Summarize and Compare Gibbon to Toynbee on the End of the Roman Empire.

Gibbon is better known as Edward Gibbon. He lived from 1737 to to 1794 and he is the author of The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire. Much of the information in The History.... has been downtrodden by better information found and by the fact that many of what he wrote was bias. When Gibbon spoke of the fall of the Roman Empire he saw it as something inevitable; "But the decline of Rome was the natural and inevitable effect of immoderate greatness."(Gibbons.) Gibbons took the view on the fact that the more the Romans spread out the higher chances they had of falling. The way that Gibbons looks at the fall of the Roman Empire is that historians should not ask why the Empire fell, but why it lasted so long. Gibbons also seems to blame the fall of the Roman Empire on the rise of Christianity. On the other hand comes Toynbee, a student who came long after Gibbon.

Arnold Toynbee was a student at Oxford. He does not agree with the Gibbons on the view the Roman Empire fell because of the rise of Christianity. He says that Gibbons made the mistake of not dating his book earlier. Toynbee believes if Gibbons had started before the rise of Christianity he would see that Christianity is not the reason. Toynbee believes the reason that the Roman Empire fell, is the Roman Empire's fault in itself. Toynbee says that the Roman Empire hurt itself as a civilization, he says that the Romans had gotten to full of themselves and the rise of Christianity was not a a by product of the already rising number of different religions. Christianity became so popular after the Romans had "put itself to death". (Toynbee). He sees the rise of Christianity as a result of the Roman civilization being to into them self.

citation:"Edward Gibbon." Microsoft® Student 2009 [DVD]. Redmond, WA: Microsoft Corporation, 2008.

Gibbons, Edward. "Chapter 38." The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire. 1788. Medival Sourcebook. Fordham, 1996. Web. 17 Mar. 2010.

Arnold_Toynbee. Digital image. Commons.wikimedia.org. Wikimedia, 24 Dec. 2007. Web. 17 Mar. 2010.

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/7f/Arnold_Toynbee.jpg

Edward Gibbon. Digital image. Commons.wikimedia.org. Wikimedia. Web. 17 Mar. 2010. .