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While the Romans languished under the ignominious tyranny of eunuchs and bishops, the praises of Julian were repeated with transport in every part of the empire, except in the palace of Constantius.

Edward Gibbon

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Edward Gibbon
Age: 56 †
Born: 1737
Born: May 8
Died: 1794
Died: January 16
Classical Scholar
Historian
Politician
Writer
Gibbon
Every
Repeated
Eunuchs
Empire
Julian
Empires
Praises
Tyranny
Romans
Praise
Palace
Except
Bishops
History
Transport
Part
Palaces
Ignominious

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When Julian ascended the throne, he declared his impatience to embrace and reward the Syrian sophist, who had preserved, in a degenerate age, the Grecian purity of taste, of manners and of religion. The emperor's prepossession was increased and justified by the discreet pride of his favourite.
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A Locrian, who proposed any new law, stood forth in the assembly of the people with a cord round his neck, and if the law was rejected, the innovator was instantly strangled.
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I never make the mistake of arguing with people for whose opinions I have no respect.
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The Romans, who so coolly and so concisely mention the acts of justice which were exercised by the legions, reserve their compassion and their eloquence for their own sufferings, when the provinces were invaded and desolated by the arms of the successful Barbarians.
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The subject, however various and important, has already been so frequently, so ably, and so successfully discussed, that it is now grown familiar to the reader, and difficult to the writer.
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[Courage] arises in a great measure from the consciousness of strength . . .
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The simple circumstantial narrative (did such a narrative exist) of the ruin of a single town, of the misfortunes of a single family, might exhibit an interesting and instructive picture of human manners but the tedious repetition of vague and declamatory complaints would fatigue the attention of the most patient reader.
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If all the barbarian conquerors had been annihilated in the same hour, their total destruction would not have restored the empire of the West: and if Rome still survived, she survived the loss of freedom, of virtue, and of honour.
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It was with the utmost difficulty that ancient Rome could support the institution of six vestals but the primitive church was filled with a great number of persons of either sex who had devoted themselves to the profession of perpetual chastity.
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But the desire of obtaining the advantages, and of escaping the burdens, of political society, is a perpetual and inexhaustible source of discord.
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A state of skepticism and suspense may amuse a few inquisitive minds. But the practice of superstition is so congenial to the multitude that, if they are forcibly awakened, they still regret the loss of their pleasing vision.
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The progress of despotism tends to disappoint its own purpose.
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A nation ignorant of the equal benefits of liberty and law, must be awed by the flashes of arbitrary power: the cruelty of a despot will assume the character of justice his profusion, of liberality his obstinacy, of firmness.
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The mathematics are distinguished by a particular privilege, that is, in the course of ages, they may always advance and can never recede.
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Unprovided with original learning, unformed in the habits of thinking, unskilled in the arts of composition, I resolved to write a book.
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It was here that I suspended my religious inquiries (aged 17).
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Metellus Numidicus, the censor, acknowledged to the Roman people, in a public oration, that had kind nature allowed us to exist without the help of women, we should be delivered from a very troublesome companion and he could recommend matrimony only as the sacrifice of private pleasure to public duty.
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The union of the Roman empire was dissolved its genius was humbled in the dust and armies of unknown barbarians, issuing from the frozen regions of the North, had established their victorious reign over the fairest provinces of Europe and Africa.
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The author himself is the best judge of his own performance none has so deeply meditated on the subject none is so sincerely interested in the event.
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In this primitive and abject state [of hunters and gatherers], which ill deserves the name of society, the human brute, without arts or laws, almost without sense or language, is poorly distinguished from the rest of the animal creation.
Edward Gibbon