The Decline & Fall of the Roman Empire

Published in six volumes between 1776 and 1788, this history traces the Roman state from the age of the Antonines through the fall of the Western Empire, the rise of Christianity, Justinian's wars and laws, the Arab conquests, the Crusades, and the Ottoman capture of Constantinople in 1453. Gibbon narrates emperors, barbarian migrations, church councils, and the decay of civic institutions, with long asides on law, theology, and the peoples on Rome's frontiers. The work is a continuous narrative history of empire, church, and successor powers, not a biography of any single reign.

Bound in cream vegetable parchment decorated in gold. Cream endleaves with maps in dark blue. Two red four-volume slipcases titled and decorated in gold.