Edward Gibbon says the decay of Rome was inevitable. He writes that instead of inquiring why the Roman Empire was destroyed, it is surprising that it subsisted so long. Gibbons" argument comes down to four major arguments, divided into rulership, the abuse of Christianity, the expansion of the Barbarians, and finally the loss of the Roman military power. Edward Gibbon was one of the greatest English historians of the late 1700"s. His father entered him in Magdalen College, University of Oxford but shortly after his enrollment in 1753 he decided to convert to Roman Catholicism. Magdalen college only accepted Anglicans...
feeble policy of Constantine and his successors armed and instructed, for the ruin of the empire, the rude valor of the Barbarian mercenaries."

Gibbon has a strong thesis and supports it well. Historians now know more about the time period and would argue against Gibbon"s thesis, however, considering what he had to go on his work is detailed and supported. Opposing arguments would be made from Pirenne"s thesis that Rome did not fall in 476 AD but in the 700"s due to the Moslems. Gibbon"s work on the Roman Empire is extensive and is very popular to historians today.