Opinions on Gibbon?

>>3245641

Pretty much everything that is wrong about Gibbon can be excused by the fact that he was writing in the 18th century.

>>3245644
>be closer in time to events you are writing about
>STILL fucks it up

How does this even happen?

>>3245696

>Being closer in time means that you're more accurate

Only if you were actually, physically present at the event, or you have the ability to interview people who were. Otherwise, being closer in time is actually a disadvantage because it means you don't have access to modern archeology.

>>3245641
Outdated but gets credit for really kind of setting the standard for modern study of roman history and making it a fun fucking read.

>>3245644
This guy put it correctly.

>>3245641
>Muh degeneracy
Might not sound as stupid when it's dressed up in 18th century scholarly English as opposed to /pol/shit, but it is in fact every bit as stupid in reality.

>>3245706
So, suppose I'm writing about an even from 90 years ago. someone a 1000 years later after me would be more accurate because of modern archeology?

>>3245731

That's probably true, yes.

>>3245721
OP here, what are some specific things he got wrong? I've heard people say that the introduction of laeti communities and the introduction of Germans into the legions actually improved the military capabilities of the Empire; is that the case? Any good books that support this point/other things gibbon may have been wrong about?

>>3245641
muh pagans

>>3245731
Probably more like 150 years later before the archeology factor goes into effect, but realistically what he's saying would only be true of a society that didn't have one printing press. Primary sources in the modern world are so profligate that our understanding of the nearish past can be exponentially better than it would be if you did the same experiment before the printing press

>>3245738
The starting assumptions aren't entirely crazy. Basically, if you look at the numbers, organization, relative technology, etc., of some of the opponents Rome faced and beat in their earlier days, groups like the Carthaginians, the various Diodochi states, the Parthians, etc., on an absolute scale, these guys were tougher than the Germanic tribes that started migrating in and would eventually provide the death knell for the Empire.

Ergo, if Rome in the later centuries lost to opponents weaker than those in the earlier ones, Rome must have gotten weaker, somehow.

It has two huge gaping flaws; first off, it assumes that theese Germanic groups were in fact weaker. Things like technology and military organization had changed DRASTICALLY from Rome's heyday, and Gibbon mostly overlooks that.

He also falls into a very 18th century set of assumptions that things like social organization and technological progress are themselves driven by and characterized by "moral firmness" of your polity. This leads to the conclusion that Rome fell because of things like Christainity, or the absolutism of the Severan dynasty, or orgies. It's pretty ridiculous.

>>3245641
He was literally right about eberything but now Greco-Papist disinformants have spread a notion that he was actually wrong about some things.

>>3245644
Didn't he say that Gallienus was 10 feet tall and that Maxentius could crush boulders with his bare hands?

>>3245759
Good post anon

He does also get some basic factual stuff flat out wrong, like thinking Rome's walls were dozens of times bigger than they really were and thinking that late Roman soldiers didn't wear armor