The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, Volume 6

Front Cover
 

Other editions - View all

Common terms and phrases

Popular passages

Page 409 - Yet the experience of four thousand years should enlarge our hopes and diminish our apprehensions: we cannot determine to what height the human species may aspire in their advances towards perfection; but it may safely be presumed that no people, unless the face of nature Is changed, will relapse into their original barbarism.
Page 295 - Nicene creed, by declaring the procession of the Holy Ghost from the Son, as well as from the Father...
Page 402 - It is the duty of a patriot to prefer and promote the exclusive interest and glory of his native country; but a philosopher may be permitted to enlarge his views, and to consider Europe as one great republic, whose various inhabitants have attained almost the same level of politeness and cultivation.
Page 408 - Europe is secure from any future irruption of Barbarians; since, before they can conquer, they must cease to be barbarous. Their gradual advances in the science of war would always be accompanied, as we may learn from the example of Russia, with a proportionable improvement in the arts of peace and civil policy; and they themselves must deserve a place among the polished nations whom they subdue.
Page 400 - ... pay was lavished on the useless multitudes of both sexes who could only plead the merits of abstinence and chastity.
Page 261 - Anachoret resisted the heat of thirty summers, and the cold of as many winters. Habit and exercise instructed him to maintain his dangerous situation without fear or giddiness, and successively to assume the different postures of devotion. He sometimes prayed in an erect attitude with his outstretched arms in the figure of a cross ; but his most familiar practice was that of bending his meagre skeleton from the forehead to the feet; and a curious spectator, after numbering twelve hundred and forty-four...
Page 36 - But if the interval between two memorable {eras could be instantly annihilated ; if it were possible, after a momentary slumber of two hundred years, to display the new world to the eyes of a spectator, who still retained a lively and recent impression of the old, his surprise and his reflections would furnish the pleasing subject of a philosophical romance.
Page 124 - The succeeding generation could scarcely discover the ruins of Aquileia. After this dreadful chastisement, Attila pursued his march ; and, as he passed, the cities of Altinum, Concordia, and Padua were reduced into heaps of stones and ashes. The inland towns, Vicenza, Verona, and Bergamo, were exposed to the rapacious cruelty of the Huns. Milan and Pavia submitted, without resistance, to the loss of their wealth; and applauded the unusual clemency, which preserved from the flames the public as well...
Page 409 - But this general order is the effect of skill and labour; and the complex machinery may be decayed by time, or injured by violence. 3. Fortunately for mankind, the more useful, or, at least, more necessary arts, can be performed without superior talents, or national subordination ; without the powers of one, or the union of many. Each village, each family, each individual, must always possess both ability and inclination to perpetuate the use of fire...
Page 399 - ... ripened the principle of decay ; the causes of destruction multiplied with the extent of conquest ; and as soon as time or accident had removed the artificial supports, the stupendous fabric yielded to the pressure of its own weight. The story of its ruin is simple and obvious ; and instead of inquiring why the Roman empire was destroyed, we should rather be surprised that it had subsisted so long.

Bibliographic information