The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire

Edward Gibbon’s six-volume history traces the Roman Empire from its second-century height through more than a thousand years of decline, following the story to the fall of Constantinople in 1453 and beyond. Across its sweep he examines the rise of Christianity as a state religion, the barbarian invasions, the survival of Byzantium, and the coming of Islam and the Mongols. Gibbon famously argued that Christianity’s otherworldly focus sapped Rome’s civic vigor, a claim that scandalized his contemporaries. What keeps the work alive, though, is the prose: ironic, balanced, and endlessly quotable, built on a lifetime of reading in the ancient sources. Published between 1776 and 1788, it remains one of the great achievements of English historical writing. Free to read in PDF and EPUB.