That Wacky, Wacky, Edward Gibbon!!!!

It sounds pretty fucking twitty-twatty, but I've been reading me some Edward Gibbon these past few months.

Gibbon is the author of the ginormous 3,000 (give or take a few hundred pages) "The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire." The copy I have is spread out over six volumes. I'm on Volume Two.

No, there are no pictures in it, and the print is at about a 10 point font, but, overall, I find it to be funnier than anything Jimmy Fallon has ever done, and it's not even desperately trying to be funny like Jimmy Fallon.

For example, I don't know, I find this very funny...this quote I'm about to share. The actual beginning of the end of the Roman Empire for Gibbon doesn't start with Caligula or Nero, but it starts with the son of the good Emperor Marcus, a spoiled little oligarch named Commodus (played by Joaquin Phoenix in the film "Gladiator"):

Here's the quote, telling all about the routine of ol' Commudus:
"His hours were spent in a seraglio of three hundred beautiful women, and as many boys, of every rank, and of every province; and, wherever the arts of seduction proved ineffectual, the brutal lover had recourse to violence. The ancient historians have expatiated on these abandoned scenes of prostitution, which scorned every restraint of nature or modesty; but it would not be easy to translate their too faithful descriptions into the decency of modern language. The intervals of lust were filled up with the basest amusements. The influence of a polite age, and the labor of an attentive education, had never been able to infuse into his rude and brutish mind the least tincture of learning; and he was the first of the Roman emperors totally devoid of taste for the pleasures of the understanding."

There's so much dry wit going on besides just the above, I could make myself laugh here for hours. Hell, it's a 3000 page doorstop, so I'll change "hours" to days.

So Commodus had 300 beautiful women, and 300 boys! Can you imagine the material the Jay Leno of Ancient Rome had to work with? Whoever hosted "The Tonight Show" around 180AD must have joked and joked about that for years and years, until one of Commodus's many mistresses helped kill him. (Commudus, not the Jay Leno of Ancient Rome, who, surely, would have been executed for his obvious comedy.)

Okay...so Commodus was handpicked by his father to "assume the purple" even though his grades were notso hotso in spite of getting educated by the elitist of the elite, and when all was said and done, he preferred the "vulgar spectacle" of hunting lions in the Colluseum. He squandered the treasury, surrounded himself with sycophants, executed traitors both real and imagined, and literally fucked around while the population struggled and suffered. Oh, and the Roman Senate rubberstamped his policies.

Don't even think it, dude. There are no comparisons to anything happening now. For starters, I can't think of a single "most powerful man in the world" with a seraglio, right? (Although, from what I'm hearing about Scooter Libby's 1996 novel "The Apprentice," I'm a little bit curious as to exactly how the power elite "lets their hair down," as it were.) Not only that, but Gibbon says Marcus, Commodus's father, was a good emperor whose sole (repeat: sole) weakness was the excessive love of his kids. While some leaders you may or may not be thinking of like to pretend they're rednecks into the same things rednecks like, it's not like any leader was into pro-wrestling while in office (before they were in office, sure, but that's another spiel).

There are no comparisons that literal here. For starters, the decadence of the two ages are nowhere near the same. Lust and sloth are looked upon with a lot more disgust in our society than greed, pride, or gluttony. We have our own equivalents of orgies and vomitoriums, as corny and relatively unsensual as they are, but decadent just the same......all the stupid spectacles...all-you-can eat buffets, commercials, fashion magazines, "American Idol," Michael Jackson on trial.....

But, the comparisons, they start right about.............here:
"Most of the crimes which disturb the internal peace of society, are produced by the restraints which the necessary but unequal laws of property have imposed on the appetites of mankind, by confining to a few the possession of those objects that are coveted by many. Of all our passions and appetites, the love of power is of the most imperious and unsociable nature, since the pride of one man requires the submission of the multitude."

Gibbon's final kiss-off to Commodus is right here:
"Such was the fate of the son of Marcus, and so easy was it to destroy a hated tyrant, who, by the artificial powers of government, had oppressed, during thirteen years, so many millions of subjects, each of whom was equal to their master in personal strength and personal abilities."

Basically, from what I've read so far, "The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire" is a massive instance collection about power, and what good and bad people do when they have it, and the slow spread of Christianity in the midst of all that power. You see the President James Buchanan's of the Roman Empire; you see the President Abraham Lincoln's of the Roman Empire, all of whom die, and usually in a very unpleasant manner.

We'll let history judge where Bush will be, but the historians of all political stripes thus far are clearly putting him closer to Buchanan, than Lincoln (or even Reagan for those of you who wanna name streets, airports, hospitals, and diseases after him) ('sup, Longwood, FL?!?).

I'll definitely share the wackiness of Edward Gibbon and his light read when I come across it in Volume Two. Just you wait....just you wait!!!