edward gibbon decline and fall of the roman empire

Setting the starting point with the Emperor Augustus in 27 BC, Gibbon pursues the Romans relentlessly on to their final defeat in Constantinople in the 15th Century AD with the rise of the Turkish Ottomans. Gibbon was attacked by many devout Christians as a “paganist.”

The Church banned it quite a few times as it was considered to have blasphemous passages about the Church. The book eventually took more than 20 years to complete and was received with both bouquets and brickbats. The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire was written by an English historian who was inspired to write it when he undertook the Grand Tour and visited Rome as a young man in 1762. Much of it seems like a modern battle epic or a gory scary movie with endless passages depicting power struggles, blood-drenched paths to the throne, ruthless killing of innocent women and children and the final disappearance of a mighty empire. Later, it was condensed by various editors to make it available to more readers. Proceeding at a brisk pace, the original fourteen volumes describe debauched emperors, corrupt practices, usurpers and murderers, bloody battles, plunder and loot, barbarian hordes, tumultuous events like the Crusades and invaders like Genghis Khan and many more. The sheer scale and sweep of the narrative is breathtaking in its ambitious scope and brings to vivid life the collapse of a magnificent military, political and administrative structure. Cadell, 1783.įor suggestions on citing this text, please see Citing the TCP on the Text Creation Partnership website.Spanning a period of nearly 1500 years, this monumental work of history tracks the orbit of one of the greatest Empires of all time.

The history of the decline and fall of the Roman Empire: By Edward Gibbon, Esq. This waiver does not extend to any page images or other supplementary files associated with this work, which may be protected by copyright or other license restrictions. To the extent possible under law, the Text Creation Partnership has waived all copyright and related or neighboring rights to this keyboarded and encoded edition of the work described above, according to the terms of the CC0 1.0 Public Domain Dedication ().

Edward gibbon decline and fall of the roman empire