The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, a major literary achievement of the 18th century published in six volumes, was written by the celebrated English historian Edward Gibbon. The books cover the period of the Roman Empire after Marcus Aurelius, from just before 180 to 1453 and beyond, concluding in 1590. They take as their material the behavior and decisions that led to the decay and eventual fall of the Roman Empire in the East and West, offering an explanation for why the Roman Empire fell. Gibbon is sometimes called the first “modern historian of ancient Rome.” By virtue of its mostly objective approach and highly accurate use of reference material, Gibbon’s work was adopted as a model for the methodologies of 19th and 20th century historians.