'Gibbon is a kind of bridge that connects the ancient with the ancient with the modern ages, ' noted Thomas Carlyle. 'And how gorgeously does it swing across the gloomy and tumultuous chasm of these barbarous centuries.' Indeed, Gibbon, the supreme historian of the Enlightenment--the illustrious scholar who envisioned history as a branch of literature--seemed almost predestined to write his monumental account of the Roman Empire's terrible self-destruction.