THEODORE DALRYMPLE
As London prepared for the Olympics, the most that my friends there hoped was that they would not suffer inconvenience, at least not beyond the increased taxation that will no doubt soon be exacted in order to pay for the games. The worst report I have heard so far about the games’ impact on daily life is of the severe overcrowding at the Underground station at Earls Court, frantically busy at the best of times. But in the matter of the games, Gibbon’s Decline and Fall has some lessons. Writing of the Emperor Philip, “the minister of a violent government, elected for the private benefit of the soldiers,” he observes: “On his return from the East to Rome, Philip, desirous of obliterating the memory of his crimes, and of captivating the affections of the people, solemnized the secular games with infinite pomp and magnificence.”
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