The consecrated buildings were surrounded by a quadrangular portico the stately halls, and exquisite statues, displayed the triumph of the arts and the treasures of ancient learning were preserved in the famous Alexandrian library, which had arisen with new splendour from its ashes. His temple, which rivalled the pride and magnificence of the Capitol, was erected on the spacious summit of an artificial mount, raised one hundred steps above the level of the adjacent parts of the city and the interior cavity was strongly supported by arches, and distributed into vaults and subterraneous apartments. Alexandria, which claimed his peculiar protection, gloried in the name of the city of Serapis.

(1909–14 ) The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, 7 vols, ed. The presentation will last approximately 30 minutes with time afterwards for up-close viewing of the books.Edward Gibbon, The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire Gibbon’s history was immensely important to the English-speaking world and his approach to the cycle of civilizations had a considerable effect on Enlightenment views about the natural history of nations and empires that played into the ideas and ideals of America’s own revolutionaries.

Delving into Rome’s complex imperial structure and the characters upon whose fate it rested, Gibbon presented readers in the late eighteenth century with a compelling argument that culminated in his now infamous critique on religion’s relationship to empire. Library intern Kris Stinson presents an eighteenth-century set of Edward Gibbon’s The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire and discusses the influence of classical ideas and literature on Revolutionary War participants. First published in 1776, Gibbon’s revolutionary work wove a provocative narrative on the causes of the decay and collapse of the late Roman empire, a society with which early Americans felt a peculiar affinity.

Gibbon the decline and fall