• The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, Volume 1

  • By: Edward Gibbon
  • Narrated by: Bernard Mayes
  • Length: 41 hrs and 2 mins
  • 3.7 out of 5 stars (488 ratings)

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The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, Volume 1  By  cover art

The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, Volume 1

By: Edward Gibbon
Narrated by: Bernard Mayes
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Publisher's summary

Considered one of the finest historical works in the English language, The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire is lauded for its graceful, elegant prose style as much as for its epic scope. Remarkably accurate for its day, Gibbon's treatise holds a high place in the history of literature and remains an enduring subject of study.

Gibbon's monumental work traces the history of more than 13 centuries, covering the great events as well as the general historical progression. This first volume covers A.D. 180 to A.D. 395, which includes the establishment of Christianity and the Crusades.

©Public Domain (P)1992 Blackstone Audio, Inc.

Critic reviews

"[Gibbon] stood on the summit of the Renaissance achievement and looked back over the waste of history to ancient Rome, as from one mountain top to another." (Christopher Dawson)

What listeners say about The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, Volume 1

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  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars

One of the best purchases of my life

I came on here to check something else, and was shocked to see the negative reviews. I spent three credits on this series a few years ago and they were the best-spent money of the last few years. It would be heaven to know that all my Audible purchases would be so rewarding.

The book is so classic that my voice would be nearly meaningless, but I'm sad to see the narrator so maligned. His stodgy sounding voice made the text come alive for me because he sounds just so classically English. Just as another reviewer said, it sounded like Gibbon himself was reading his book to me, or reciting the history of the decline and fall of Rome.

I really can't imagine why he's getting bad reviews. I guess I'm just the type of person who will appreciate a book like this and a narrator like this. What type is that? A lover of history, a lover of old things, a lover of classical things, I suppose.

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38 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars

War, rapine, and freewill offerings!

Love Gibbon's sense of humor, his methodology, his hard bigotry towards the Huns, his soft bigotry towards the Christians, and his ability to find interesting nouns to link with rapine: "idleness, poverty, and rapine"; "rapine and oppression"; "violence and rapine"; "rapine and cruelty"; "rapine and torture"; "rapine and corruption"; "rapine and disregard"; "War, rapine, and freewill offerings" AND that is all just volume one. An important and interesting work, that moves with a quicker pace than its size or age would suggest. Bring on Volumes 2 and the decline of the HRE!

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27 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    4 out of 5 stars

solid, well done

Gibbon's Decline and Fall unabridged! What more can anyone ask for? And with a great narrator to boot! Get this, quit your job and listen full time!

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25 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars

Superb

Probably the greatest prose work in the English language--given a superb reading here.

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19 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    2 out of 5 stars

Do not drive or operate heavy machinery

This is going to take some time. -- The recording is old-school, and the narrator is very British and I found his voice soothing and calming. This helped me relax, but I couldn't remember what I was learning. If you want an audio recording of this book, it isn't bad, but I couldn't use it to pass time while driving. It made me sleepy. I'll finish it, but slow and steady in bits and pieces. I wish I hadn't used my credits on this one, but I will finish it and be glad when I am done.

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  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars

excellent all round

Bernard Mayes deserves the highest accolades for his narration of this masterpiece. His reading is itself a masterwork!

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    5 out of 5 stars
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    4 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars

Historical Fascination and Literary Pleasure

Edward Gibbon's The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire (1776-89) is one of those classics you always hear about but never read because the prospect of broaching a six-volume history of the Roman Empire written in the 18th century is so daunting. But finally listening to the first volume of the audiobook (which includes the first two volumes of Gibbon's opus) filled me with a historical and literary rapture.

Gibbon brings to life the Roman Empire from about 180 AD to about 395, the extent of its boundaries, the governing of its provinces, the organization of its military, and the success that led to its decline and fall by, among other things, making the citizens too soft, the military too mercenary, and the senate too weak. This history was made by spoiled citizens, fickle soldiers, corrupt prefects, obsequious senators, pernicious eunuchs, rapacious barbarians, and, of course, numerous emperors: amoral and tyrannical, pusillanimous and paranoid, or, rarely, moderate and able. Gibbon wittily and enthusiastically relates fateful battles, appalling scenes of treachery, rapine, and slaughter (often internecine or inter-familial), interesting details of exotic cultures (like the Sarmatian barbarians who wore "mail" vests of overlapping horse hoof slices and wielded poisoned fish bone weapons), and telling insights like, "History is little more than the register of the crimes, follies, and misfortunes of mankind."

I was morbidly fascinated by Gibbon's account of the feuding sects of the "primitive" Christian church, Catholics, Arians, Homoousians, and so on arguing, persecuting, and excommunicating each other over the true substance of Jesus while indulging in pomp, pelf, pride, and power, yet ever spreading their religion due to their zeal, world everlasting after death, and "real" relics, miracles, and visions. Gibbon advocates Age of Enlightenment reason against superstition and might have enjoyed the Jefferson Bible.

My favorite figure was the philosopher-poet-general Apostate Emperor Julian, who packed so much into his short life (32 years) and reign (1 year and 8 months). As new Caesar, Julian was tossed into Gaul with 360 soldiers and told to rescue it from tens of thousands of German barbarians, disarmingly declaiming, "Plato, Plato! What a task for a philosopher!" As new Emperor, he booted bishops, barbers, and eunuchs out of the palace, replaced them with poets, philosophers, and sages, and tried to return the newly Christian Roman Empire to a Hellenistic Paganism. He even got back at the insulting people of Antioch by writing a satire on his beard. Ah, how might the current world have developed had Julian not played Alexander the Great and invaded Persia!

Although Gibbon objectively navigates between earlier historical panegyrics and calumnies of his imperial subjects, he also falls prey to his own biases. The worst is his favoritism for western culture at the expense of eastern (opining that a single Greek statue is worth more than whole Persian palaces), and for "civilization" at the expense of "barbarism" (figuring that oral cultures produce no worthy art or culture). Nevertheless, Gibbon always champions humane behavior and criticizes wanton slaughter and destruction, regardless of whether the actors were barbarian or Roman.

The audiobook is really abridged, because it excludes "Gibbon's table talk," his spicy notes. This is understandable, because they would have broken the flow of the narrative and made the audiobook run too long, but still a pity.

Some listeners complain that reader Bernard Mayes sounds too British or boring, but I find him perfectly suited to reading long works of history (like Herodotus' Histories). He reads with a professorial British accent and impeccable rhythm, enunciation, and emphasis, a wise and weathered uncle recounting a fascinating history.

Mostly I had no problem following Gibbon's well-regulated trains of thought, and found his writing elegant, clear, and pleasurable. The only difficulty I had while listening to the audiobook occurred during his long sentences that include "the former" and "the latter," because I'd often have forgotten which was which by the time they appeared, leaving me longing for a printed version of the text. But anyone familiar with 18th and 19th century novels should otherwise have no trouble with Gibbon's prose. I relished it to the point of grins and chuckles. I'll close this review with some examples:

"The monstrous vices of the son have cast a shade on the purity of the father's virtues."

"But the power of instruction is seldom of much efficacy, except in those happy dispositions where it is almost superfluous."

"He promised only to betray, he flattered only to ruin; and however he might occasionally bind himself by oaths and treaties, his conscience, obsequious to his interest, always released him from the inconvenient obligation."

"It was easier to vanquish the Goths than to eradicate the public vices, yet even in the first of these enterprises Decius lost his army and his life."

"The ecclesiastical governors of the Christians were taught to unite the wisdom of the serpent with the innocence of the dove; but as the former was refined, so the latter was insensibly corrupted, by the habits of government."

"If this Punic war was carried on without any effusion of blood, it was owing much less to the moderation than to the weakness of the contending prelates. Invectives and excommunications were their only weapons; and these, during the progress of the whole controversy, they hurled against each other with equal fury and devotion."

"The weak and guilty Lupicinus, who had dared to provoke, who had neglected to destroy, and who still presumed to despise his formidable enemy, marched against the Goths at the head of such a military force as could be collected in this emergency."

"Their flesh was greedily devoured by the birds of prey, who in that age enjoyed very frequent and delicious feasts, and several years afterwards, the white and naked bones which covered the wide extent of the fields presented to the eyes of Ammianus a dreadful monument of the battle of Salices."

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  • Overall
    4 out of 5 stars

Decline and Fall I

A 5 for Gibbon and a 3 for narrator Bernard Mayes, whose English is barely comprehensible. (Average rating of 4.) The Mayes problem is the charateristic, and maddening, British propensity to drop all r's, coupled with Mayes' habit of rarely stopping for a breath between sentences, let alone between paragraphs. It's a chore--but doable.

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  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars

Ancient History At Its Best

This exhaustive history is one of the best on the subject. Gibbon knew his material and gave us one of the greatest works about the long period that this history covers. Where this history might seem long and tedious in places, it is made up for by the numerous explanations of battles and descriptions of the cities and characters of the times. Where Gibbon sometimes seems to opinionated about the times and people, he gives reasons for this and helps the listener to understand the circumstances and ideas of the times. The narration is at times tedious as well. You get the idea that you are in a college lecture hall rather than listening to the reading of a book. Bernard Mayes does a good job with the material. Overall, I would recommend this set of volumes to anyone who is interested in the hisory of the world. Others will find this material tedious and boring at times. My advice? Give a listen and stick with this. You might find out some things that you didn't know and might find this history as extremely interesting as I have.

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  • Overall
    2 out of 5 stars

TEDIOUS TO LISTEN TO

I love any kind of history but this is very hard to listen to due to the droning, monotonous tone of the narrator. I was just about to purchase Volumes II and III but I can't get through the first few hours of this part! What I did hear is very well researched. It could be a lot more interesting with a narrator like Charlton Griffin ("The Roman", "Genghis Khan", "Alexander of Macedon") who has a superb voice for ancient history.

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