The Decline and Fall of Empires
This week marks 250 years since the first publication of Edward Gibbon’s (1737-1794) era defining History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire.
'There is nothing perhaps more adverse to nature and reason than to hold in obedience remote countries and foreign nations, in opposition to their inclination and interest' (The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, chapter xlix).
This February marks 250 years since the publication of the first volume of Edward Gibbon’s (1737-1794) brilliant, era-defining history which charted the road to ruin of an empire many thought infallible.
Gibbon’s message was clear. Civilisations are inherently fragile, and ‘instead of inquiring why the Roman Empire was destroyed, we should rather be surprised that it had subsisted so long’ (chapter viii). It was a careful balance of powers which had kept the Europe of Gibbon’s own day at peace — one which came tumbling down with devastating effect shortly after the publication of the final three volumes in 1778.
119922 - An exceptional set of Edward Gibbon’s The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, in full contemporary tree calf tooled in gilt by Riviere & Son.
Many accounts have been written about the Reign of Terror and the wars which followed it, but Adolphe Thiers’ (1797-1877) is particularly interesting given his own revolutionary background, which eventually led him to become the first President of the Third French Republic.
120926 – Adolpe Thiers, The History of the French Revolution
Our copy is illustrated with 51 steel-engraved plates depicting key figures and historic scenes, all coloured by hand. It’s a graphic testament to a short and bloody period in French history which marked the transition from the Ancien Régime, and all it symbolised in its chivalric codes and feudal structures, to the modern age.
121862 – Thomas Hobbes, The History of the Grecian War
A generation before, the third and final edition had just come out of Thomas Hobbes’ (1588-1679) first published work, a translation of the Athenian general Thucydides’ (c.460-400 BC) history of the Peloponnesian War.
Hobbes was under no delusions when it came to the fragility of human existence. His long-life had seen through the English Civil Wars and the triumphant Restoration of the Stuart monarchy in 1660.
He looked to Thucydides’ history of the ancient struggle for hegemony over Greece as confirmation that democracy would always falter before a nation ruled by princes, who could govern with absolute authority.
An annotated map of Ancient Greece by Hobbes himself
Given the beginning to this New Year, and all its talk of territorial takeovers and naval armadas, these lessons from our past are perhaps more pertinent than ever in recent memory.
