a Gibbon classic

This is one of my favorite passages in the whole history– especially the final phrase:

“The ambition of the Romans was confined to the land; nor was that warlike people ever actuated by the enterprising spirit which had prompted the navigators of Tyre, of Carthage, and even of Marseilles, to enlarge the bounds of the world, and to explore the most remote coasts of the ocean. To the Romans the ocean remained an object of terror rather than of curiosity…”

It’s vintage Gibbon, and we can be thankful to have as many pages by him as we do.

On a minor point, notice his use of the word “which” in the passage above. Today we are harassed by the “which/that” police, and any mainstream present-day editor would force Gibbon to write “the enterprising spirit THAT had prompted the navigators”.

I once consulted Fowler on this point, and even he had no clear rules, just offering a vague injunction that it was impermissible to use which and that interchangeably. I wish we were simply allowed to use them interchangeably again. The importance of having an abundance of synonyms for good literary style is badly underrated. It is important to vary the way of saying the same thing to avoid mental fatigue. Moreover, a word does not just point to a concept, but is also a material entity of greater or lesser sonority and rhythmic grace. Some words work better with certain neighbors, others with different ones.