Historiography is an important part of archaeological study because of what it can tell us about the development of interpretations of the past over time and what factors have influenced them. By analysing the origins of theoretical approaches, new directions can be proposed. Historiography can be useful in studies of Roman towns and the later Roman period. This is demonstrated here with a detailed examination of one important figure in the history of their investigation in Britain: Edward Gibbon. Hugely influential early archaeologists and ancient historians such as Theodor Mommsen (1817–1903), Camille Jullian (1859–1933), and Francis Haverfield (1860–1919) drew on Gibbon's approach to empire, civilisation, and decline even as they were influenced by the social and political milieux in which they themselves were working (cf. Freeman 2007; Hingley 2000; Rogers and Hingley 2010). Equally influential later writers on the archaeology of cities and civilisations such as Vere Gordon Childe (e.g., 1950), and Sir Mortimer Wheeler (e.g., 1943, 1966) were working very much within the established context of this previous work – and they went on to influence approaches in more recent times.

Gibbon's six-volume work The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire (1776–88) is probably the most famous study, at least in Britain, of the late Roman period and of the Roman Empire as a whole. It has had an enormous impact on the way in which the later Roman period has been studied, with the image of decline and fall dominating many archaeological analyses.