Word: rome
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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...mother country will appear in Washington, Philadelphia and elsewhere - though not until a couple of days after the main event. The elfin pop singer Elton John will come to a Boston Bicentennial concert tricked out as the Statue of Liberty in silver-sequined robe. Italian Americans in Rome, N.Y., will celebrate with one of history's biggest spaghetti dinners - 600 Ibs. of pasta and 600 Ibs. of sausage for a crowd of up to 3,000. For 76 consecutive hours, the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution and the Bill of Rights will be on display at the National Archives...
With the ominous words "abused," "image" and "appeared," Gibbon conveys in brief most of what had gone wrong with Rome. Several decades of relative peace in the 2nd century left the army lax and indolent. It was a time of great prosperity, and excess wealth had its customary enervating effect. But it was the lack of supporting structure behind the impressive forms of government that doomed Rome, Gibbon believes. He traces this lack to the very first Emperor, Augustus, who ruled from 27 B.C. to A.D. 14. Augustus' predecessor and adoptive father, Julius Caesar, had been assassinated...
...gladiator and was murdered by his favorite concubine and a wrestler. He was succeeded by the aged Pertinax, who tried to institute reforms, only to be murdered after 86 days by the unreformable Praetorian Guard. This garrison of swaggerers, who for a time held the real power in Rome, then insolently auctioned off the imperial throne to a wealthy Senator named Didius Julianus, who offered each guard the equivalent of some ?200 in silver. He ruled in increasing confusion for 66 days before being beheaded...
...order, but it is clear that their strength is that of men, not of enduring institutions, and that the fall of the empire is inescapable. Gibbon is no moralist intent on admonisinng modern readers, and he has no interest in encouraging American Patriots in rebellion, but he does demonstrate Rome's lessons for other peoples...
Privately, the author has observed that Rome fell because of "the inevitable effect of immoderate greatness," adding that the question should not be why the empire collapsed, but how it managed to subsist for so long. Such epigrams amuse, but do not edify; for fuller explanations, the reader will have to wait for the concluding volumes of this profound and ambitious work...