History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire — Volume 6

Gibbon, Edward, 1737-1794Project Gutenberg · United StatesDec 2019

Rating 4.5
Word count
1.4M words
Chapters
142

Tags

English Originals World History Historical ReappraisalImperial Rise and FallMilitary StrategyPolitical AnalysisPower GameDecline ThesisClassical StudiesGrand NarrativeAncient CivilizationRoman Empire

Summary

Project Gutenberg was the first provider of free electronic books, or eBooks. Michael Hart, founder of Project Gutenberg, invented eBooks in 1971 and his memory continues to inspire the creation of eBooks and related technologies today.History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire — Volume 6 by Edward GibbonAuthor: Gibbon, Edward, 1737-1794,Language: English, Class: DG: History: General and Eastern Hemisphere: Italy, Vatican City, Malta, Release Date: Jun 7, 2008

Editor's review

Volume 6 of The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire is the concluding part of Gibbon's monumental historical work, continuing his grand narrative of the empire's rise and fall. The prose is elegant and the judgments are sharp, combining paraphrase of sources with the author's own commentary. As the final volume, it is better suited to readers who have already read the earlier volumes and wish to see the work through to its conclusion, rather than serving as a first introduction. Gibbon's narrative bears the distinctive historical outlook and rhetorical style of the eighteenth century, with many long sentences and notes; it demands patience, but also conveys the intellectual appeal of a classic historical work. This edition is the Project Gutenberg English electronic text, suitable for history specialists, readers of long English prose, and enthusiasts who wish to understand the tradition of Roman historical narrative systematically.

Who it's for

A good fit for

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Reading tips

  1. Review the main threads of the earlier volumes before beginning this one, to avoid losing track of persons and events.
  2. After each chapter, make brief timeline notes to clarify causes, consequences, and changes of figures.
  3. Mark Gibbon's long passages of commentary and return to his judgments after reading the narrative sections.
  4. Read alongside a map or a chronology of the later Roman Empire to reduce the difficulty of geography and dating.

About the publisher

Project Gutenberg United States · Founded in 1971

Project Gutenberg is a digital publishing project focused on public-domain ebooks. Its publishing direction centers on classic literary works whose copyright has expired, covering genres such as poetry, drama, fiction, and epic. Representative books include Lyrical Ballads by Wordsworth and Coleridge, Proust's Du côté de chez Swann, Shakespeare's Macbeth and The Complete Works of William Shakespeare, Homer's The Iliad, Dante's La Divina Comèdia: Purgatòri, Cervantes's The History of Don Quixote, Volume 2, and Grahame's The Wind in the Willows. Its author resources consist mainly of classic Western writers such as Wordsworth, Proust, Shakespeare, Homer, Dante, Cervantes, Grahame, and Tolstoy. Its publishing feature is the provision of freely accessible ebooks in EPUB and Kindle formats; it is not a traditional publisher, and publicly available information is limited.

Contents

  1. 1
  2. 2
  3. 3
  4. 4
  5. 5
  6. 6
  7. 7
  8. 8
  9. 9
  10. 10
  11. 11
  12. 12
  13. 13
  14. 14
  15. 15
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  29. 29
  30. 30
  31. 31
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  34. 34
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  42. 42
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  49. 49
  50. 50
  51. 51
  52. 52
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  55. 55
  56. 56
  57. 57
  58. 58
  59. 59
  60. 60
  61. 61
  62. 62
  63. 63
  64. 64
  65. 65
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  68. 68
  69. 69
  70. 70
  71. 71
  72. 72
  73. 73
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  91. 91
  92. 92
  93. 93
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  102. 102
  103. 103
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  118. 118
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  120. 120
  121. 121
  122. 122
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  125. 125
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  128. 128
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  131. 131
  132. 132
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  135. 135
  136. 136
  137. 137
  138. 138
  139. 139
  140. 140
  141. 141
  142. 142

FAQ

Can I start directly with Volume 6? Not recommended. Volume 6 is the concluding part of the whole work and assumes familiarity with the people and events of the earlier volumes; starting here makes the threads hard to follow. Read the earlier volumes first, or at least acquaint yourself with the basic framework of the later Roman Empire.
Does this electronic edition include a Chinese translation? No. This is the English electronic text released by Project Gutenberg; it is in English and requires corresponding English reading ability.
What are the characteristics of Gibbon's style? Gibbon is known for elegant long sentences and a mix of narrative and commentary; authorial judgments and notes are often interspersed, the information density is high, and the pace is slow—suited to readers willing to read closely.
What background knowledge is needed for this volume? It helps to have a basic understanding of the politics, religious changes, and barbarian invasions of the middle and later Roman Empire, and to be familiar with the main threads of the earlier volumes, so as to grasp the concluding significance of this volume.

This site is an index: you start “Search all sources” in your browser, and the entries it lists all point to third-party sites; please judge their availability yourself.

About the author

Gibbon, Edward, 1737-1794 Author

Edward Gibbon (1737–1794) was a renowned British historian, best known for The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, a classic masterpiece in Western historiography. The library holds 31 of his works, including the volumes of The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire and its Italian translation, Storia della decadenza e rovina dell'impero romano. The work chronicles the long process of the Roman Empire's decline from its height, combining solid scholarship with elegant prose, narrative power, and critical insight. Gibbon excelled at analyzing the transformation of institutions, religion, and civilization within a grand historical framework, and his style has deeply influenced later historical writing. Although the library classifies his works under inspirational growth, their core remains historical narrative and reflection on civilization. Public information is limited, so biographical details are omitted.