Gibbon is one of those few writers who hold as high a place in the history of literature as in the roll of great historians. He is the clearest example that brilliance of style and accuracy of statement are perfectly compatible in an historian.  The Decline and Fall can be divided roughly into three parts. The first third covers two hundred years and ends with the advent of the fifth century, A. D. The !ast two thirds are devoted to the thousand years that ended with the acquisition of the absolute dominion of Rome by the Popes in 1500.  Gibbon's work, completed a hundred and fifty years ago, remains today the last and authoritative word on the subject.