Gibbon quote of the day. May 17.

It will be a struggle to limit myself to one per day, but today’s is a gem. Gibbon is referring to the degeneracy of Roman letters in the Antonine period, utterly derivative of early Greek learning:

“The name of Poet was almost forgotten; that of Orator was usurped by the sophists. A cloud of critics, of compilers, of commentators, darkened the face of learning, and the decline of genius was soon followed by the corruption of taste.”