Indeed his glance took in a still wider
field, as he was concerned as much with the decay of Eastern as of
Western Rome, and the long-retarded fall of the former demanded large
attention to the Oriental populations who assaulted the city and
remaining empire of Constantine. So bold an historic enterprise was
never conceived as when, standing on the limit of antiquity in the
fifth century, he determined to pursue in rapid but not hasty survey
the great lines of events for a thousand years, to follow in detail
the really great transactions while discarding the less important,
thereby giving prominence and clearness to what is memorable, and
reproducing on a small scale the flow of time through the ages. It is
to this portion of Gibbon's work that the happy comparison has been
made, that it resembles a magnificent Roman aqueduct spanning over the
chasm which separates the ancient from the modern world. In these
latter volumes he frees himself from the trammels of regular
annalistic narrative, deals with events in broad masses according to
their importance, expanding or contracting his story as occasion
requires; now painting in large panoramic view the events of a few
years, now compressing centuries into brief outline.
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