The great work of Gibbon is indispensable to the student of history. The literature of Europe offers no substitute for The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire. It has obtained undisputed possession, as rightful occupant, of the vast period which it comprehends. However some subjects, which it embraces, may have undergone more complete investigation, on the general view of the whole period, this history is the sole undisputed authority to which all defer, and from which few appeal to the original writers, or to more modern compilers. The inherent interest of the subject, the inexhaustible labor employed upon it; the immense condensation of matter; the luminous arrangement; the general accuracy; the style, which, however monotonous from its uniform stateliness, and sometimes wearisome from its elaborate art, is throughout vigorous, animated, often picturesque always commands attention, always conveys its meaning with emphatic energy, describes with singular breadth and fidelity, and generalizes with unrivalled felicity of expression; all these high qualifications have secured, and seem likely to secure, its permanent place in historic literature. This masterful and scholarly work in six volumes was published between 1776 and 1787. Covering approximately 1200 years from 200 A.D. to the fall of Constantinople in 1453, he structures this continuous historical narrative in two distinct parts of about equal length. The first 300 years are detailed and then the last nearly 1,000 years are compressed in the second part. Seeing the Empire as a single entity in slow decline over this span of years, Gibbon portrays the material decay as an outer reflection of the inner moral decay. This decline was all the more vivid when held up to the golden ideals of political and intellectual freedom put forward in his study of the early classic literature.