The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire (Volumes 4-6) [Box set] [Hardcover]

Edward Gibbon (Author), Hugh Trevor-Roper (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: November 1, 1994 | Series: Everyman's Library Classics & Contemporary Classics

(Book Jacket Status: Jacketed)

Volumes 4, 5, and 6 of the Bury Text, in a boxed set. Introduction by Hugh Trevor-Roper

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Volumes 4, 5, and 6 of the Bury Text, in a boxed set. Introduction by Hugh Trevor-Roper

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 2064 pages
• Publisher: Everyman's Library (November 1, 1994)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 067943593X
• ISBN-13: 978-0679435938
• Product Dimensions: 5.5 x 4.5 x 8.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 5 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #515,729 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

18 of 20 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A magistrally written sequel, April 6, 2004

By 

Roberto P. De Ferraz "ferraz9" (Sao Paulo, Brazil) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire (Volumes 4-6) (Hardcover)

Edward Gibbon is the most talented British historian of all times and "The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire" is his acclaimed masterwork, an opus which should be included in whatever list of the 100 most important literary works of all times. The first three books, elegantly featured on a velvet green cover and boxed together in picturally attractive white cardbox, cover the decline and fall of the so-called Western Empire, seated alternately in Rome or Verona in Italy in the end of the V century A.D., and I read it with respect and awe in no more than a month (see the pertinent review). The sequel, again presented with all the elegance the opus deserves, is composed of three voluminous books, totalling again some 2.000 pages and covering the period after the fall of Rome to the barbarians of the Visigoth Allaric and others, where the power and the Empire has moved its see to Constantinople (Byzantium) in the East. The Crusades and the likeness of the prophet Mohamed are there, although from the preconcept and biased view of a retrograde XVIII English colonizer who likened the Arabs to savages and women to a second class position in society.
This second series of book is as good and lenghty as the first series, something which is in itself an almost unattainable goal to any sequel such as this, and Gibbon has once again the reader's attention suspended on a perpetual state of anxiety, always looking forward to read in the next sequence of words a point of view or a descriptive text magistrally written about human boldness and courage in the event of victory, or else the picture of the frailties of human soul when facing impending danger. His polemical portrait of Empress Theodora (according to him a former prostitute) is unequaled to anything written before or after him, specially the part where it was to her that the fleeing emperor Athanasius owe the maintenance of his wavering will and his imperial rule.
The erudition of Edward Gibbon is unparalelled and he unassumedly cites many ancient writters in Greek, Latin, French and other languages, letting solely to the reader the not so easy task of translating it into English. His English is elegant and unexpected and the avail of a handy good English dictionary of archaic words will be a helpfull tool to the reader. His sources are profuse and diversified and whenever he has the opportunity, he traces the parallel of ancient history with contemporary and imperial England in the making.
In my opinion, the misconcepts of some of his views notwithstanding, this is one of the most important works concerning the fall of Rome ever done and I hope you enjoy it as much as I did.

7 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Should Have Stopped After the First Half, June 12, 2011

By 

Stuart McCunn (New Haven, CT) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire (Volumes 4-6) (Hardcover)

Edward Gibbon was the greatest historian the English language ever knew. Period. His books defined the field for over 150 years and spawned countless imitators of his wit and style. But of course, almost two and a half centuries later his work seems antiquated and quaint. Certainly he has been overtaken by other historians in terms of accuracy, and the field of archaeology has opened the door to a whole realm of knowledge which Gibbon knew nothing about. While a great many of his interpretations have been proven wrong, and some of his facts are shaky, the first set of his work is still a generally accurate account of the fall of Rome. Which brings us to the second set.

The problem with Gibbon's last three books is the same thing that was the strength of his first three: his thesis. While many (including me) would argue that his view of a golden age in the second century followed by a continuous decline interspersed with brief periods of recovery is an oversimplification at best, it is still a workable thesis that can be made to fit the facts (more or less). Now for the second set of books he does not create a new thesis, he merely continues with the same one. That Rome fell in the west and continued its long, slow decline in the east. The problem with this is that while the west fell in 476 (294 years after he dates the beginning of the fall) the east didn't fall until 1453 (almost a thousand years after that). So in other words the Byzantine (Eastern Roman) Empire was in a state of permanent decline for longer than the western empire was even around. This is despite being surrounded by angry enemies on all sides (including the newly established Muslim caliphates and various migrating tribes). Obviously it is impossible for an empire to start off in decline, whatever the precise meaning of that term is when it is applied to an entire civilization. His thesis must be wrong, yet he continues with it.

A lot of his problem comes from his Classical prejudices. Classicists then (and now) have generally viewed the first centuries BC and AD as the high point in classical Roman civilization. It created the greatest art, books, and poems of Roman civilization. It is seen as essentially perfect. Which means that everything that deviates from it is considered a decline in standards. That's the problem with having a n ideal baseline. This is even reflected in the name given to the Latin writing of the various periods. Ciceronian and Augustan literature is called Golden Age Latin. Post-Tiberian Latin is called Silver Age Latin. After the 2nd Century they don't even bother giving it a metal name, but if they call it anything it would be Vulgar Latin. They still use this classification system today. So a civilization that calls itself Roman is to be judged by the standards of the Roman Empire of the first two centuries (as seen through a 18th Century British lens) and not using more impartial or less biased parameters.

The rest of his problems come from more contemporary sources. His era was seen as the Age of Enlightenment. Europe had finally managed to crawl up from the dust of excessive superstition and barbarism. The Middle Ages were a dirty little section of human history that separated modern Europe from its more noble Classical past. Despising (justly) religious fanaticism and ignorance they were particularly unprepared to see the benefit of a society that valued such features. Gibbon looked at the superstition-ridden and fanatical Byzantines and saw nothing of value. Since their society held values directly contrary to his own he considered them worthless. That they achieved anything at all must have been a great mystery to him, but instead of analyzing their culture to see what it was he slathers it with his contempt.

So why given what I've said above do I still give this work four stars? Because even when he's fantastically wrong Edward Gibbon is a brilliant writer. His style is inimitable, filled with sarcasm and wit. Even when he's being snobbish he's charming. The scope of his research is incredible. I'd have a hard time getting this material now, and I can't even imagine how he got ahold of all this in the 18th Century before computers, accessible printings, or even detailed bibliographies were available. Apart from archaeological evidence there is very little written material available now that he didn't have then and that he doesn't use in these books. As I said before, the basic narrative is correct. It's merely his interpretation that's wrong. So if you go in knowing that then you should find it an entertaining read. Gibbon is, as ever, immensely quotable. But please do not consider these books the be-all, end-all. Take what he says with a grain of salt and if you're interested then seek out a less biased source.

There is a series of books which covers the same period in only slightly less detail. John Julius Norwich's books are very much like Gibbon's except that he uses more modern prose, is less snarky, and actually likes the Byzantines. These books are available as Byzantium: The Early Centuries, Byzantium: The Apogee, and Byzantium: The Decline and Fall. Or if you prefer they are all available in abbreviated form as A Short History of Byzantium, although that one is really too short to get a proper view of the Byzantines. These books aren't deep, but they do offer a highly readable and charming view of the Byzantine Empire across a thousand years of history.

The Everyman's Library set is the nicest set of Gibbon available. They are green with an attractive black and gold title impressed in the cover and a bookmark sewn into the spine. They come in a nice box which stores them all (although mine doesn't have a picture for some reason). I did my research for these carefully when deciding which set to buy, because you really do want a good copy of Gibbon. The only problem is that the nice black and gold lettering on the spine comes off rather easily while reading, and the green fabric shows stains rather well. The text itself is as he had written it although the footnotes are a combination of his and J.B. Bury's. J.B. Bury was the foremost scholar of the Later Roman Empire in the late 19th and early 20th Centuries. When Gibbon wrote his books he basically invented his own system of footnoting. Before his time nobody really attributed where they got their information from unless it was mentioned in passing within the text. Unfortunately Gibbon's system became hopelessly outdated as the process of attributing information became standardized over the next century. So J.B. Bury made it his task to get Gibbon's footnotes to conform to a slightly more traditional system. If you get a copy of Gibbon from another publisher make sure that it's the Bury edition since his redone footnotes really makes the books easier to read.