another short one

Sorry, but I always marvel at Gibbon’s ability to say so much in so few words:

“He was slain at Cologne, by a conspiracy of jealous husbands…”

This reminds me of when Laurent Kabila of the Congo was killed a few years ago and The Economist referred to him as “the corpulent despot.” These are the sorts of phrases where, if they appear in your obituary, then you have taken a wrong turn somewhere along the way.