due for some Gibbon

Here he is talking about the chaotic period in which 19 pretender emperors (“the thirty tyrants”), many from menial professions, competed chaotically with Gallienus for the throne:

“The rapid and perpetual transitions from the cottage to the throne, and from the throne to the grave, might have amused an indifferent philosopher, were it possible for a philosopher to remain indifferent amidst the general calamities of human kind.”