Of all the volumes I've read so far, this is the one I found most difficult to read, partly from the fact that Byzantine history just doesn't appeal to me as much as the Western Roman Empire but also partly because Gibbon clearly doesn't like it either. The difference between him and me is that I don't mean that its not a worthwhile interest.Gibbon makes it quite plain in the last section of the volume that he only carried on his history past the 5th century to highlight how the decline of Byzantium affected Western Europe and how the various countries rose from the ashes of Rome.

So what we have are good sections on the Ostrogothic and Vandal kingdoms and the campaigns of Belisarius and Narsus. The part concerning the religious divisions both within the Byzantine Empire and its Roman Catholic (and other denominational) neighbours, has an appealing dry humour, but only if we accept that Gibbon does not have the last word on the subject. By the end of the work we are back to the palace intrigues, who stabbed/poisoned who which sometimes marred portions of the earlier volumes. No account is made of the wider Byzantine society, which Gibbon hardly mentions at all. The word 'Greek' is used throughout as an synonym for decadence and decay as compared to the more 'vigorous' northern peoples which doesn't help either.

So, the Italian campaigns and the chapter on Christianity aside, I found this the weakest volume of Decline and Fall. ( )

Here we read of the consolidation of the Christian church as it fights amongst itself over the issues of transubstantiation and the vigin birth. It's interesting to note that not many thought Jesus was a part of the Father until somewhere about 180 A.D. Until then he was an inspired rabbi. As the Roman Empire had divided into East and West Empires, so the church now became the Greek Orthodox and the Roman Catholic churches, although they hadn't begun calling themselves that yet. Glibbons' inability to express himself clearly; his coninuing nightmare of sentences, his taking a page to say what could have been said in one line; all puts this particular part down a notch. ( )