高考英语 可能考的名著《HISTORY OF ROMAN-1》INTRO素材

1、HISTORY OF ROMAN-1History Of The Decline And Fall Of The Roman Empire Edward Gibbon, Esq.With notes by the Rev. H. H. MilmanVol. 1IntroductionPreface By The Editor. The great work of Gibbon is indispensable to the student ofhistory. The literature of Europe offers no substitute for TheDecline and Fa

2、ll of the Roman Empire. It has obtained undisputedpossession, as rightful occupant, of the vast period which itcomprehends. However some subjects, which it embraces, may haveundergone more complete investigation, on the general view of thewhole period, this history is the sole undisputed authority t

3、owhich all defer, and from which few appeal to the originalwriters, or to more modern compilers. The inherent interest ofthe subject, the inexhaustible labor employed upon it; theimmense condensation of matter; the luminous arrangement; thegeneral accuracy; the style, which, however monotonous from

4、itsuniform stateliness, and sometimes wearisome from its elaboratear., is throughout vigorous, animated, often picturesque alwayscommands attention, always conveys its meaning with emphaticenergy, describes with singular breadth and fidelity, andgeneralizes with unrivalled felicity of expression; al

5、l thesehigh qualifications have secured, and seem likely to secure, itspermanent place in historic literature. This vast design of Gibbon, the magnificent whole into whichhe has cast the decay and ruin of the ancient civilization, theformation and birth of the new order of things, will of itself,ind

6、ependent of the laborious execution of his immense plan,render The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire anunapproachable subject to the future historian: * in theeloquent language of his recent French editor, M. Guizot: - Footnote * A considerable portion of this preface has alreadyappeared before u

7、s public in the Quarterly Review. The gradual decline of the most extraordinary dominionwhich has ever invaded and oppressed the world; the fall of thatimmense empire, erected on the ruins of so many kingdoms,republics, and states both barbarous and civilized; and formingin its turn, by its dismembe

8、rment, a multitude of states,republics, and kingdoms; the annihilation of the religion ofGreece and Rome; the birth and the progress of the two newreligions which have shared the most beautiful regions of theearth; the decrepitude of the ancient world, the spectacle of itsexpiring glory and degenera

9、te manners; the infancy of the modernworld, the picture of its first progress, of the new directiongiven to the mind and character of man - such a subject mustnecessarily fix the attention and excite the interest of men, whocannot behold with indifference those memorable epochs, duringwhich, in the

10、fine language of Corneille - Un grand destin commence, un grand destin sacheve. This extent and harmony of design is unquestionably that whichdistinguishes the work of Gibbon from all other great historicalcompositions. He has first bridged the abyss between ancient andmodern times, and connected to

11、gether the two great worlds ofhistory. The great advantage which the classical historianspossess over those of modern times is in unity of plan, of coursegreatly facilitated by the narrower sphere to which theirresearches were confined. Except Herodotus, the great historiansof Greece - we exclude th

12、e more modern compilers, like DiodorusSiculus - limited themselves to a single period, or at east tothe contracted sphere of Grecian affairs. As far as theBarbarians trespassed within the Grecian boundary, or werenecessarily mingled up with Grecian politics, they were admittedinto the pale of Grecia

13、n history; but to Thucydides and toXenophon, excepting in the Persian inroad of the latter, Greecewas the world. Natural unity confined their narrative almost tochronological order, the episodes were of rare occurrence andextremely brief. To the Roman historians the course was equallyclear and defin

14、ed. Rome was their centre of unity; and theuniformity with which the circle of the Roman dominion spreadaround, the regularity with which their civil polity expanded,forced, as it were, upon the Roman historian that plan whichPolybius announces as the subject of his history, the means andthe manner

15、by which the whole world became subject to the Romansway. How different the complicated politics of the Europeankingdoms! Every national history, to be complete, must, in acertain sense, be the history of Europe; there is no knowing tohow remote a quarter it may be necessary to trace our mostdomesti

16、c events; from a country, how apparently disconnected, mayoriginate the impulse which gives its direction to the wholecourse of affairs. In imitation of his classical models, Gibbon places Rome asthe cardinal point from which his inquiries diverge, and to whichthey bear constant reference; yet how i

17、mmeasurable the space overwhich those inquiries range; how complicated, how confused, howapparently inextricable the causes which tend to the decline ofthe Roman empire! how countless the nations which swarm forth,in mingling and indistinct hordes, constantly changing thegeographical limits - incess

18、antly confounding the naturalboundaries! At first sight, the whole period, the whole state ofthe world, seems to offer no more secure footing to an historicaladventurer than the chaos of Milton - to be in a state ofirreclaimable disorder, best described in the language of thepoet: - - A dark Illimit

19、able ocean, without bound, Without dimension, where length, breadth, and height, And time, and place, are lost: where eldest Night And Chaos, ancestors of Nature, hold Eternal anarchy, amidst the noise Of endless wars, and by confusion stand. We feel that the unity and harmony of narrative, which sh

20、allcomprehend this period of social disorganization, must beascribed entirely to the skill and luminous disposition of thehistorian. It is in this sublime Gothic architecture of hiswork, in which the boundless range, the infinite variety, the, atfirst sight, incongruous gorgeousness of the separate

21、parts,nevertheless are all subordinate to one main and predominantidea, that Gibbon is unrivalled. We cannot but admire the mannerin which he masses his materials, and arranges his facts insuccessive groups, not according to chronological order, but totheir moral or political connection; the distinc

22、tness with whichhe marks his periods of gradually increasing decay; and the skillwith which, though advancing on separate parallels of history, heshows the common tendency of the slower or more rapid religiousor civil innovations. However these principles of compositionmay demand more than ordinary

23、attention on the part of thereader, they can alone impress upon the memory the real course,and the relative importance of the events. Whoever would justlyappreciate the superiority of Gibbons lucid arrangement, shouldattempt to make his way through the regular but wearisome annalsof Tillemont, or ev

24、en the less ponderous volumes of Le Beau. Both these writers adhere, almost entirely, to chronologicalorder; the consequence is, that we are twenty times called uponto break off, and resume the thread of six or eight wars indifferent parts of the empire; to suspend the operations of amilitary expedi

25、tion for a court intrigue; to hurry away from asiege to a council; and the same page places us in the middle ofa campaign against the barbarians, and in the depths of theMonophysite controversy. In Gibbon it is not always easy to bearin mind the exact dates but the course of events is ever clearand

26、distinct; like a skilful general, though his troops advancefrom the most remote and opposite quarters, they are constantlybearing down and concentrating themselves on one point - thatwhich is still occupied by the name, and by the waning power ofRome. Whether he traces the progress of hostile religi

27、ons, orleads from the shores of the Baltic, or the verge of the Chineseempire, the successive hosts of barbarians - though one wave hashardly burst and discharged itself, before another swells up andapproaches - all is made to flow in the same direction, and theimpression which each makes upon the t

28、ottering fabric of theRoman greatness, connects their distant movements, and measuresthe relative importance assigned to them in the panoramichistory. The more peaceful and didactic episodes on thedevelopment of the Roman law, or even on the details ofecclesiastical history, interpose themselves as

29、resting-places ordivisions between the periods of barbaric invasion. In short,though distracted first by the two capitals, and afterwards bythe formal partition of the empire, the extraordinary felicity ofarrangement maintains an order and a regular progression. As ourhorizon expands to reveal to us

30、 the gathering tempests which areforming far beyond the boundaries of the civilized world - as wefollow their successive approach to the trembling frontier - thecompressed and receding line is still distinctly visible; thoughgradually dismembered and the broken fragments assuming the formof regular

31、states and kingdoms, the real relation of thosekingdoms to the empire is maintained and defined; and even whenthe Roman dominion has shrunk into little more than the provinceof Thrace - when the name of Rome, confined, in Italy, to thewalls of the city - yet it is still the memory, the shade of theR

32、oman greatness, which extends over the wide sphere into whichthe historian expands his later narrative; the whole blends intothe unity, and is manifestly essential to the double catastropheof his tragic drama. But the amplitude, the magnificence, or the harmony ofdesign, are, though imposing, yet un

33、worthy claims on ouradmiration, unless the details are filled up with correctness andaccuracy. No writer has been more severely tried on this pointthan Gibbon. He has undergone the triple scrutiny of theologicalzeal quickened by just resentment, of literary emulation, and ofthat mean and invidious v

34、anity which delights in detecting errorsin writers of established fame. On the result of the trial, wemay be permitted to summon competent witnesses before we deliverour own judgment. M. Guizot, in his preface, after stating that in France andGermany, as well as in England, in the most enlightened c

35、ountriesof Europe, Gibbon is constantly cited as an authority, thusproceeds: - I have had occasion, during my labors, to consult thewritings of philosophers, who have treated on the finances of theRoman empire; of scholars, who have investigated the chronology;of theologians, who have searched the d

36、epths of ecclesiasticalhistory; of writers on law, who have studied with care the Romanjurisprudence; of Orientalists, who have occupied themselves withthe Arabians and the Koran; of modern historians, who haveentered upon extensive researches touching the crusades and theirinfluence; each of these

37、writers has remarked and pointed out, inthe History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, somenegligences, some false or imperfect views some omissions, whichit is impossible not to suppose voluntary; they have rectifiedsome facts combated with advantage some assertions; but ingeneral they ha

38、ve taken the researches and the ideas of Gibbon,as points of departure, or as proofs of the researches or of thenew opinions which they have advanced. M. Guizot goes on to state his own impressions on readingGibbons history, and no authority will have greater weight withthose to whom the extent and

39、accuracy of his historicalresearches are known: - After a first rapid perusal, which allowed me to feelnothing but the interest of a narrative, always animated, and,notwithstanding its extent and the variety of objects which itmakes to pass before the view, always perspicuous, I entered upona minute

40、 examination of the details of which it was composed; andthe opinion which I then formed was, I confess, singularlysevere. I discovered, in certain chapters, errors which appearedto me sufficiently important and numerous to make me believe thatthey had been written with extreme negligence; in others

41、, I wasstruck with a certain tinge of partiality and prejudice, whichimparted to the exposition of the facts that want of truth andjustice, which the English express by their happy termmisrepresentation. Some imperfect (tronquees) quotations; somepassages, omitted unintentionally or designedly cast

42、a suspicionon the honesty (bonne foi) of the author; and his violation ofthe first law of history - increased to my eye by the prolongedattention with which I occupied myself with every phrase, everynote, every reflection - caused me to form upon the whole work, ajudgment far too rigorous. After hav

43、ing finished my labors, Iallowed some time to elapse before I reviewed the whole. Asecond attentive and regular perusal of the entire work, of thenotes of the author, and of those which I had thought it right tosubjoin, showed me how much I had exaggerated the importance ofthe reproaches which Gibbo

44、n really deserved; I was struck withthe same errors, the same partiality on certain subjects; but Ihad been far from doing adequate justice to the immensity of hisresearches, the variety of his knowledge, and above all, to thattruly philosophical discrimination (justesse desprit) whichjudges the pas

45、t as it would judge the present; which does notpermit itself to be blinded by the clouds which time gathersaround the dead, and which prevent us from seeing that, under thetoga, as under the modern dress, in the senate as in ourcouncils, men were what they still are, and that events tookplace eighte

46、en centuries ago, as they take place in our days. Ithen felt that his book, in spite of its faults, will always be anoble work - and that we may correct his errors and combat hisprejudices, without ceasing to admit that few men have combined,if we are not to say in so high a degree, at least in a ma

47、nner socomplete, and so well regulated, the necessary qualifications fora writer of history. The present editor has followed the track of Gibbon throughmany parts of his work; he has read his authorities with constantreference to his pages, and must pronounce his deliberatejudgment, in terms of the

48、highest admiration as to his generalaccuracy. Many of his seeming errors are almost inevitable fromthe close condensation of his matter. From the immense range ofhis history, it was sometimes necessary to compress into a singlesentence, a whole vague and diffuse page of a Byzantinechronicler. Perhap

49、s something of importance may have thusescaped, and his expressions may not quite contain the wholesubstance of the passage from which they are taken. His limits,at times, compel him to sketch; where that is the case, it is notfair to expect the full details of the finished picture. Attimes he can o

50、nly deal with important results; and in his accountof a war, it sometimes requires great attention to discover thatthe events which seem to be comprehended in a single campaign,occupy several years. But this admirable skill in selecting andgiving prominence to the points which are of real weight and

51、importance - this distribution of light and shade - thoughperhaps it may occasionally betray him into vague and imperfectstatements, is one of the highest excellencies of Gibbonshistoric manner. It is the more striking, when we pass from theworks of his chief authorities, where, after laboring throu

52、ghlong, minute, and wearisome descriptions of the accessary andsubordinate circumstances, a single unmarked and undistinguishedsentence, which we may overlook from the inattention of fatigue,contains the great moral and political result. Gibbons method of arrangement, though on the whole mostfavorab

53、le to the clear comprehension of the events, leadslikewise to apparent inaccuracy. That which we expect to find inone part is reserved for another. The estimate which we are toform, depends on the accurate balance of statements in remoteparts of the work; and we have sometimes to correct and modifyo

54、pinions, formed from one chapter by those of another. Yet, onthe other hand, it is astonishing how rarely we detectcontradiction; the mind of the author has already harmonized thewhole result to truth and probability; the general impression isalmost invariably the same. The quotations of Gibbon have

55、likewise been called in question; - I have, in general, been moreinclined to admire their exactitude, than to complain of theirindistinctness, or incompleteness. Where they are imperfect, itis commonly from the study of brevity, and rather from the desireof compressing the substance of his notes into pointed andemphatic sentences, than from dishonesty, or uncandid suppressionof truth. These ob