History of Rome (Mommsen) historian of his century or of ours. His only rival in any century was Edward Gibbon, whose monumental History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire complements rather than competes with Mommsen's superb description of the Roman republic." One encyclopaedic reference summarizes: "Equally great as antiquary, jurist, political and social historian, Mommsen [had] no rivals. He combined the power of minute investigation with a singular faculty for bold generalization... ." About the "History of Rome" the universal historian Arnold J. Toynbee writes, "Mommsen wrote a great book, which certainly will always be reckoned among the masterpieces of Western
The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire Gibbon wrote, "to draw from the fountain-head; that my curiosity, as well as a sense of duty, has always urged me to study the originals; and that, if they have sometimes eluded my search, I have carefully marked the secondary evidence, on whose faith a passage or a fact were reduced to depend." The "Decline and Fall" is a literary monument and a massive step forward in historical method. Numerous tracts were published criticising his work. In response, Gibbon defended his work with the 1779 publication of, "A Vindication ... of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire". His