Edward Gibbon, an English historian, published The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire in six volumes between 1776 and 1788. This is Chapter 42 of that work. He follows Rome from the prosperous age of Trajan and the Antonines, around the year 100, through the fall of the West and on to the Ottoman capture of Constantinople in 1453.

Chapter 42 takes up state of the Barbaric world—Establishment of the Lombards on the Danube—Tribes and inroads of the Sclavonians—Origin, empire, and embassies of the Turks—The flight of the Avars—Khosrow I, Or Nushirvan, King of Persia—His prosperous reign and wars with the Romans—The Colchian or Lazic War—The Aethiopians. The footnotes are not in this reading; what you have is the narrative.