The Gibbonian Representation of Early Christians in Two Roman Stories by Arthur Conan Doyle
The Gibbonian Representation of Early Christians in Two Roman Stories by Arthur Conan Doyle

Summary/Abstract: This article shows the influence of Edward Gibbon’s “History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire” on Conan Doyle’s short Roman stories. The article examines two such stories – “An Iconoclast” and “The Coming of the Huns” – focusing on the representation of early Christians in them. The analysis begins with Doyle’s explicit recognition of his fondness for Gibbon’s Roman history and goes on to demonstrate that Doyle must have drawn material from “The Decline and Fall” for his short Roman fiction. The article’s main argument is that Doyle portrayed early Christians and their impact on the strength of the Roman Empire in the same way as Gibbon had done over a century before him – negatively, as inflexible, sectarian, and mystically minded fanatics who undermined Rome’s republican civic virtue.

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