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The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire (Edited and Abridged): Abridged Edition

Book by Edward Gibbon · 3 quotes · History, Roman Empire, Government

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The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire (Edited and Abridged): Abridged Edition Quotes

“The two Antonines (for it is of them that we are now speaking) governed the Roman world forty-two years, with the same invariable spirit of wisdom and virtue. ... Their united reigns are possibly the only period of history in which the happiness of a great people was the sole object of government.”

“Yet the people, and even the clergy, incapable of forming any rational judgment of the business of peace and war, presumed to arraign the policy of Stilicho, who so often vanquished, so often surrounded, and so often dismissed the implacable enemy of the republic. The first moment of the public safety is devoted to gratitude and joy; but the second is diligently occupied by envy and calumny.”