THE HISTORY OF THE DECLINE AND FALL OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE. By EDWARD GIBBON, Efq; VOLUME THE FIRST. A NEW EDITION. LONDON: PRINTED FOR W. STRAHAN; AND T. CADELL, IN THE STRAND, IT PRE FAC E. T is not my intention to detain the reader by expatiating on the variety, or the importance of the fubject, which I have undertaken to treat; fince the merit of the choice would ferve to render the weaknefs of the execution still more apparent, and still lefs excufable. But as I have presumed to lay before the Public a first volume only of the History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, it will perhaps be expected that I fhould explain, in a few words, the nature and limits of my general plan. The memorable feries of revolutions, which, in the course of about thirteen centuries, gradually undermined, and at length destroyed, the folid fabric of Roman greatness, may, with fome propriety, be divided into the three following periods. the I. The firft of these periods may be traced from of Trajan and the Antonines, when the Ro age man monarchy, having attained its full ftrength and maturity, began to verge towards its decline; and will extend to the fubverfion of the Western Empire, by the barbarians of Germany and Scythia, the rude ancestors of the moft polifhed nations of modern Europe. This extraordinary revolution, which fubjected Rome to the power of a Gothic conqueror, was completed about the beginning of the fixth century. II. The second period of the Decline and Fall of Rome, may be supposed to commence with the reign of Juftinian, who by his laws, as well as by his victories, restored a transient splendour to the Eastern Empire. It will comprehend the invasion of Italy by the Lombards; the conquest of the Afiatic and African provinces by the Arabs, who embraced the religion of Mahomet; the revolt of the Roman people against the feeble princes of Conftantinople; and the elevation of Charlemagne, who, in the year eight hundred, established the second, or German Empire of the weft. III. The III. The last and longest of these periods includes about fix centuries and a half; from the revival of the Western Empire, till the taking of Conftantinople by the Turks, and the extinction of a degenerate race of princes, who continued to affume the titles of Cæfar and Augustus, after their dominions were contracted to the limits of a single city; in which the language, as well as manners, of the ancient Romans, had been long fince forgotten. The writer who should undertake to relate the events of this period, would find himself obliged to enter into the general history of the Crusades, as far as they contributed to the ruin of the Greek Empire; and he would scarcely be able to restrain his curiofity from making fome inquiry into the ftate of the city of Rome, during the darkness and confufion of the middle ages. As I have ventured, perhaps too haftily, to commit to the press, a work, which, in every fenfe of the word, deferves the epithet of imperfect, I confider myself as contracting an engagement to finish, most probably in a second volume, the first of these memorable |