foothills after her defeat. I think Gibbon shared my fascination. His major criticism of her, after all, is not how she behaved when she was winning, but how she handled her defeat.
4) Coming next
Chapter XII: Conduct of the army and senate after the death of Aurelian; the reigns of Tacitus, Probus, and Carus, and his sons. Read it here, here or here.