Gibbon

Hey Veeky Forums. How much of Gibbon's book is true belief, how much is knowledge, how much is false belief and how much is deception? Give ratios.

What is archeology?

I wish there was somewhere or something that just goes over the book as to what parts are not as accurate.

Facts are subjective

>What is archeology?
A bunch of rocks, not written records/papyri/scrolls etc.

I don't know what to believe

Apparently it is excessively anti-Christian as was the flavor of the month in those days.

Truth is more real than facts

>For the past century, the area around Oxyrhynchus has been continually excavated, yielding an enormous collection of papyrus texts dating from the time of the Ptolemaic and Roman periods of Egyptian history. Among the texts discovered at Oxyrhynchus are plays of Menander, fragments from the Gospel of Thomas, and fragments from Euclid's Elements. They also include a few vellum manuscripts, and more recent Arabic manuscripts on paper (for example, the medieval P. Oxy. VI 1006[1])

Who is this cum plum

CAN'T WAKE UP

Attacking it for its historical inaccuracy has become a meme.

The truth is, the historical accuracy doesn't matter.

>The Epic of Gilgamesh was discovered by Hormuzd Rassam in 1853

Archeology, information compilation and networking (overt but not inaccurate example: instead of 1 source that makes a claim, you have 10 that resoundingly render the claim of the 1 to be false), and removal of memes/pet theories - basically "scientification". Prevailing ideas that caught traction and function as memes yet have no real basis outside of being popular and sounding cool. Get dismissed when one (or rather an academic structure) with a real mind for history and accuracy studies it. Memes are not accepted in the modern day just because they're memes, like they regularly were in the past.

>Since 1898 academics have puzzled together and transcribed over 5,000 documents from what were originally hundreds of boxes of papyrus fragments the size of large cornflakes. This is thought to represent only 1 to 2 percent of what is estimated to be at least half a million papyri still remaining to be conserved, transcribed, deciphered and catalogued.

came at every page, his analysis of peoples is my favorite

some of gibbons sources are fraudulent and there is a huge archaeological record which Gibbon never got the chance to analyse. Also the focus on literary texts exclusively is vastly discredited in the classics as in the past there has been a total lack of deep source analysis. Of course modern interpretations of sources cant be considered 'right' but they do add to the collective scholarship.

Also Gibbon is full of european enlightenment bias, the church really didnt do anything wrong.

Gibbon's problem is not his scholarly work, there is a reason his volumes are in every classicists office. And if user says fraudulent, it wasnt Gibbon's fault, he was working on his own in a French country house and criticizes sources in his own footnotes.

His problem is that he is a man of his time, and profoundly anti-clerical, and in that he is unable to conceive of sincere religious belief, which really undermines his conclusions about Christianity and paganism, as well as his awesome chapter on Julian.

btw The Great Courses just came out with a great reading course on the work from a harvard emeritus, which is easily pirateable.

thegreatcourses.com/courses/books-that-matter-the-history-of-the-decline-and-fall-of-the-roman-empire.html

Veeky Forums meme. Some say it has still historical and literary merit, though.

oh yeah i never meant that he deliberately used bad sources, he was never to know and it was groundbreaking when some of his used sources were outed as frauds. I really do like gibbon my earlier post did sound a bit harsh.

Veeky Forums has been around for 2 years and exists for General vs. General threads and /pol/bait. Gibbon has been memed hard since Rome Total War 1 came out, and I would not say the narrative is false.

I think the strategy game community is the only place where you see Flavius Stilicho praised.

Also, Gibbon is writing in the most perfect English prose every created.

one needs to be enlightened to really study the collapse of the empire though

no wants to read about a fabricated take on how christianity really saved the empire even though the decline after its acceptance is clear. It would just look and sound foolish. Gibbon scorns christianity tis true, but no more than is warranted on this subject.

Because new sources are discovered, a LOT of new archaeology is done, new techniques of analyzing sources are utilized, and old assumptions are found to be incorrect.

>when reading history historical accuracy doesn't matter

You're a fucking idiot.

wut

>someone learns that a source was a later fabrication
>How do things "become" historically inaccurate
What is wrong with you?

>Implying the Roman Empire "fell" and didn't continue for another millennium in the east

How does Socrates “become” shorter than Chrysaeus without changing his own height?

Ask Procrustes.

>the historical accuracy doesn't matter
I unironically like this meme

To goes until the fall of Byzantium you absolute mong.

Edit: It goes
REEEEEEEEEEEE

>It goes REEEEEE

>It goes REEEEEEEEEEEE until the fall of Byzantium you absolute mong
You have a problem with that sentence bub?

Is he wrong? How many of you are historians? The importance and influence of the text exists whether or not it's accurate. Do you think the Bible isn't important because of its scientifically inaccurate statements, like God preventing nightfall by preventing the sun from moving?

It goes, it goes, it goes, it goes
It goes, it goes, it goes, it goes
REEEEEEEEEEEEEE - yuh!
Sit in the dark and ponder how
I'm fit to make Byzantium fall through the floor
And they all fall down - yuh!
(It goes, it goes, it goes, it goes, it goes, it goes - yuh!)

Not him but I agree.

>Persians REEEEE
>Arabs REEEEEEE
>Bulgarians REEEEEEE
>Turks REEEEEE
>Bulgarians 2 Asen Boogaloo REEEEE
>Crusaders REEEEEE
>Osman's Excellent Adventure REEEEEE

And bouts of
>PRETENDERS REEEEEE

Byzantium has been on big REEEE for 1000 years

Christianity killed the Roman Empire.

If Gibbon addresses the decline and fall what's a good classic text about it's rise?

mommsen

For the rise of the Roman Republic, read The Histories by Polybius. Excellent stuff.

Seems fair enough after the Roman Empire killed Jesus.

Close.

Jesus didn't even exist. The Jews via Saul of Tarsus invented Christianity to obliterate their main rivals, the Romans. And of course to this very day Jews hate Whites.

Elisa bagordo