This extended stay in the modern capital of Persia is lacking an appropriate, nay, deserving, reading companion. I wish my tattered copy of The Decline & Fall of the Roman Empire is beside me (somehow, prejudices have rallied and ruled against the online substitute). It must only be this ragged copy, of course: survivor of dozens of countries and skirmishes with careless porters, an unwieldy, belittling object that has out-lived two passports. Literary stature may have contributed to this durability, but the enduring charm surrounding Gibbon’s work can only be handed down, passed on – never merely “acquired” – and nutured, more by the touch of its previous guardian; for this, much is owed to Howard Caygill, who casually, free of fanfare and compunction, gifted this on my very first day at Goldsmiths College.
