Historiography of the fall of the Western Roman Empire Historiography of the fall of the Western Roman Empire The causes and mechanisms of the Fall of the Western Roman Empire are a historical theme that was introduced by historian Edward Gibbon in his 1776 book "The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire". He started an ongoing historiographical discussion about what caused the Fall of the Western Roman Empire, and the reduced power of the remaining Eastern Empire, in the 4th–5th centuries. Gibbon was not the first to speculate on why the Empire collapsed, but he was the first to give a well-researched and well-referenced account.
Augustine: The Decline of the Roman Empire that point, he too, passing up a chance to escape on a ship sent to rescue him by the Pope, stays by the side of his people. Augustine: The Decline of the Roman Empire Restless Heart: The Confessions of Saint Augustine (Italian: Sant'Agostino) is a 2010 two-part television miniseries chronicling the life of St. Augustine, the early Christian theologian, writer and Bishop of Hippo Regius at the time of the Vandal invasion (AD 430). This series was directed by Christian Duguay and was shot on location in Tunisia. In the United States, the film is distributed under the title Augustine: