The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, Volume 1

By: Edward Gibbon

Narrated by: Bernard Mayes

Length: 41 hrs and 2 mins

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)

Dry

It is very well written but dry and a bit disorganized. The reader is also just ok.

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!

Not just about Rome

This book covers not just battles and kings, but culture, religion and reasons for conflict. The author uses primary sources and is a 19th century "age of reason" Englishman. This means he is a bit condescending to women and thinks constitutional monarchy is the best guaranter of freedom, but aside from that he is astonishingly fair and balanced about his treatment of the diverse religions and cultures of Romans, Byzantines, Germanic and Steppes tribes, Franks and Germans, Arab Moslems, Turkish Moslems, North Africans (pre and post Moslem) and of all the flavors of religion from Pagan to Jew to zillions of Christian flavors to Moslem that interacted between the time of Augustus and 17th century.

He has a kind of dry humor and sarcasm that he applies to everything equally. He's consistent about the virtues he admires or the faults he deplores regardless of religion or culture. This series also has the most objective view of the Crusades I've ever read.

At about $1 per hour of listening it is a tremendous value if you are at all interested in the history of the western world from about the birth of Christ and the origins of a lot of the current problems in the Middle East.

Like other reviewers, and,

I do sometimes wonder what Gibbons sources were. And having an index would be great too.
With all three volumes, I am searching to refresh my memory on ..............
"I know such and such is there , I heard it, but where is it, let alone what volume?"

Too much detail for an audiobook

I did give it a good try, but:

1) this book assumes you know a lot about European history and geography, including Roman names for all the places mentioned

2) when you are reading a paper book and you get to a section you don't follow, you can underline and look things up in ways you cannot do with an audiobook.

3) there must be maps and reference materials in the printed version that you don't get with the audiobook

I will be getting a refund on this one.

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!

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."

Very Valid Info - Very Dry Read

I'm a history buff and REALLY wanted to enjoy this, but I'm afraid I just can't finish it. There's a lot of information and it's great facts, but it's also a VERY dry read - I just can't keep up with it.

The narration isn't bad, although I do think there are narrators that might do better with it. But I think the material is just very dry stuff and any narrator would have a hard time keeping your attention.

It might be better in small chunks.

Sounds like it was recorded through a tin-can

If you know history then you know what to expect from the text. It is incredibly comprehensive but loaded with all the trappings of the age the historian was experiencing when it was written. If you like that, huzzah. If not, you might want to download something a little lighter as a counterbalance. Shame about the quality of the recording...

Superb

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