...Gibbon's picture of decline and fall, according to which the philosopher-emperor had presided over "the period in the history of the world, during which the condition of the human race was most happy and prosperous," whereas Constantine, by contrast, was thrown up during an age of barbarism and...

...Euphrates, its flourishing trade, its lively Greek intellectual life - the age which Gibbon called 'the period in the history of the world during which the condition of the human race was most happy and prosperous' - even then we find too many expressions of unease about the situation of the...

...empire— the period Gibbon singled out, with characteristic Eurocentric eloquence, as "the period of the history of the world during which the condition of the human race was most happy and prosperous"— had begun. Whatever the manifest shortcomings of Gibbon's formulation, it...

...passages) 'Of the Constitution of the Roman Empire in the Age oftheAntonines' If a man were called to fix the period in the history of the world during which the condition of the human race was most happy and prosperous, he would, without hesitation, name that which elapsed from the death of Domitian...

...of sand in the universe.' Even the cynical Gibbon had to tip his hat: 'If a man were called to fix the period in the history of the world, during which the condition of the human race was most happy and prosperous, he would, without hesitation, name that which elapsed from [96 to 180 AD]' —...

...the Antonine line. His short reign inaugurated what Gibbon — taking a Eurocentric view — called "the period in the history of the world during which the condition of the human race was most happy and prosperous."78 HOMOSEXUALITY AND CIVILIZATION 19. Antinous. Delphi, c. 130 CE. ander in reaching...

...imperial authority gave formal recognition to his works ;TT and, there* " If a man were called to fix the period in the history of the world, during which the condition of the human race was most happy and prosperous, he would without hesitation name that which elapsed from the death of Domitian...

...definition to both imperial power and imperial longevity. As Gibbon wrote, "If a man were called upon to fix the period in the history of the world during which the condition of the human race was most happy and prosperous, he would without hesitation name that which elapsed from the accession of Nerva...

...Trajan is often taken as the height of the Roman Empire: Edward Gibbon called it 'the golden age', the 'period in the history of the world during which the condition of the human race was most happy and prosperous' (Gibbon 1960: 1 ). For the upper classes in Rome and her vast Empire there is...

...use of the Roman emperor Marcus Aurelius (AD 121-80). Marcus Aurelius, whose reign Gibbon extolled as 'the period in the history of the world during which the condition of the human race was most happy', was a practising Stoic philosopher but no mere quietist.16 His Meditations, which resonate...