The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire: Volumes 4-6

The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire #2

by Edward Gibbon, Hugh Trevor-Roper (Introduction)

The first three volumes of Gibbon's DECLINE AND FALL (the western empire) were published by Everyman in 1993. Volumes 4-6 complete the set which is now available for the first time in many years. This year is the bicentenary of Gibbon's death, which has been widely noticed in the press, but even after two hundred years his book is still an authoritative work on Roman history. What is more, it remains wonderfully readable: witty, elegant and intriguing, full of the author's own personality. The six-volume Everyman edition - the only complete one now available-prints the entire text of the book with all Gibbon's own notes, later editorial commentaries, maps, tables, descriptive tables of contents, indices, appendices and two magisterial essays on the author and his work by Hugh Trevor-Roper.

Genres: History, Nonfiction, Classics, Roman History, Ancient History, World History, 18th Century

1952 pages, Hardcover

First published November 1, 1994

About the author

Edward Gibbon (8 May 1737 – 16 January 1794) was an English historian and Member of Parliament. His most important work, The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, was published in six volumes between 1776 and 1788. The Decline and Fall is known for the quality and irony of its prose, its use of primary sources, and its open criticism of organised religion.

Gibbon returned to England in June 1765. His father died in 1770, and after tending to the estate, which was by no means in good condition, there remained quite enough for Gibbon to settle fashionably in London at 7 Bentinck Street, independent of financial concerns. By February 1773, he was writing in earnest, but not without the occasional self-imposed distraction. He took to London society quite easily, and joined the better social clubs, including Dr. Johnson's Literary Club, and looked in from time to time on his friend Holroyd in Sussex. He succeeded Oliver Goldsmith at the Royal Academy as 'professor in ancient history' (honorary but prestigious). In late 1774, he was initiated a freemason of the Premier Grand Lodge of England. And, perhaps least productively in that same year, he was returned to the House of Commons for Liskeard, Cornwall through the intervention of his relative and patron, Edward Eliot. He became the archetypal back-bencher, benignly "mute" and "indifferent," his support of the Whig ministry invariably automatic. Gibbon's indolence in that position, perhaps fully intentional, subtracted little from the progress of his writing.

After several rewrites, with Gibbon "often tempted to throw away the labours of seven years," the first volume of what would become his life's major achievement, The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, was published on 17 February 1776. Through 1777, the reading public eagerly consumed three editions for which Gibbon was rewarded handsomely: two-thirds of the profits amounting to approximately £1,000. Biographer Leslie Stephen wrote that thereafter, "His fame was as rapid as it has been lasting." And as regards this first volume, "Some warm praise from David Hume overpaid the labour of ten years."

Volumes II and III appeared on 1 March 1781, eventually rising "to a level with the previous volume in general esteem." Volume IV was finished in June 1784; the final two were completed during a second Lausanne sojourn (September 1783 to August 1787) where Gibbon reunited with his friend Deyverdun in leisurely comfort. By early 1787, he was "straining for the goal" and with great relief the project was finished in June. Gibbon later wrote:

It was on the day, or rather the night, of 27 June 1787, between the hours of eleven and twelve, that I wrote the last lines of the last page in a summer-house in my garden. ... I will not dissemble the first emotions of joy on the recovery of my freedom, and perhaps the establishment of my fame. But my pride was soon humbled, and a sober melancholy was spread over my mind by the idea that I had taken my everlasting leave of an old and agreeable companion, and that, whatsoever might be the future date of my history, the life of the historian must be short and precarious.

Volumes IV, V, and VI finally reached the press in May 1788, their publication having been delayed since March so it could coincide with a dinner party celebrating Gibbon's 51st birthday (the 8th). Mounting a bandwagon of praise for the later volumes were such contemporary luminaries as Adam Smith, William Robertson, Adam Ferguson, Lord Camden, and Horace Walpole. Smith remarked that Gibbon's triumph had positioned him "at the very head of [Europe's] literary tribe."

Reviews

[Eric Byrd]

Last year I read about 1/3 of the total bulk. I need to hew off another chunk. This morning I've been worshipping a first edition, and it is probably the most beautiful book I've ever handled (Hume likened Strahan, his own and Gibbon's publisher, to learned printers of the Renaissance like Manutius), the perfect form in which to read him (a substantial quarto with expanses of white space, and huge Baskerville type channeling the elegance of Grandjean's Imprimerie Royale). When it comes to Gibbon, the choice of editions is key, at least for me. Penguin prints it with plenty of white space and in Bembo, my favorite typeface, but the type is small and faint. Everyman's Library uses closely-packed Garamond, which might be the best I can do, barring the professional heresy of book thievery.


Some:

"THE divided provinces of the empire were again united by the victory of Constantius; but as that feeble prince was destitute of personal merit either in peace or war; as he feared his generals, and distrusted his ministers; the triumph of his arms served only to establish the reign of the eunuchs over the Roman world. Those unhappy beings, the ancient production of Oriental jealousy and despotism, were introduced into Greece and Rome by the contagion of Asiatic luxury. Their progress was rapid; and the eunuchs, who, in the time of Augustus, had been abhorred, as the monstrous retinue of an Egyptian queen, were gradually admitted into the families of matrons, of senators, and of the emperors themselves. Restrained by the severe edicts of Domitian and Nerva, cherished by the pride of Diocletian, reduced to an humble station by the prudence of Constantine, they multiplied in the palaces of his degenerate sons, and insensibly acquired the knowledge, and at length the direction, of the secret councils of Constantius."

[Stuart Dean · Rating 4 out of 5]

More properly called The Decline and Fall of the Byzantine Empire. Rome is rarely mentioned until the latter part of the 6th book. Even the Goths and Franks who occupied Rome chose to settle their empire in Milan or Ravenna. Rome is just a shadow until Constantine comes to power and the beginnings of the Popes legitimizing emperors with the crown gives it a newfound power. Until the Papal States come into being the most important thing to happen I Rome is when it is besieged and taken four times in seven years.

The first book follows the rise of Constantinople and its height under Justinian and his unloved general Belisarius. We follow the Byzantine Empire as it conquers Eastern Europe, North Africa, and Rome itself. Interesting as Byzantine politics gives itself to the word for which needlessly complicated is now attached. Readers of the first 3 books can easily follow Constantinople as it it devolves in the same manner that the Roman Empire fell.

We move on to the rise of the Frankish Empire and quickly move into the life of Mohammed and the rise of the Moslem Empire. It conquers the Middle East, overruns North Africa, conquers Spain, and then collapses under internecine warfare soon after the death of the Prophet. The Crusades are explored in depth and only through internal European struggles does the Middle East remain under Muslim control. The original Muslims fall beneath the Turks, and the Ottoman Empire holds sway.

The intervention of Genghis Khan and later Tamerlane rock the Ottomans, but like Mohammed these forces do not hold control long past the death of their founders. Eventually the Ottomans capture Constantinople, and the Byzantine Empire comes to an end. Though still extant during the life of Gibbons, he recognizes the same problems that had led to the collapse of Rome.

The rise of the Papal States finally bring us back to Rome. The politics of the Pope, the Ghelphs and the Ghibellines torment Italy, the Pope retreats to Avignon, Popes and Antipopes reign, and eventually the Roman Empire becomes the new Vatican Empire.

You won't find a more erudite and well researched work of history of any kind. This is the Bible of historical research. Interesting both for its subject matter and its writing, its well worth the months it might take to traverse its 3600 pages. It's like reading War and Peace 4 or 5 times. If you can finish it you can brag to your friends about how literate you are.

[Darwin8u · Rating 5 out of 5]

The weakest half, but still amazing. Volumes 1 - 6 = 3585 pages, and I can't think of more than 200 that I would have preferred to have skipped. There was some drudgery with the minor, post Constantine emperors. I was also not as excited by the HRE sections as I was by the sections on the Rise of Islam, the Mongols, the Ottoman Empire, and the Crusades. Those sections alone are why I rated the second half 5 stars and not 4. Anyway, a fantastic read. Ironic to finish it right after S&P lowers our national credit rating and our senators again fail to do anything productive.

[Murray · Rating 5 out of 5]

Few new things can be offered by a review of Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire. This is the definition of a magisterial work. As a history it is epic, for its time, original and enormously well researched. Gibbon’s now imperfect facts remain insightfully rendered into a beautifully articulated narrative across almost two millennia. This is a work of timeless literature and timeless commentary.

I would attempt to draw new readers with accolades of the under discussed sections on the foundation of Islam, the foundation of the Mongol Empire, and the biography of Tamerlane.

[Eliot · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a review of Volume 6, in particular, and if the Work as a whole.
I found the 6th volume more digestible and more interesting than the previous, to my surprise. Gibbon casts his gaze on several unexpected topics, such as an entire biography of Timour (Tamerlane) and multiple chapters on the post-Roman history of Rome, but also spends nearly no time on the Crusades. The outcome is a great deal of time spent providing background for how the Ottoman army finds itself at the walls of Constantinople in 1453, with all the prior travails accounted for.

As for this Great Work... I am relieved to have finished it, so many years after I began my reading. But I found it entirely worthwhile and fascinating. Gibbon's source of inspiration in Tacitus is clearly felt, a familiarity of tone separated by 17 centuries. The sheer quantity of information proffered, Emperors and Senators, invasion, decline, the ugliness of Christianity's early centuries, the proliferation of barbarian kingdoms in the Roman model, etc, etc, is (in my opinion) valuable in the vision of history's weft and weave. This work is not only about an Empire's decline and fall, but also an investigation of what comes after.

[Dimi Tsioubris · Rating 5 out of 5]

I write a review for all six volumes, this was a really exhaustive read, but very interesting nevertheless, it begins around first century ad and ends with the fall of Constantinople to the Ottomans.
Through all the books you see what happens on the continents of Europe, Middle east, Asia minor and north Africa under the reign of the Romans and without it, by the beginning you realise that the Roman emperors were nothing more than cruel, narcissistic and bloodthirsty arrogant scums who cared only for their own wealth and prosperity, they were not civilised except some few exceptions, some of them were completely illiterate, but they still claimed the throne of the largest Empire of the ancient world, as a result through the centuries blood flows abundandly, i have to note here that the "elegant" art of torture really peaked in the decline of the Roman Empire and the nations of europe welcomed and continued this heritage through the middle ages, some of the incidents Gibbon describes are really graphic which i didnt expect, like a civilian who was sentenced to death because he commited adultery so he was torn apart by two trees.
Its obvious that the Romans excelled only in the art of war and building huge monuments, so when there was nothing left to conquer the decline begins and the Empire devours iself from the inside with corruption, quarrels and civil wars, the final blow on the western Empire was given by the goths around 5th century and then the tribes of europe did nothing but killing each other or doing raids around the continent, the Romans really left not a slight hint of civilization anywhere on those tribes, the entertainment of romans was arenas with gladiators who were killing each other to death and they were very fanatical about it, those arenas survived till today in the form of stadiums for obvious reasons!
In the meantime the surviving eastern Roman Empire of Byzantium was devolving in an utterly religious corrupted state, which religion and god mattered even more than food and emperors were very fond of taking each others eyes out! they managed to keep the Empire alive not because they were powerful, but because the other tribes or nations were not strong enough yet to give the final blow, ottomans in the end seems like they really did em a favor, there was nothing left to fight for anyway.
So, was the ancient world lucky for having those brutes all over them!? i say no, i dont know what would have happened otherwise, but i tell you this, from the fall of the western Roman Empire which is actually the whole continent of europe until renaissance there is a huge gap of one thousand years which is the dark and middle ages combined together, one thousand years of nothing except, wars, civil wars and religious quarrels and then wars again, but does their history help to undestand the whole western world as it is today? It sure does, and for that thing and only is a must read for anyone.

[Fabian · Rating 5 out of 5]

Masterpiece

[Emily · Rating 2 out of 5]

I have done it! The interminable. The unceasing. The Everest of books. 4,000 pages; 126 hours of audiobook.

I have now read the longest book that I have ever read, and by far the longest that I ever hope to. It surpassed my previous longest book by more than a factor of three. I don’t know that I have ever felt more accomplished, but did I actually enjoy it?

Surprisingly, yes. Though I don’t know of anyone personally to whom I could recommend this, it was an unexpectedly easy read. Gibbon’s style is incisive yet approachable, and he gave his opinion about these ancient emperors with humor and without flaunting his esoteric knowledge too often. For a book published in 1776, it remains readable for the average person. I was also surprised initially at the pace; he was practically flying through the various emperors and their ignominious demises at the start. If you thought that the Roman empire was a relatively stable place with dynasties for the most part passing sedately down the line from father to son, then think again. Nearly every emperor was violently deposed, sometimes by the Senate, often by their generals, and even more often by the army. Watch in awe as the army invades the palace, spikes their emperor’s head, and then auctions off the imperial throne from the walls, all within the first few chapters. Only a handful of emperors died of natural causes (and even some of those are a bit suspect) and only one retired peacefully to the countryside. Gibbon, with his dry wit and clinical observations, takes the reader on a rapid thrilling journey through the tumultuous middle-age of the empire, coolly marking the policy decisions that would ultimately weaken and then bring about the downfall of history’s largest and longest-lasting empire.

However, if you are planning to read this and are mostly interested in the actual Roman Empire, then just plan to read the first three volumes. What I tend to think of as the “Fall of the Roman Empire” takes place in the third volume, with the Huns and the Goths taking their time to carve up the formidable western half of the empire and sack Rome. My interest after that, already fairly exhausted, waned incredibly quickly. The final three novels are mostly the history of the Eastern Roman Empire and Constantinople, and little remains of the Roman Empire as it reigns in our historical imaginings. I skimmed over the descriptions of the wars with Persia, the establishment of trade routes, and the vagaries of the Eastern Orthodox Church. The final three novels laboriously trace out the path of Constantinople and its emperors all the way through the Ottoman Empire, which was not the part of history that I was expecting when I started this book. I almost wish Gibbon had written “The Rise and Decline of the Roman Empire,” because I wanted to know more about the Republic, the early days of conquests, and the establishment of the vast army that led to the Roman Empire.

I am proud of having read this foundational work of history, but I am even more glad to be done. I respect Gibbon, and I know that for historians he marks a turning point in how histories were written as he was one of the first to pull primarily from primary sources to support his arguments and narratives, but unless you are passionate about Roman history, this will not hold your interest. I powered through all 4,000 pages, but I won’t do it again.

[sologdin · Rating 2 out of 5]

and now we're off the rails. second half of this text is all over the place, which lengthy entries on various non-roman groups in the era when the 'roman' world is constricted to the eastern empire alone, which ran down to the nub in the early 13th century, puffed up again, and then died in a blaze of glory when the city of men's desires succumbed to its (approximately) 200th siege by surly nomadic pastoralists.

[Razi · Rating 5 out of 5]

What will I do with the rest of my life?

[Bryan · Rating 5 out of 5]

It took me 1.5 months to get through all six volumes and I was rarely left bored or disinterested. The six volume set is truly expansive and impressively filled with a broad scope of historical knowledge that any student of history will find valuable, whether they agree with the author’s conclusions or not. After having spent so much time thinking through and beyond the text I personally think the author did a phenomenal job of drafting his thesis, providing historical evidence, and drawing factual conclusions that are axiomatic in the work itself. Gibbons could leave out explaining what the history tells us and let us discover that on our own but instead he decided to spell it out for us to be clear and precise in his words and what they lead him to conclude. I am grateful for this collection and consider it to be a masterful scholarly achievement. The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire's six-volumes do a great job of tracing Rome’s place in Western Civilization including the Islamic and Mongolian conquests from the height of the Roman Empire to the fall of Byzantium in the fifteenth century, from 98 to 1590 respectively. The work also includes the history of early Christianity and of the Roman State/Catholic church. In addition, the collection includes the history of Europe, and thematically discusses the Roman Empire in decline, and the confluence of reasons as to why the empire ultimately faded into the dustbin of history. The primary reasons he provides are immigration and religion, diluting, and over time, evaporating the shared culture and civic virtue.

[Peter · Rating 4 out of 5]

I picked up volumes 1-3 in one of those little cases at a steep discount when Borders went out of business. I'm a lot more used to reading texts in old vernaculars since 2011, so I think I got more out of the second half. The first half dealt mainly with the fall of the western empire. The second deals with a sprawling range of things, but the main connecting thread is the Byzantine Empire, which like a lot of nerds I have a childhood affection for.

You don't really read historians like Gibbon for the facts- there's many many other books for that, with better research, efforts to be more objective and culturally sensible, weren't written two hundred years ago, etc. So what do you read Gibbon for? Well, I mainly read it as something to read while on hold at work (I'm on hold a lot at work) that you can get online. But obviously there's more to it than that. For one thing, for better or for worse, Gibbon was hugely influential not just on history, but on literature as well, from his characterizations and prose style to writers (especially scifi writers) straight up ripping off Gibbon's descriptions of historical events as plots.

I enjoy Gibbon's sentence-level writing more than I do that of most historians. I actually think a fair number of his word choices are better than their modern equivalents- like "insensible" for "gradual-" it makes sense, the process goes on without you sensing it. "Gradual" implies it goes by grades, which can actually be any size, etc. But of course, I'm in the minority that likes to have to think about the prose I'm reading, as long as it's not too laborious, as opposed to having the prose stand out of the way. Different strokes, as they say. The farther you get from the sentences, the more the structure doesn't look that great -- a lot of poorly-differentiated tribes and leaders doing their respective things -- but sometimes Gibbon makes those sing, too, especially his descriptions of the Byzantine-Sassanid wars and the early Lombards.

Historiographically, Gibbon stands at a turning point, but not one in which he fully partook. He was stuck between the two German words for history- "historie," history as a set of interchangeable chronicles saying more or less the same stuff, and "geschichte," history as the progressive unfolding of comprehensible processes, generally with some kind of meaningful endpoint- the ideal state, the abolition of class society, what have you. The Decline and Fall is an Enlightenment-era text that looks at the vanity of a geschichte that wasn't- if Rome really was the height of civilization (a problematic assumption, I know), then what sort of historical purpose was served by its fall, and the extended "dark ages" of irrationality and fecklessness (his view) that followed in its former domains? This is especially fraught for Enlightenment figures like Gibbon, who did not see the rise of Christianity as a recompense for the fall of Rome (to say the least), and who had at least an inkling that things were getting better -- or at least his country was getting powerful enough to have a pretense towards universalizing empire again.

So you have this sort of mishmash. Sometimes in Gibbon you see the kind of universalized and law-generating tendency we're used to seeing from more confident 19th and 20th century history, typically centered around republican theorizing about liberty, constitutions, how they're maintained or not, as well as Enlightenment-era stuff about the progress of "rational" or "humane" religion, etc. It hints towards the idea that there is some general system through which some of the exigencies of history could be mastered. But you also get the sort of recitation of chronicles, calculated to impute lessons within a fixed moral/political system, that one is used to seeing in work that assumes history isn't going anywhere in particular. Sometimes it's both- one thing I've been thinking a lot about recently is how seriously manners and affect were taken as historical topics, and how that wasn't just a matter of a silly thing weird old people care about. In a pre-industrial age, that stuff would seem to be a real distinguishing factor between cultures and a contributor to the power and reach of the ruling elite of a given power. Methodologically, Gibbon also stands between old and new- relying mostly on chronicles collected by other scholars, but scrutinizing them critically and also attempting to use linguistic and other more subtle kinds of evidence.

So... reading Gibbon can be fun for people who like old, occasionally somewhat sententious narratives of empires and their wars, and can be good for historians who want insight into how history is made. Also, for people with boring temp jobs. ****

https://toomuchberard.wordpress.com/2...

[Andrew · Rating 3 out of 5]

Well, I finally finished reading all six volumes of Gibbon's Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire. As challenging as it was to read all of his work, I can only imagine the efforts that went into creating and writing it. The final three volumes focus primarily on the Eastern Empire based in Constantinople and take the reader through 1453 AD when the Turks finally took the city and ended the Eastern Empire. However, as Gibbon makes clear, the vitality of the Roman Empire was long gone before that date. The better sections of the second half of the work include the Crusades, the rise of Mohammed and the Islamic world, the history of the city of Rome after the fall of the Western Empire. All in all, this is an extremely impressive work, but not suited for the casual reader who wants to better understand the causes of the fall of the Roman Empire.

[Andy Molino · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is worth reading just for the sheer scope. I enjoy that all his references are in the original languages. The man was some kind of savant.

[Shawn Ryan Rosa · Rating 5 out of 5]

A true masterpiece written by the famous British historian.

[Leonard Singer]

Too dense for me