The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire
Edward Gibbon · 1737 – 1794
Librarian’s score9.2Claude · AI
Readers—Shown after five ratings
Six volumes carry the Roman world from the age of the Antonines to the fall of Constantinople, with a last look at the ruins of the city. Gibbon read the ancient sources closely and wrote in balanced, ironic periods that make long reigns move. His chapters on early Christianity caused a storm, and much of his scholarship has been revised. The architecture of the whole and the prose still hold.