"Balance" and "Excess" as Gibbon's Explanation of the Decline and Fall

Scholarly Interpretations of Gibbon's Decline and Fall

• General Perception of Gibbon's Narrative:     * Many readers observe that Edward Gibbon's explanatory remarks are scattered haphazardly within his "glittering narrative prose."     * Students often find apparent contradictions between the causative factors cited in different chapters.     * Scholars such as D. M. Low, J. M. Robertson, and James Cotter Morison concluded Gibbon lacked an overall pattern of interpretation.     * J. B. Black argued that Gibbon was content to "set the puppets in motion" and left the discovery of underlying laws to future writers.
• Negativist Interpretations (Per Fuglum):     * Fuglum claims Gibbon's attitude toward history precluded any consistent explanation.     * He describes Gibbon as objective, detached, and empirical, having "no axe to grind."     * Fuglum concludes that Gibbon "sees no meaning in history."
• The Whig Interpretation (Lewis P. Curtis):     * Curtis strongly rejects the idea that Gibbon had no "axe to grind."     * He identifies Gibbon as a Whig aristocrat whose work expressed the ideals of his class and the settlement of $1688$.     * Curtis argues Gibbon's historical powers were mobilized "in defense of aristocratic principles."
• Gerald J. Gruman's Thesis:     * Gibbon's remarks, once viewed as shallow or contradictory, form a coherent pattern when seen through the framework of "balance" and "excess."     * Gibbon was a typical representative of $18^{th}$-century thought, preoccupied with these two concepts.     * History is primarily interpreted as a political phenomenon: "wars, and the administration of public affairs are the principal subjects of history" ($I, 236$).

I. Foreign Policy: The Balance of Power

• The Concept of Balance:     * Gibbon assumed the soundest course for nations is to preserve the "balance of power."     * Departures from this balance result in two opposite excesses: "domination" or "submergence."
• Domination as Excessive Hegemony:     * Domination is not synonymous with imperialism; Gibbon approved of "temperate and undecisive contests" ($IV, 166$).     * The primary cause of the decline and fall was the "immoderate greatness" of the Romans.     * Verbatim Explanation: "The decline of Rome was the natural and inevitable effect of immoderate greatness. Prosperity ripened the principle of decay; the causes of destruction multiplied with the extent of conquest… the stupendous fabric yielded to the pressure of its own weight" ($IV, 161$).     * The rise of Rome was a "singular prodigy" and an example of artificial, abnormal greatness subject to intolerable strain.
• Submergence and the Loss of Identity:     * The excessive zeal for empire building led to the submergence of the conquerors.     * Rome's policy of assimilation, when pushed to extremes, caused the Roman national character to be obliterated into the "common mass of mankind" ($I, 194$).     * Citizens of the world-empire received the name of Romans without adopting the "spirit of Romans."
• Uniform Government:     * Gibbon uses "uniform government" to describe the detrimental blending of nations.     * This lead to an increase in Oriental influence, which Gibbon associated with "effeminate luxury" and "Asiatic luxury."     * Christianity's "exclusive zeal" was traced by Gibbon to the national characteristics of the Jews ($II, 15$).     * Uniformity also mass-produced citizens through a "uniform artificial foreign education" ($I, 57$).
• Consequences of Universal Dominion:     * Public freedom was lost because the empire filled the world, becoming a "safe and dreary prison" for enemies ($I, 81$).     * The Pax Romana (long peace) acted as a "slow and secret poison," extinguishing the fire of genius and the military spirit ($I, 56$).

II. The State: The Mixed Constitution

• The Concept of Balance:     * Gibbon advocated for a balance between a "martial nobility," a "stubborn commons," and an "aspiring prince" ($I, 59$).     * The Roman Republic achieved this through the "temperate struggles of the patricians and plebians" ($IV, 160$).
• Excess of Democracy (Liberty):     * Gibbon viewed the masses as unreliable and democracy as a "perilous chimera."     * In a large society, democracy leads to inconstancy, then anarchy, then the rise of demagogues, and finally Caesarist dictatorship.     * Excessive liberty paradoxically leads to its opposite: despotism.     * Marius and Sulla subverted the constitution by declaring themselves protectors of the people ($I, 67$).
• Excess of Despotism:     * Although Gibbon famously praised the era of the Five Good Emperors ($A.D.\,96-180$) governed by "absolute power, under the guidance of virtue and wisdom" ($I, 78$), he considered this a rare exception.     * Most princes are inept; the rest of the Decline and Fall is an indictment of despotism.     * Despotism levels all subjects to a "common level of absolute dependence" ($I, 121$).     * It weakens military virtues, causes excessive taxation ($II, 190$), and fetters the mind ($I, 58$).     * Public virtue is incompatible with despotic rule because it relies on a sense of interest in a free government ($I, 10$).

III. Military Policy: Militia vs. Standing Army

• The Concept of Balance:     * Gibbon recommended a balance between military and civilian powers, maintained by a militia system of citizen-soldiers.     * The Roman Republic relied on this "wise institution" that used "rising generations of freemen" ($IV, 160$).
• Excess of Militarism:     * Standing armies are threatening because they are united and powerful enough to impose sentiments on the public.     * Greed for empire upset the military-civilian balance. War shifted from a civic duty for those with a "country to love" to an "art" and a "trade" ($I, 9$).     * Hiring mercenaries imposed a ruinous financial burden and degraded troop quality.     * The recruitment of barbarians into the army became "universal, more necessary, and more fatal" ($II, 181$).
• Excess of Pacifism:     * As the empire relied on professional mercenaries, the "military spirit evaporated" among citizens ($I, 56$).     * This pacifism meant that the last sparks of military flame were extinguished.     * Gibbon noted: "those who refuse the sword must renounce the sceptre" ($I, 328$).

IV. Religious Policy: The Equilibrium of Faith

• The Pagan Equilibrium:     * Gibbon admired the religious stability of the early Roman Empire, based on three balances:         1. Balance between Various Religions: Toleration of each nation's "form of superstition" ($I, 31$).         2. Balance between Secularism and Clericalism: Maintenance of a "lay clergy"—men of noble birth and ordinary occupations whose zeal was not animated by self-interest ($II, 54$).         3. Balance between Scepticism and Superstition: Philosophers paid lip-service to religion to maintain civil government order while keeping their free-thinking private ($I, 30$).
• Excess of Scepticism:     * The Romans failed by carrying scepticism to an extreme. Human reason triumphed over paganism, and secret contempt for rituals leaked to the masses, filling them with "doubts and apprehensions" ($II, 55$).
• The Swing to Superstition (Christianity):     * The vacuum left by scepticism was filled by Christianity.     * Christianity ended the religious equilibrium by ending toleration, introducing "intolerant zeal" and "rigid sentiment" ($II, 26$).     * It destroyed the lay clergy system, creating a distinct order of men: the "clergy" ($II, 46$).     * It promoted egalitarianism (e.g., Tertullian’s boast about a Christian mechanic) and other-worldliness, which were subversive to Roman virtues.

Temporal Sequence of Causation

• The Issue of Chronology:     * Gibbon's uncertainty about the starting point of the decline has led critics to believe he had no explanation.     * He initially planned to start from the death of Marcus Aurelius in $A.D.\,180$.     * He later hinted that internal decline had been occuring for $300$ years during "apparent prosperity," pushing the start back to $52\,B.C.$.     * In later revisions, he regretted not starting from the tyranny of Tiberius ($A.D.\,14$) or the Civil Wars after Nero ($A.D.\,69$).
• The Overall Pattern (Transition from Late Republic to Late Empire):     * Foreign Policy: Domination $\rightarrow$ Submergence.     * State: Democracy $\rightarrow$ Despotism.     * Military Policy: Militarism $\rightarrow$ Pacifism.     * Religious Policy: Scepticism $\rightarrow$ Superstition.
• The age of the Antonines sits in the middle of this sequence, explaining why a reader starting there may find the causal logic perplexing, like a theater-goer arriving in the middle of a play.