Edward Gibbon’s The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, published in 1788, is a classic work of history. I’ve been re-reading it lately, not only because it offers uncanny parallels to the parlous state of modern government and culture, but because Gibbon’s style is a delight. His descriptions of Roman statesmen and soldiers are marvelously terse, yet they manage to convey a nuanced sketch of each individual.
Gibbon can also be dryly amusing. Here he describes the son of Marcus Antonius Gordianus, the Roman proconsul of Africa circa 238 A.D.:
Twenty-two acknowledged concubines, and a library of sixty-two thousand volumes, attested the variety of his inclinations, and from the productions which he left behind him, it appears that the former as well as the latter were designed for use rather than ostentation.
I’m reading a tattered Dell paperback copy of Frank C. Bourne’s 1963 single-volume abridgement of The Decline and Fall. Even though it omits a ton of detail and all of Gibbons’ Latin and Greek footnotes, it still clocks in at 735 pages. It’s like Game of Thrones but with a lot fewer wieners.