003 Modern Library Paperback Edition Abridgment, notes, and preface copyright © 003 by Random House, Inc. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. Published in the United States by Modern Library, an imprint of The Random House Publishing Group, a division of Random House, Inc., New York, and simultaneously in Canada by Random House of Canada Limited, Toronto. MODERN LIBRARY and the TORCHBEARER Design are registered trademarks of Random House, Inc. Grateful acknowledgment is made to HarperCollins Publishers, Inc., for permission to reprint “The Intimacy of Gibbon’s Decline and Fall,” chapter 4 from Hidden History by Daniel J. Boorstin. Copyright © 1987 by Daniel J. Boorstin. Reprinted by permission of HarperCollins Publishers, Inc. LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOGING-IN-PUBLICATION DATA Gibbon, Edward, 1737–1794. [History of the decline and fall of the Roman empire] The decline and fall of the Roman empire / Edward Gibbon; edited, abridged, and with a critical foreword by Hans-Friedrich Mueller; introduction by Daniel J. Boorstin. p.  cm. eISBN: 978-0-307-41976-7 1. Rome—History—Empire, 30 B.C.–476 A.D. . Byzantine Empire— History. I. Mueller, Hans-Friedrich, 1959–    II. Title. DG311 .G5 003 937ʹ.06—dc1                                                   0003585 Modern Library website address: www.modernlibrary.com