...mighty Mount Athos is a grain of sand in the universe.' Even the cynical Gibbon had to tip his hat: 'If a man were called to fix the period in the history...would, without hesitation, name that which elapsed from [96 to 180 AD]'— That is, the era of those 'Five Good Emperors.' 4 Today's democracies would not...

...the Roman Empire in the Age of the Antonines' If a man were called to fix the period in the historv of the world during which the condition of the human...the death of Domitian to the accession of Commodus [ie 96-180 ADJ. The vast extent of the Roman empire was governed hv ahsolute power, under the guidance...

...the Antonine line. His short reign inaugurated what Gibbon — taking a Eurocentric view — called "the period in the history of the world during which...the condition of the human race was most happy and prosperous."78 HOMOSEXUALITY AND CIVILIZATION 19. Antinous. Delphi, c. 130 CE. ander in reaching the...

...by the citation law, ' imperial authority gave formal recognition to his works ;T[ and, there* " If a man were called to fix the period in the history...the death of Domitian to the accession of Commodus (AD 96-180). The vast extent of the Roman empire was governed by absolute power, under the guidance...

...definition to both imperial power and imperial longevity. As Gibbon wrote, "If a man were called upon to fix the period in the history of the world during...without hesitation name that which elapsed from the accession of Nerva to death of Aurelius. Their united reigns are possibly the only r~ ot history in...

...eighteenth-century historian and author of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, claims that 'if man were called to fix the period in the history of...happy and prosperous, he would, without hesitation' look to Roman history before the beginning of its decline in the late second century AD (cited in Doyle...

...Trajan is often taken as the height of the Roman Empire: Edward Gibbon called it 'the golden age', the 'period in the history of the world during which...condition of the human race was most happy and prosperous' (Gibbon 1960: 1 ). For the upper classes in Rome and her vast Empire there is much to be said in favour...

...eighteenth-century historian Edward Gibbon made a radiant assessment of the period within which Hadrian ruled: 'If a man were called to fix the period in the history of the world, during which the condition of the race were most happy and most prosperous, he would, without hesitation, name that which elapsed from...

...use of the Roman emperor Marcus Aurelius (AD 121-80). Marcus Aurelius, whose reign Gibbon extolled as 'the period in the history of the world during which the condition of the human race was most happy', was a practising Stoic philosopher but no mere quietist.16 His Meditations, which resonate with the...

...Dante's Divine Comedy — and Marcus Aurelius. It was of this period that Edward Gibbon wrote, ~— : If a man were called to fix the period in the history...death of Domitian to the accession of Commodus [the period from about 90 to ISO].55 Similarly, it is difficult to think of many worse times than, say,...