Six ways to leave a story about Ancient Rome ……. Edward Gibbon on the wireless

Now, I am looking forward to listening to the story of Edward Gibbon from the series In Our Time on Radio 4.

A bit of Rome a bit knocked about

I missed it yesterday when it was broadcast and will catch up with it today.

Mr. Gibbon is of course best known for his account of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire.

To my shame I have yet to read the six volumes of how work which mother bought for me back in 1961.

To be fair I was 11, and despite being fascinated by the Romans I was daunted by the expanse of reading.

So I will start with the wireless programme. 

"Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the life and ideas of one of the great historians, best known for his History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire (published 1776-89). 

According to Gibbon (1737-94), the idea for this work came to him on 15th of October 1764 as he sat musing amidst the ruins of Rome, while barefooted friars were singing vespers in the Temple of Jupiter. Decline and Fall covers thirteen centuries and is an enormous intellectual undertaking and, on publication, it became a phenomenal success across Europe.

Edward Gibbon, 1779

With David Womersley, The Thomas Wharton Professor of English Literature at St Catherine’s College, University of Oxford, Charlotte Roberts, Lecturer in English at University College London, and Karen O’Brien, Professor of English Literature at the University of Oxford

Producer: Simon Tillotson”

Pictures; a bit of Rome from after the Fall of the Empire, 2010, from the collection of Andrew Simpson, and Portrait of Edward Gibbon, 1779, Joshua Reynolds

*Edward Gibbon, In Our Time, Radio 4, https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000x0v2