The fractiousness of the Middle East is more a consequence of Alexander than something his longevity might have prevented. His empire broke up due not only to the several ambitions of his generals but also to the geographical incoherence of the territories which genius and greed had procured. O’Donnell goes from imperial to empyrean:

Humankind might yet find a way to build a commonalty of culture and purpose to link the peoples of Europe, western Asia and south Asia — to achieve . . . Alexander’s dream. Such a confrontation and eventual coming together would be painful and difficult to imagine, and neither devout Muslims nor devout Europeans will accept any future we can now envision — but the importance of finding one is undeniable.

Who can fail to recognise the prating of an academic used to a captive audience? The devout are the least of our worries.

Goldsworthy begins by claiming that Rome was never abandoned but ‘shrank massively’. Two pages later, we are alerted to ‘massive differences’ between Rome and any modern state. ‘None of this means it is impossible to learn from the past, simply that it must be done with considerable care and a good deal of caution.’ The botox of platitudes is used again and again to fill out an informative text. Within a few more pages, equestrians are said to have ‘massive influence’ and the Romans are ‘forced to massively increase’ their military spending. A modern Odoacer might cry, ‘Where’s style?’

If Rome did not quite fall, it certainly slipped, and was pushed, not least by those who sought entry to its markets and amenities. Even Augustus’ empire never stopped abruptly at its borders: slave-traders went back and forth supplying the two-footed oil which kept civilisation primed with energy. When the ‘barbarians’ took over the levers of power, they soon decked themselves in the robes and manner of those they had displaced, just as Christianity took over administrative units (dioceses and vicarages) which pagans had ordained. Did not Gregory the Great assume the same priestly title, Pontifex Maximus, as Julius Caesar? If the Treaty of Rome holds modern Europe together, it is after an antique fashion: today’s VAT inspectors are yesterday’s publicans.

It seems not to occur to our two massive historians that, whether or not history has ‘lessons’, its previous chroniclers certainly have something to teach them: if Gibbon indulges in period irony, if Tacitus is too deliciously tart, and Trevor-Roper too snidely anti-clerical to be quoted without deferential sneers, such writers made elegance an arm of criticism, wit an aspect of perception. Today’s clichés certify a decline from the intelligence of the past. A classless commonalty may be an amiable, sententious fancy; but prose without class marks a slipshod culture, at home with academico-journalese. 

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