Audiobook · read by volunteers
History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire Vol. V
Edward Gibbon (1737–1794)
Read by Alec Daitsman, Dick Durette, ontheroad, Cori Samuel, Sibella Denton, mb, Kristine Bekere, Lizzie Driver, Ed Meade, Måns Broo · 50 chapters · 20 h 42
About the book
Edward Gibbon’s History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire is one of the great achievements of eighteenth-century prose, and this recording brings us to its fifth volume. The story now leaves the older empire behind and follows its heirs: the Byzantine world, the Franks, the Lombards, and the new powers rising in the West and the East. In chapters on the conquest of Italy by the Franks, and on the other peoples and quarrels of the age, Gibbon moves with irony and elegance from emperors and popes to wars and councils. His sentences are long and polished, and his judgments are often sharp. A team of LibriVox volunteers shares the 50 parts, for about twenty and three-quarter hours of history to savour. Gibbon’s irony and elegance carry the listener through centuries.
Introduction
Edward Gibbon, who lived from 1737 to 1794, was an English historian and a Member of Parliament. His History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire was published in six volumes between 1776 and 1789, and it is considered a major literary achievement of the eighteenth century. The books cover the period of the Roman Empire after Marcus Aurelius, from just before 180 to 1453 and beyond.
Gibbon claimed that he was struck by the idea of the work while sitting among the ruins of the Capitol in Rome in 1764. It took him some twenty years to complete. His thesis, in brief, is that Rome fell in part because of the loss of civic virtue and the rise of a religion that turned minds away from the present world. This view has been debated ever since, and modern historians are much more cautious. Yet the history retains its power as a piece of writing and as a monument of Enlightenment thought.
Volume V, recorded here, deals with the later centuries, including the history of the Franks and the Byzantine Empire, and the chapters have titles such as “Conquest of Italy by the Franks”. The recording is divided into 50 parts and lasts about twenty and a half hours. A team of LibriVox volunteers shares the reading.
Listening to Gibbon is a great pleasure for those who enjoy ironical commentary and a grand sweep of events. The work is best taken in small portions, one section at a time. Those who enjoy history told as literature will find in him an exceptional guide, though his judgments always call for a critical ear.
Public domain
Edward Gibbon died in 1794: the work is in the public domain in Switzerland, more than 70 years after the author’s death.
The LibriVox volunteers dedicated this recording to the public domain.
Sources : LibriVox page · Files at the Internet Archive · Original text