OF THE DECLINE AND FALL OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE BY EDWARD GIBBON EDITED IN SEVEN VOLUMES WITH INTRODUCTION, NOTES, APPENDICES, AND INDEX BY J. B. BURY, M.A. HON. LITT.D. OF DURHAM FELLOW AND TUTOR OF TRINITY COLLEGE, DUBLIN VOL. I. METHUEN & CO. 36 ESSEX STREET, W.C. LONDON 1897 New Edition 1-3-51 § 44. V PREFACE OF THE AUTHOR It is not my intention to detain the reader by expatiating on the variety, or the importance of the subject, which I have undertaken to treat; since the merit of the choice would serve to render the weakness of the execution still more apparent, and still less excusable. But, as I have presumed to lay before the Public a first volume only1 of the History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, it will perhaps be expected that I should explain, in a few words, the nature and limits of my general plan. The memorable series of revolutions, which, in the course of about thirteen centuries, gradually undermined, and at length destroyed, the solid fabric of human greatness, may, with some propriety, be divided into the three following periods: I. The first of these periods may be traced from the age of Trajan and the Antonines, when the Roman monarchy, having attained its full strength and maturity, began to verge towards its decline; and will extend to the subversion of the Western Empire, by the barbarians of Germany and Scythia, the rude ancestors of the most polished nations of modern Europe. This extraordinary revolution, which subjected Rome to the power of a Gothic conqueror, was completed about the beginning of the sixth century. 1The first volume of the quarto, which is now contained in the two first volumes of the octavo, edition. 247803 |