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
Decline of the Byzantine Empire Decline of the Byzantine Empire The Byzantine Empire (the Eastern Roman Empire during the medieval period, after the fall of the Western Roman Empire) following the Sack of Constantinople (1204) slowly collapsed by Ottoman expansion. After crisis of the Gothic Wars it managed to re-establish itself in a golden age under the Justinian dynasty in the 6th century, and during the Early Middle Ages it continued to flourish even after the Muslim conquest of the Levant and the constant threat of Arab invasion. But in the High Middle Ages, under pressure from the Seljuk Empire, it suffered serious setbacks and