Sentiment, Source Criticism, and Marine Life in the <i>History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire</i> (1776–88)

Abstract Edward Gibbon's monumental History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire (1776–1788) has long been considered as deeply ambivalent toward sentiment. In this article, I argue Gibbon's great work closely considers how the historian and his vast array of sources properly conveys sympathy, condemning rhetorical excess and historiographical cruelty in the difficult search for a viewpoint that mingles pathos with philosophical meaning. Studying how Gibbon deals with marine life in Decline and Fall offers an intriguing potential entry point to this rich cluster of concerns, with Gibbon's keen interest in the watery world encompassing both nautical exploration and contemporary natural history. In three case studies, moving from the implications of the Ichthyophagi's consumption of fish, to the sixth-century Ostrogothic king Theodoric's haunting fish meal, to the grim prospect of the fourth-century Danube's fish consuming each other, I explore the currents of Gibbonian sentiment as expressed in his relationship to his sources, as he carefully judges authors from Procopius to Saint Jerome for their veracity and their feelings.