I am working through the chapters of Gibbon’s Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire translating the majestic sweep of the original narrative into modern English. There are times when this gets tough, and this is one of them. Gibbon is a great writer and this is one of his greatest sections. I will do

  “Nobody listens to me round here.  I feel like a Leonard Cohen record.” – Neil, The Young Ones Faced with a time consuming and not particularly brain consuming task at my computer the other day, I threw out a request to my Twitter chums.  I’d listen to the first album somebody suggested.  The suggestion

Before describing the sack of the city Gibbon treats us to a portrait of the city that is about to be destroyed. Surviving documents enabled Gibbon to paint a very full and revealing picture of just what Rome was like in the reign of Theodosius, just before the final collapse of the western empire. We

My review of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire has reached Chapter 31. If you have read the book you will recall that this is the chapter in which Rome is sacked, but the story has some involved twists and turns. It will take some hard podcasting before we get there, so let’s

This post will have to take the form of an open letter to David Withun.  Hopefully it will make sense to other people as well.

The troubles in Italy and Gaul left Britain isolated.  Its imperial forces had been withdrawn leaving low level garrisons to defend it from the depredations of the Picts and the seaborne Saxons. Being right at the bottom of the imperial todo list created a power vacuum in the province. There was a long trhttp://historybooksreview.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/multiethnic-team-using-green-screen-tablet-to-over-MVKF9J9.jpgion in