Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire ⅩⅦ读书笔记

#英文阅读# #读书笔记# #Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire#

康斯坦丁堡的诞生。康斯坦丁一世击败最后一位对手李锡尼后，统一了罗马帝国，并决定在东方建立一座伟大的城市，康斯坦丁堡。这个决定有很多深层的含义。一方面是政治意义，它标志着奥古斯都一手打造的、带有凯撒烙印的罗马帝国时代的终结，而一个崭新的、带有君士坦丁大帝个人色彩的神圣罗马帝国即将诞生了。另一方面是军事意义，拜占庭处于多瑙河防线和美索不达米亚平原防线之间，可同时快速应对定居在多瑙河与顿河之间凶悍的野蛮人南下和东边的新波斯帝国西进，是绝对的战略要地。最后一方面是拜占庭无可替代的地理条件，它处在四通八达的海陆商道咽喉，古希腊人曾选此处为殖民地，并凭借得天独厚的地理优势征服海洋，建立了强大独立的共和政体。

重点词：

1.mistress ： A nation or country that has supremacy over others:霸主：对其它国有控制权的一个民族或国家；

2.Nicomedia：尼科美底亚：位于小亚细亚西北部的一座古城，在当今土耳其境内临博斯普鲁斯海峡。

3.Byzantium ：拜占庭城：在今土耳其伊斯坦布尔城址上的一座色雷斯古城。公元前 7世纪时由希腊人所建。 公元 196年被罗马人强占。康斯坦丁一世于330年命令重建该城，并重新将之命名为康斯坦丁堡

After the defeat and abdication of Licinius, his victorious rival proceeded to lay the foundations of a city destined to reign in future times, the mistress of the East, and to survive the empire and religion of Constantine. The motives, whether of pride or of policy, which first induced Diocletian to withdraw himself from the ancient seat of government, had acquired additional weight by the example of his successors, and the habits of forty years. Rome was insensibly confounded with the dependent kingdoms which had once acknowledged her supremacy; and the country of the Cæsars was viewed with cold indifference by a martial prince, born in the neighborhood of the Danube, educated in the courts and armies of Asia, and invested with the purple by the legions of Britain. The Italians, who had received Constantine as their deliverer, submissively obeyed the edicts which he sometimes condescended to address to the senate and people of Rome; but they were seldom honored with the presence of their new sovereign. During the vigor of his age, Constantine, according to the various exigencies of peace and war, moved with slow dignity, or with active diligence, along the frontiers of his extensive dominions; and was always prepared to take the field either against a foreign or a domestic enemy. But as he gradually reached the summit of prosperity and the decline of life, he began to meditate the design of fixing in a more permanent station the strength as well as majesty of the throne. In the choice of an advantageous situation, he preferred the confines of Europe and Asia; to curb with a powerful arm the barbarians who dwelt between the Danube and the Tanais; to watch with an eye of jealousy the conduct of the Persian monarch, who indignantly supported the yoke of an ignominious treaty. With these views, Diocletian had selected and embellished the residence of Nicomedia: but the memory of Diocletian was justly abhorred by the protector of the church: and Constantine was not insensible to the ambition of founding a city which might perpetuate the glory of his own name. During the late operations of the war against Licinius, he had sufficient opportunity to contemplate, both as a soldier and as a statesman, the incomparable position of Byzantium; and to observe how strongly it was guarded by nature against a hostile attack, whilst it was accessible on every side to the benefits of commercial intercourse. Many ages before Constantine, one of the most judicious historians of antiquity had described the advantages of a situation, from whence a feeble colony of Greeks derived the command of the sea, and the honors of a flourishing and independent republic.

Excerpt From

Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire，Chapter 17.

Edward Gibbon