Sublime

“Don’t be bounced around, but submit every impulse to the claims of justice, and protect your clear conviction in every appearance.” —MARCUS AURELIUS, MEDITATIONS, 4.22

A line from Seneca, which has since become a proverb, expresses Marcus’s insight well: Mundus ipse est ingens deorum omnium templum (The world itself is a huge temple of all the gods).

A prudent governor will not roughly oppose even the superstitions of his people; and though he may wish they were wiser, he will know that he cannot make them so by offending their prejudices.

Marcus Aurelius observed that “most of what we say and do is not essential. If you can eliminate it, you’ll have more time, and more tranquillity. Ask yourself at every moment, ‘Is this necessary?’”

Before broaching the main theme of his title, Gibbon briefly reflects on the earlier period of one-man rule between Tiberius and Commodus, and he singles out for praise the emperors in the second century CE. His memorable aphorism, crafted with typical eighteenth-century self-confidence, is still much quoted: ‘If a man were called to fix the period