---
title: "Seven Books of History against the Pagans"
author: "Paulus Orosius"
translator: "S. Alexander Laurent (AI-assisted, 2026)"
title_ru: "История против язычников"
title_fr: "Histoires contre les païens"
title_de: "Sieben Bücher Geschichte gegen die Heiden"
languages: [la, en]
shelf: "Church Fathers"
section: 101 of 177
url: https://scriptura.si/works/orosius-historiae/101/
cite: "Paulus Orosius, tr. S. Alexander Laurent (AI-assisted, 2026), Seven Books of History against the Pagans, section 101. Scriptura (scriptura.si), https://scriptura.si/works/orosius-historiae/101/"
---

# Seven Books of History against the Pagans

*Paulus Orosius, tr. S. Alexander Laurent (AI-assisted, 2026)*

Russian: История против язычников · French: Histoires contre les païens · German: Sieben Bücher Geschichte gegen die Heiden

Augustine's pupil tells the whole of world history to prove that the Christian times are not the worst.

## 101. Book 5 · Chapter 13

Source: https://scriptura.si/works/orosius-historiae/101/ · cite a paragraph as https://scriptura.si/works/orosius-historiae/101/#p-N

[¶0] At the same time Metellus ranged over the Balearic islands in war and subdued them, and crushed, with very great slaughter of the inhabitants, the harassment of piracy that was then springing up from those same islands.

> Latin: 1 Isdem temporibus Metellus Baleares insulas bello peruagatus edomuit et piraticam infestationem, quae ab isdem tunc exoriebatur, plurima incolarum caede conpressit.

[¶1] Gnaeus Domitius too, as proconsul, defeated the Allobroges, a Gallic people, near the town of Vindalium in a most grievous war, chiefly because the horses of the enemy and the enemy themselves, terrified by the strange shape of the elephants, scattered in flight: twenty thousand of the Allobroges are reported to have been slain there, and three thousand were captured.

> Latin: 2 Gnaeus quoque Domitius proconsule Allobrogas Gallos iuxta oppidum Vindalium grauissimo bello uicit, maxime cum elephantorum noua forma equi hostium hostesque conterriti diffugissent: XX milia ibi Allobrogum caesa referuntur, tria milia capta sunt.

[¶2] At the same time Mount Etna blazed up beyond its wont and, with fiery torrents pouring over and flowing round far and wide, overwhelmed the city of Catina and its territory, so that the roofs of the houses, burned through and weighed down by hot ashes, collapsed; to relieve this disaster the senate remitted ten years’ taxes to the people of Catina.

> Latin: 3 Eodem tempore Aetna mons ultra solitum exarsit et torrentibus igneis superfusis lateque circumfluentibus Cadinam urbem finesque eius oppressit ita ut tecta aedium calidis cineribus praeusta et praegrauata conruerent: cuius leuandae cladis causa senatus decem annorum uectigalia Catinensibus remisit.

*Note: Orosius writes “Cadina”; the city is Catina (modern Catania), as the next clause shows.*