So in case you missed it last time, Gibbon knows nothing about Roman government, suppresses inconvenient truths, and contradicts himself within the length of a page.
This week I open up with something common since the printing press: the falsehood that just because somebody put it into print, it was influential .In a world that generates a Terabyte of data per day, we have to admit that almost none of it will remain in circulation in 5 years, except for the urban legends.
So Gibbon starts chapter 4 with Commodus and there are two things wrong with it.
First, he assumes that all his sources must be accurate. In the 21st century, Nero's reputation is being rehabilitated by pointing out that the Flavians who followed him had a vested interest in destroying Nero.
The same is true for Commodus, with one curve ball high and outside. The Antonine plague was on during Commodus' life; it killed 2,000 a day in the city of Rome during his reign. Overall mortality was a quarter of the empire's population. There were two wars going on at the same time. Turn around and look at the behavior of Rudy Giuliani, once "America's mayor" and later a Trumpist at risk of losing his law license due to supporting fraudulent election claims. The behavior of Commodus becomes very understandable in this light; Commodus only lived 31 years, just 10 years longer than the period from 911 to the Covid pandemic, and under similar stresses.
Second, Gibbon talks of Commodus learning from the reigns of Nero and Domitian what NOT to do as emperor. This assumes that the gossipy works of Tacitus and Suetonius were in the Antonine palace library. It also assumes that the Stoic philosopher Marcus Antoninus had his son's tutors base their curricula on historical works instead of the same old standards like Homer, Vergil, and whatever philosophers were in "print" (OK manuscript but you get my point).
Far too many writers seem to think that written material is both available to and accessed by everybody who reads. Universities were turning out clergy in Gibbon's time, and taking on upper class men so they could meet future pastors and maybe, through patronage, give them a living. If you weren't keeping the terms of the university -- if you were just a janitor, say -- you couldn't access these libraries. If you lived near a Stately Mansion, you had to run tame in that mansion to access its libraries. Otherwise you had to have the money to subscribe to a bookseller's or circulating library. And then you had to choose works of history or philosophy, instead of plays, poetry, travels or -- gasp -- novels. You have free access to literature through a local library. You also have Internet access to almost all the surviving Greek and Roman literature, plus literature from all over the world. Think about book choices by your family and friends, and you will realize that Gibbon's assumption is humbug.
Marcus Antoninus would have appointed Stoics as his son's tutors. The Stoics would not have taught, for example, Aristotle, that writer so crucial to the later Christian Church. In fact Aristotle's scorn for non-Greeks and frank definition of one-man rule as kingship, would have offended Augustus, for example, who was trying so hard not to be king. Commodus had a positive example in his own father's life; Marcus wanted Commodus to learn to think, not just copy or avoid previous rulers' behavior.
And now for more evidence that historians may undercut their own credibility. In this chapter Gibbon discusses one of those military problems that he recently denied happened. Soldiers were deserting and taking to plunder. The gossipy Historia Augusta never says why but here's a suggestion. In the very first year of his solo reign, Commodus debased the coinage. Heckel's notes for a class given by the Federal Reserve discusses inflation as a cause of the fall of the Roman Empire and specifically notes this debasement.
Inflation would have reduced the buying power of the soldiers' pay, and they didn't take it lying down. They deserted and turned to robbery. Gibbon mentions one specific robber who even planned to assassinate Commodus and take over. He was betrayed by an accomplice. Gibbon puts the problem down to "negligence of the public administration," neither he nor the Historia having any more intelligent suggestion to make.
Why would Commodus debase the coinage? If you think he wanted the gold and silver to spend on his own lifestyle, well, remember, Commodus is supposed to be this horrible selfish person with no respect for anything. He could have plundered temples all over the empire and melted down statues or at least melted the gold and silver off of them, to get what he wanted. According to Suetonius such things happened under Augustus (chapter 73); Nero (chapter 32); and Galba (chapter 5). So much for Commodus learning from previous emperors or from Suetonius.
Why Commodus would need the money for expenses rests on Historian's Fallacy.
Today, if we provide goods and services, we expect to get paid for them. We can take somebody to court for failure to pay. In the late 1700s and early 1800s, we could get the sheriff to auction off the debtor's goods to get a return. Debtors could also go to prison for non-payment.
Even if this could happen in the Roman Empire, we all forget one thing. By the reign of Commodus, there was no representative assembly any more. Taxation without representation? Don't make me laugh! Commodus did not have to rule by consent of the governed. He was the emperor. He could confiscate property without submitting his claims to a court. He didn't have to pay his bills. The idea of coinage being a tool of the state is nonsense in a state with an absolute head who doesn't have to get permission from a representative assembly to use the coinage. Coinage is a convenient way of exchanging goods and services that leads to the credit economy where business doesn't have to be done face to face. But before there's a credit economy, it's a lot easier to move around a couple of denarii than it is to move around two cows or a cow and two sheep or whatever.
Now, if you said Commodus didn't want to give up gold or silver to the Treasury to do the minting, that's another thing. That's the act of a stupid twat. Whoever spends that gold or silver coinage gets less for his money, and the person he buys from can show a lower outflow on his tax return, and object that he shouldn't have to pay as much in taxes. And even if the government disagrees and confiscates the right amount of coins anyway, those coins are debased. The taxes flowing into the Treasury aren't worth as much as before the debasement. The Treasury can't buy as much for its money as it could before debasement -- and if the government wants to maintain the inflow of goods and services, they have to confiscate the goods and non-pay the services.
Well, within two years this debasement caused military desertions all over the empire, and the deserters turned to plunder so they could survive. This is a downward spiral that the Federal Reserve agrees is one cause of the decline of the Roman Empire. Eventually the coinage is worth nothing and the providers of goods and services refuse to accept them. Then you have to go back to the barter system unless you are one of the people high in government with authority to confiscate.
But as I said last time, Gibbon and his contemporaries would never see it this way, despite Gibbon waving the flag of "liberty". Still less would prior generations understand what was going on. So nobody can give us a real picture of why Commodus debased the coinage, except that he was a stupid twat.
Now, in chapter 40 about about Justinian, Gibbon will talk about people shaving or clipping coins (although this comes from the highly suspect Anecdota which were attributed to Procopius). This was pretty dangerous. Once debasement began, coin clipping yielded less precious metal and so that stopped being attractive.
Kevin Butcher says there were almost no sources for people to go to in the 1700s and 1800s, once they understood economics better and went looking for information specifically on Rome. That's another case of Historian's Fallacy. The publication of Wealth of Nations (1776) didn't mean that prior generations or civilizations knew what an economy was or how it worked, so why would they write in terms Smith used?
Kevin Butcher, Debasement and the decline of Rome.
https://warwick.ac.uk/fac/arts/classics/intranets/staff/butcher/debasement_and_decline.pdf
https://www.stlouisfed.org/~/media/education/lessons/pdf/inflation_and_the_fall_of_the_roman_empire.pdf?la=en
Gibbon was not aware of economics as a banking issue, only as an issue of ownership of real and private property. That is how people of Gibbon's class thought. Banking was a necessary evil, you had to pay your rents into some safe place , but you were hindered by bankers' complaints about overdrafts if you "spent your money like a gentleman" on horses, gaming, mistresses, and fine dining. So Gibbon was incapable of realizing that the problem with Commodus wasn't his crazy behavior while suffering from PTSD; it was his stupid idea of debasing the coinage.
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