The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire

Nonfiction | Book | Adult

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Summary

Background

Chapter Summaries & Analyses

Chapters 1-2

Chapters 3-4

Chapters 5-6

Chapters 7-8

Chapters 9-10

Chapters 11-12

Chapters 13-14

Key Figures

Themes

Index of Terms

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Chapters 9-10Chapter Summaries & Analyses

Chapter 9 Summary

Gibbon turns to another enemy of the Romans, the Germanic peoples. Gibbon believes the Germanic people had spread across modern Germany, Scandinavia, and most of Poland. He also suspects that the colder climate of Germany made the Germans heartier and taller than the peoples of the Mediterranean. In the time of Tacitus, a Roman historian who wrote extensively about the Germans, they were illiterate and without an alphabet, they did not have a currency, and they had no cities. According to Gibbon, the ancient Germans “passed their lives in a state of ignorance and poverty, which it has pleased some disclaimers to dignify with the appellation of virtuous simplicity” (218). They did practice some agriculture, including the production of beer. One advantage the Germans had from this lack of civilization was that they had “the enjoyment of liberty” (223). Gibbon attributes this to the fact that property and the desire for luxury is what leads to despotism.

In terms of government, the Germans organized themselves in tribes whose members voted on political decisions and on their leaders. In times of warfare and danger, the German tribes would choose a general. However, the tribes would also choose princes based on both their merits and their noble ancestry. Their duties included settling disputes and legal matters. Even so, Gibbon claims even German commoners often resisted the authority of their own leaders (226).

The religion and oral tales and songs of the Germans also glorified combat and promised either the transmigration of the soul or a drunken paradise after death (230). Since the Germans were usually organized into tribes, they usually did not pose much of a threat. However, if they organized themselves into larger confederations, they posed a threat to the Roman Empire, just like they did in the time of Marcus Aurelius.

Chapter 10 Summary

In this chapter, Gibbon returns to the main narrative. Following the secular games celebrated by Philip, there were “twenty years of shame and misfortune” (237). The murders of so many emperors had weakened the legitimacy of the emperors in the eyes of the people and had proven that the army could make anyone emperor. Soon enough, a legion revolted against Philip. Desperate, Philip sent a senator named Decius to negotiate with the rebelling soldiers. However, Decius did his job too well and was acclaimed emperor by the legion. Philip either died in battle or was murdered.

During Alexander Severus’s reign, a Germanic people—possibly from Scandinavia—called the Goths first began to menace the province of Decia. The Goths were organized around a hereditary line of kings and began to settle in what is now modern Poland, Russia, and Ukraine (243-44). When the Goths, led by their king, Coiva, crossed the boundaries of the empire into modern-day Bulgaria, Decius led an army to fight them. Despite a devastating defeat, Decius was able to drive the Goths away and strengthened Rome’s defenses along the Danube River. Decius also embarked on reforms, reviving the office of censor that dealt with public morality. As Gibbon notes, this did not improve Decius’s chances, and he was slain fighting the Goths. The Senate conferred the office of emperor on Decius’s son, Hostilianus, and on Gallus, who became the senior co-emperor. Gallus paid a tribute to the Goths as part of the peace negotiations—the first time the Romans had to do so in many centuries (250-51).

Hostilianus died from a plague, but it was suspected that Gallus had murdered him. Gallus’s peace treaty with the Goths led to other “barbarian” tribes trying to raid the Roman Empire. Gallus and his son Volusianus fought against, and were killed by, another usurper named Aemilianus. In turn, Aemilianus was defeated and killed by Valerian, the man whom Gallus had appointed censor.

Valerian and his son Gallienus both made themselves co-emperors at a time when the empire was threatened by three Germanic peoples—the Franks, the Alemanni, and the Goths—as well as by the Persians. The Franks managed to loot the provinces of Gaul, Spain, and even Mauretania. Gallienus had to lead an army to save northern Italy from the Alemanni. The Goths established a naval force that raided around modern-day Turkey and Greece. At the same time, the Persians managed to install their own candidate for king of Armenia, an old Roman ally, and pushed past the Roman border at the Euphrates River.

Valerian fought the Persians at Edessa in Syria, but the emperor was defeated and captured. After their victory, the Persians pillaged the key city of Antioch in Syria and other rich cities in the region. The Persian king Sapor was only defeated by Odenathus, a senator from the city of Palmyra. Gibbon notes, “The majesty of Rome, oppressed by a Persian, was protected by a Syrian or Arab of Palmyra” (272).

Gibbon dismisses stories from ancient sources that Valerian was used as a human footstool by Sapor or that his body was stuffed and preserved in a Persian temple. Still, he writes that “it is at least certain that the only emperor of Rome who had ever fallen into the hands of the enemy languished away his life in hopeless captivity” (273). Gallienus took sole charge of the empire while being indifferent to his father’s well-being. Although Gallienus was a talented poet, gardener, and cook, he was not good at being an emperor. Gibbon sarcastically notes that the reign of Gallienus “produced only nineteen pretenders to the throne” (275). His most decisive action was passing a law banning senators from assuming military command, which further weakened the Senate’s importance. Besides that, the empire was plagued by bandits from Sicily, a revolt broke out in Alexandria, and the Isaurians, a people living in Asia Minor, tried to break away from the empire. The chaos and warfare brought plague and famine in their wake.

Chapters 9-10 Analysis

In contrast to the Persians, for Gibbon, the Germans represented the opposite kind of society. The Germans fit into the ideal of the “noble savage,” which refers to the concept that a people living outside urban, modern civilization are more virtuous and courageous in some way. This perception of the Germans existed among the Romans themselves, most notably in the first century CE Roman historian Tacitus’s work, Germania. As Gibbon describes it, “Their poverty secured their freedom, since our desires and our possessions are the strongest fetters of despotism” (223).

Gibbon’s views of the ancient Germans are influenced by Enlightenment ideas about geography and climate. It was believed that climate influenced the inborn characteristics of a people, which is the basis for Gibbon’s claim that the Germans were taller and more muscular than Mediterranean peoples. This fits with Gibbon’s assumptions on “West” versus “East,” with the free, “masculine” Germans forming a contrast to the despotic and effeminate peoples that Gibbon discusses in his narrative, such as the Persians or the Syrians. These descriptions provide Gibbon with an explanation for both Rome’s decline and for his belief in “Eastern” decadence. Drawing on the 18th-century philosopher Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Gibbon views decadence as being caused by luxury and an urbanized society.

One of the effects of the Crisis of the Third Century was that it was not just the legitimacy of individual emperors that was undermined, but The Role of the Military in Political Crises and the empire itself. Large parts of the empire were left to more or less fend for themselves, as was the case with the city of Palmyra under Odenthaus. This fueled the tendency of entire parts of the empire, including Palmyra, Gaul, and Britain, to break away and establish their own rulers. Gibbon’s narrative illuminates how a government and a military that fails to defend their own people lose their legitimacy, to the point that the government is at risk of completely dissolving.