全译罗马帝国衰亡史（全12册）

• 吴尔罗

  2013-02-26
  ...在这种崇高的探索中，他们的理智常常为他们的想象所左右，而他们的想象又常为他们的虚荣心所激励。当他们看到自己的智力所能及的范围是如此广阔而自鸣得意，当他们在极其深刻的思索或极为重要的劳作中，大力施展各种记忆、想象和判断的才能，当他们想到自己对一种超越死亡和坟墓的界限、万古流芳的名声的苦苦追求的时候，他们便绝不愿把自己看成无异于田间野兽，或者认为他们一向对他的高贵无比赞赏的一种生物，也只能被局限在尺土之内和几年的岁月之中。
• 郭若斌

  2012-10-20
  如果一个人说出，在世界历史的什么时代人类过着最为幸福、繁荣和生活，他定会毫不犹豫地说出，那是从图密善去世到康茂德即位的那段时间。
• -R-

  2012-08-22
  他们两人(两安东尼)的共同治理,可能是在整个人类历史中唯一一个始终以大多数人民的幸福作为唯一奋斗目标的政府.
• -R-

  2012-08-22
  从这一巧妙的制度的建立到康茂德之死这漫长的220年间,一个军事政府必然带来的危险,在很大程度上,始终被拖延下来.十分侥幸,军队很少意识到自身的强大和文职政府的软弱无能,而这一点,无论在这以前还是以后,一直都是产生这类灾难的根源.
• -R-

  2012-08-22
  奥古斯都十分认真和细心地把古老的行政单位的名称和形式全都保存下来.原来的一定数目的大小执政官和保民官每年都得举行就职仪式,继续干一些完全无关紧要的工作.在他后来的统治期间,他所采取的把一切选举都改在元老院进行的第一个步骤,最早也许是他的议会提出的,于是公民大会便从此永远消失了,皇帝们也便从这个危险的群体中脱离出来,这个群体不仅没有恢复自由,却只是干扰了,也许还几乎破坏了已建立的政府.这一套组织系统是由奥古斯都建立的,后来的那些深知自己的利益所在,也知道人民利益何在的君主也都照样奉行,整个这一套,我们完全可以称之为在共和国形式掩盖下的君主政体.罗马世界的主子们把自己的王座安置在一片黑暗之中,让谁也看不见他们的无可匹敌的力量,谦恭地自称是元老院负责的执事,他们决定,同时也服从元老院制定的最高法令
• -R-

  2012-08-22
  几乎全部都热衷于伊壁鸠鲁哲学的富而好礼的意大利人,他们安于眼前安适,宁静的生活,根本不愿让对过去骚乱不安的自由生活的追忆来搅扰眼前这甜蜜的梦境.
• Doacartwheel

  2012-08-01
  and as long as mankind shall continue to bestow more liberal applause on their destroyers than on their benefactors, the thirst of military glory will ever be the vice of the most exalted characters. he gratified his curiosity in the discharge of his duty
• 玛特

  2012-06-05
  在夕阳斜照中，教堂的“晚祷”（Verspers）声突然传来，浪漫的景致引起他的历史遐想，这是极有可能的事。
• 快乐超人

  2013-06-19
  那是在罗马，1764年10月15日，我正坐在卡皮托山的废墟上沉思，忽然传来神殿里赤脚僧的晚祷声，我的心中首度浮现出写作这座城市的衰亡的想法
• whatever

  2019-01-16
  The science of war, that constituted the more rational force of Greece and Rome, as it now does of Europe, never made any considerable progress in the East. Those disciplined evolutions which harmonise and animate a confused multitude were unknown to the Persians. They were equally unskilled in the arts of constructing, besieging, or defending regular fortifications. They trusted more to their courage than to their discipline. The infantry was a half-armed spiritless crowd of peasants, levied in haste by the allurements of plunder, and as easily dispersed by a victory as by a defeat. The monarch and his nobles transported into the camp the pride and luxury of the seraglio. Their: military operations were impeded by a useless train of women, eunuchs, horses, and camels, and in the midst of...
• whatever

  2019-01-16
  "The authority of the prince," said Artaxerxes, "must be defended by a military force; that force can only be maintained by taxes; all taxes must, at last, fall upon agriculture; and agriculture can never flourish except under the protection of justice and moderation."
• whatever

  2019-01-16
  Such are the circumstances of. this ostentatious and improbable relation, dictated, as it too plainly appears, by the vanity of the monarch, adorned by the unblushing servility of his flatterers, and received without contradiction by a distant and obsequious senate. Far from being inclined to believe that the arms of Alexander obtained any memorable advantage over the Persians, we are induced to suspect that all this blaze of imaginary glory was designed to conceal some real disgrace.
• whatever

  2019-01-16
  Had Zoroaster, in all his institutions, invariably supported this exalted character, his name would deserve a place with those of Numa and Confucius, and his system would be justly entitled to all the applause which it has pleased some of our divines, and even some of our philosophers, to bestow on it. But in that motley composition, dictated by reason and passion, by enthusiasm and by selfish motives, some useful and sublime truths were disgraced by a mixture of the most abject and dangerous superstition.
• whatever

  2019-01-16
  But there are some remarkable instances, in which Zoroaster lays aside the prophet, assumes the legislator, and discovers a liberal concern for private and public happiness, seldom to be found among the grovelling or visionary schemes of superstition. Fasting and celibacy, the common means of purchasing the Divine favour, he condemns with abhorrence, as a criminal rejection of the best gifts of Providence. The saint, in the Magian religion, is obliged to beget children, to plant useful trees, to destroy noxious animals, to convey water to the dry lands of Persia, and to work out his salvation by pursuing all the labours of agriculture.
• whatever

  2019-01-16
  Every mode of religion, to make a deep and lasting impression on the human mind, must exercise our obedience, by enjoining practices of devotion; and must acquire our esteem, by inculcating moral duties analogous to the dictates of our own hearts. The religion of Zoroaster was abundantly provided with the former, and possessed a sufficient portion of the latter. At the age of puberty, the faithful Persian was invested with a mysterious girdle, the badge of the divine protection, and from that moment all the actions of his life, even the most indifferent, or the most necessary, were sanctified by their peculiar prayers, ejaculations, or genuflections; the omission of which, under any circumstances, was a grievous sin, not inferior in guilt to the violation of the moral duties. The moral dut...
• whatever

  2019-01-16
  One of these, Erdaviraph, a young but holy prelate, received from the hands of his brethren three cups of soporiferous wine. He drank them off, and instantly fell into a long and profound sleep. As soon as he waked, he related to the king and to the believing multitude his journey to Heaven, and his intimate conferences with the Deity. Every doubt was silenced by this supernatural evidence; and the articles of the faith of Zoroaster were fixed with equal authority and precision. A short delineation of that celebrated system will be found useful, not only to display the character of the Persian nation, but to illustrate many of their most important transactions, both in peace and war, with the Roman empire.
• whatever

  2019-01-16
  WHENEVER Tacitus indulges himself in those beautiful episodes, in which he relates some domestic transaction of the Germans or of the Parthians, his principal object is to relieve the attention of the reader from a uniform scene of vice and misery. From the reign of Augustus to the time of Alexander Severus, the enemies of Rome were in her bosom; the tyrants, and the soldiers; and her prosperity had a very distant and feeble interest in the revolutions that might happen beyond the Rhine and the Euphrates. But when the military order had levelled, in wild anarchy, the power of the prince, the laws of the senate, and even the discipline of the camp, the barbarians of the north and of the east, who had long hovered on the frontier, boldly attacked the provinces of a declining monarchy. Their ...
• 沙如雪

  2012-08-07
  。。。专制体制刻意摧毁共和精神，使人民变成政治侏儒，一群政治侏儒如何能支撑一个伟大的帝国。