Retropost #472 (27 de agosto de 2005): Gibbon y la Decadencia

Me he comprado un libro que se anuncia como la Historia de la Decadencia y Caída del Imperio Romano de Gibbon (RBA, 2005) pero que lamentablemente es sólo una traducción de The Portable Gibbon, versión recortada y resumida por Dero A. Saunders. Esto sólo lo sabe uno cuando ya ha comprado el libro, porque en la cubierta no dice nada de eso, y va bien envuelto en plástico. En fin, quien quiera leer a Gibbon, mejor que lo haga en inglés, o en la edición publicada por Turner en 1984. (Hay otra traducción de 2003 que no he visto, de Nuevas Ediciones de Bolsillo, que parece también completa). Es incómodo que te pase esto al comprar un libro.

Hablando de comodidades, he aquí parte de la sección dedicada en esta historia a Cómodo (el emperador de Gladiator, para los amantes del séptimo):

"Eufórico con estas alabanzas, que gradualmente fueron extinguiendo su vergüenza natural, Cómodo decidió mostrar ante los ojos del pueblo romano los ejercicios que hasta el momento había restringido al interior de los muros de su palacio y a la presencia de unos pocos favoritos. El día fijado, la adulación, el temor y la curiosidad atrajeron al anfiteatro a una innumerable multitud de espectadores y se concedieron algunos merecidos aplausos a la infrecuente habilidad del protagonista imperial. Apuntara a la cabeza o al corazón del animal, la herida era segura y mortal. Con flechas de punta en forma de media luna, Cómodo era capaz de interceptar la rápida carrera y cortar por la mitad el largo cuello huesudo del avestruz. Soltaron una pantera y el arquero aguardó hasta que ésta saltó sobre un tembloroso malhechor; en ese mismo instante, el animal cayó muerto y el hombre no sufrió ningún rasguño. Las puertas del anfiteatro vertieron simultáneamente un centenar de leones; cien flechas, lanzadas por la mano certera de Cómodo, los mataron mientras corrían furiosos por la arena. Ni la mole del elefante ni la piel escamosa del rinoceronte los defendían de su ataque. Etiopía y la India entregaron sus productos más extraordinarios y fueron muertos en el anfiteatro varios animales que sólo se habían visto en representaciones artísticas, o tal vez, de la imaginación. En estas exhibiciones, se tomaba todo tipo de precauciones para proteger a la persona del Hércules romano del salto desesperado de cualquier fiera salvaje que pudiera olvidar la dignidad del emperador y la santidad del dios". (101-102)

Y luego se mete a gladiador - "El emperador combatió bajo esta condición en setecientas treinta y cinco ocasiones"... Vamos, que Ridley Scott se quedó corto allí donde más exagerado e improbable parecía (si bien Gibbon parece más crédulo con los milagros de los emperadores que con los de los santos).

Contrasta la furia carnicera de Cómodo con la furia tranquila y fría pero no menos letal de Gibbon, cuando ironiza sobre los protagonistas de su historia. Los cristianos, por ejemplo, son poco perseguidos en estos anfiteatros con el pilum o las flechas, pero no escapa uno sano de la afilada pluma del historiador. Al teólogo Orígenes, que se castró a sí mismo para evitar las tentaciones de la carne (supongo que por aquello de que si un miembro te escandaliza lo arrojes lejos de tí...) le cuelga Gibbon esta nota a pie de página: "Puesto que tenía por costumbre interpretar las Escrituras de modo alegórico, resulta desafortunado que sólo en este caso las entendiera en sentido literal".

La historia es para Gibbon el largo desfile de la crueldad, la ignorancia, la estupidez y el fanatismo. Y lo más triste del caso es que era un optimista: "No sabemos hasta dónde puede aspirar la especie humana en su avance hacia la perfección, pero podemos asegurar con certeza que ningún pueblo, mientras no dé un vuelco la naturaleza entera, volverá a caer en la barbarie original" (455). No conoció el siglo veinte, y no podía creer que la barbarie civilizada y tecnológica puede ser peor que la barbarie original, o al menos más eficaz. Aunque también los romanos le podían haber enseñado algo al respecto.

Retroposts

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Edward Gibbon

From The Oxford Companion to English Literature:

 Edward Gibbon (1737-94), born in Putney of a good family. He was a sickly child and his education at Westminster and at Magdalen College, Oxford, was irregular; in his posthumously published Memoirs he paints a vivid portrait of the 'narrow, lazy and oppressive' spriti of Oxford, and of the 'idle and unprofitable' time he spent there.  He became a Catholic convert at the age of 16, perhaps thorugh reading Conyers Middleton and Bossuet, perhaps through reading the works of the Elizabethan Jesuit Robert Parsons, and was sent off to Lausanne by his father, where he was reconverted to Protestantism. There he continued to read voraciously, as he had done since boyhood, his 'blind and boyish taste for exotic history' maturing into serious study of French and Latin classics; he also became attached to Suzanne Curchod (later Mme Necker, mother of Mme de Staël), but his father persuaded him to break off the engagement and he returned to England in 1758 after an absence of nearly five years. In 1761 he published his Essai sur l'étude de la littérature, of which an English version appeared in 1764. From 1759 he served as a captain in the Hampshire Militia until he left again for the Continent in 1763; it was in Italy, while 'musing among the ruins of the Capitol' that he formed the plan of his The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire. His improvident father's death left him in some difficulties, but he was able to settle in London in 1772 to proceed with his great work. He entered Parliament in 1774, voted steadily for Lord North, and was made a commissioner of trade and plantations, but his parliamentary career added nothing to his reputation. He was also elected to Dr. Johnson's Club in 1774. In 1776 appeared the first volume of the History which was very favourably received, although his chapters on the growth of Christianity provoked criticisms from those he mockingly dubbed the 'Watchmen of the Holy City'. To these theological critics Gibbon replied in 1779 in A Vindication of Some Passages in the XVth and XVIth Chapters. The second and third volumes appeared in 1781, but were less warmly received; he himself suspected he had become prolix through 'superfluous diligence'. He retired to Lausanne in 1783 to share the home of his old friend Deyverdun, who died not long afterwards. There Gibbon completed the work; he wrote as memorably of its completion as of its inception, describing his sense of freedom followed by a sober melancholy at taking 'an everlasting leave of an old and agreeable companion'. The last three volumes were published in 1788.  He returned to England and spent most of his remaining days in the home of his friend the Earl of Sheffield (John Baker Holroyd), who put together his remarkable Memoirs from various drafts and fragments, publishing them in 1796 with his Miscellaneous Works. The memoirs reveal Gibbon's sense of vocation as a historian, and record on several occasions his gratitude at having been born 'in a free and enlightened country'. The Decline and Fall is a work which responds to the full range of the culture of the Enlightenment, in both its English and its European aspects, and Gibbon has been seen as one of the last of the great Augustans. The standard edition of the History is by David Womersley (1994) and the standard biography is by Patricia Craddock; see also the life by D. M. Low (1937).

The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, a work by Gibbon, vol. 1 of the first (quarto) edition published 1776, vols. ii and iii 1781, and the last three vols. 1788.

This, the most celebrated historical work in English literature, falls into three divisions, as defined by the author in the preface, according to a plan that expanded during composition: from the age of Trajan and the Antonines to the subversion of the Western Empire; from the reign of Justinian in the East to the establishment of the second or German Empire of the West, under Charlemagne; from the revival of the Western Empire to the taking of Constantinople by the Turks. It thus covers a period of about 13 centuries, and comprehends such vast subjects as the establishment of Christianity, the movements and settlements of the Teutonic tribes, the conquests of the Muslims, and the Crusades. It traces in fact the connection of the ancient world with the modern.

Gibbon's great erudition, breadth of treatment, and powerful organization, render this a lasting monument, of substantial accuracy as well as elegance. His measured and dignified prose is cool, lucid, and enlivened by ironic with, much of it aimed at the early Church and the credulity and barbarism that overwhelmed the noble Roman virtues he so much admired. J. B. Bury's editions (1896-1900, 1909-14, 1926-9) are supplemented with notes incorporating subsequent research, but most of Gibbon's scholarship remains unchallenged. There is an edition by D. Womersley, 3 vols. (1994).

Gibbon y la Decadencia

 

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