---
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: 110 of 177
url: https://scriptura.si/works/orosius-historiae/110/
cite: "Paulus Orosius, tr. S. Alexander Laurent (AI-assisted, 2026), Seven Books of History against the Pagans, section 110. Scriptura (scriptura.si), https://scriptura.si/works/orosius-historiae/110/"
---

# 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.

## 110. Book 5 · Chapter 22

Source: https://scriptura.si/works/orosius-historiae/110/ · cite a paragraph as https://scriptura.si/works/orosius-historiae/110/#p-N

[¶0] And so, when Publius Servilius and Appius Claudius had been made consuls, Sulla was at last seen as a private citizen.

> Latin: 1 Creatis itaque P. Seruilio et Appio Claudio consulibus uisus est tandem Sylla priuatus.

[¶1] With this end were concluded two most deadly wars, the Italian Social War and Sulla’s Civil War. Dragged out over ten years, they consumed more than 150,000 Romans;

> Latin: 2 hoc fine conclusa sunt duo bella funestissima, sociale Italicum et ciuile Syllanum. haec per annos decem tracta plus quam centum quinquaginta milia Romanorum consumpserunt;

[¶2] and Rome lost in this civil war as many of her choicest men and home-born soldiers as the census had found in her, across all the separate age-groups, in the earlier time when she was already looking about her in view of Alexander the Great;

> Latin: 3 tantumque lectissimorum uirorum uernaculorumque militum Roma hoc ciuili bello perdidit, quantum in ea superiore tempore, cum se iam aduersum Alexandrum Magnum circumspiceret, in discretis aetatibus census inuenit;

[¶3] besides, twenty-four men of consular rank, six of praetorian, sixty of aedilician, and nearly two hundred senators, not counting the countless peoples of all Italy who were destroyed everywhere without consideration — and who, if he is in his right mind, would deny that Rome conquered them at the same cost to herself as that at which Italy lost them?

> Latin: 4 praeterea uiros consulares uiginti et quattuor, praetorios sex, aedilicios sexaginta, senatores fere ducentos, absque innumeris totius Italiae populis, qui passim sine consideratione deleti sunt, quos neget quisquam, si ualet, quin eodem damno suo uicerit Roma quo amisit Italia.

[¶4] For shame! Do the times here too stand in need of some doubtful comparison? Yes, indeed, most of all, they say: for what can be more fittingly compared than civil wars with civil wars? Or will it perhaps be said that in these times too there have been no civil wars?

> Latin: 5 Pro pudor! num quidnam et hic conparatione ambigua egent tempora? immo uel maxime, inquiunt: nam quid tam apte quam bellis ciuilibus bella ciuilia conparantur? an forte dicetur, etiam in his temporibus bella ciuilia non fuisse?

[¶5] To them we shall answer that these would indeed more justly be called social wars, but that it is to our advantage if they are named civil. For when all things are shown to be equal in causes, names, and aims, then the reverence of the Christian religion claims all the more for itself in them, the less the angry power of the victor has presumed.

> Latin: 6 quibus a nobis respondebitur, iustius quidem socialia uocari oportere, sed nobis proficere, si ciuilia nominentur. cum enim causis uocabulis ac studiis paria docentur omnia tum sibi in his tanto plus uindicat reuerentia Christianae religionis quanto minus praesumpserit potestas irata uictoris.

[¶6] For since, for the most part, wicked tyrants, rashly invading the commonwealth and usurping royal status, have torn asunder the body of the Roman empire, and from it have either brought in wars unjust in themselves or stirred up against themselves wars that were just — tyrants both created and equipped by the peoples of the Britons and the Gauls:

> Latin: 7 nam cum plerumque improbi tyranni temere inuadentes rempublicam usurpatoque regio statu Romani imperii corpus abruperint atque ex eo bella uel per se iniusta inportarint uel in se iusta commouerint, Britannis Gallisque et creati populis et instructi:

[¶7] these wars, as close to foreign wars as they are remote from civil ones, what should they rightly be called but social wars, since the Romans themselves nowhere called even the wars of Sertorius or Perperna or Crixus or Spartacus civil wars?

> Latin: 8 haec bella, quantum externis proxima tantum longinqua ciuilibus, quid nisi socialia iure uocitentur, cum ipsi Romani ne Sertorii quidem aut Perpennae aut Crixi aut Spartaci bella ciuilia uspiam nominarint?

[¶8] In such a defection or rebellion of allies, then, our age would now at any rate labour under less odium, if perhaps there arose either a hard-fought battle or a bloody victory.

> Latin: 9 in tali ergo uel defectu uel perduellione sociorum minore nunc utique inuidia laboraret, si fortassis exsisteret uel grauis pugna uel cruenta uictoria.

[¶9] Nevertheless, since in these times everything — that is, cause, battle, victory — carries more of necessity and less of shame, whether for extinguishing the insolence of tyrants, or for checking the defection of allies, or for branding upon them an example of vengeance:

> Latin: 10 uerumtamen cum in hisce temporibus omnia plus necessitatis adferant et minus pudoris, hoc est causa pugna uictoria, uel pro extinguenda insolentia tyrannorum uel pro cohibendo sociorum defectu uel pro inurendo ultionis exemplo:

[¶10] who can doubt how much more mildly and how much more mercifully civil wars, stirred up, as they say, are now waged — or rather repressed than waged?

> Latin: 11 cui tandem dubium est, quanto nunc mitius quantoque clementius excitata, ut dicunt, bella ciuilia geruntur, immo reprimuntur potius quam geruntur?

[¶11] For who has heard of a single civil war carried on for ten years in these times? Who remembers 150,000 men slain in a single war, even enemies by enemies, not to say citizens by citizens?

> Latin: 12 quis enim unum ciuile bellum per decem annos his temporibus agitatum audierit? quis uno bello centum quinquaginta milia hominum, uel hostium ab hostibus, ut non dicam ciuium a ciuibus, caesa meminerit?

[¶12] Who has known of that multitude, which it would take long to unfold, of the best and most illustrious men butchered in peace? Finally, who has feared, read, or felt those infamous tables of men marked for killing?

> Latin: 13 quis illam, quam explicare longum est, optimorum atque inlustrium uirorum multitudinem trucidari in pace cognorit? postremo quis illas infames interficiendorum tabulas timuerit legerit senserit?

[¶13] And is it not rather known to all that all, settled together in one peace and secure in the same safety, vanquished and victors alike, have exulted in a common joy, and that even in so many provinces, cities, and peoples of the whole Roman empire there have scarcely ever been a few whom just vengeance condemned, and that even against the victor’s will?

> Latin: 14 ac non potius omnibus notum sit, una cunctos pace compositos atque eadem salute securos uictos uictoresque pariter communi exultasse laetitia, at etiam in tantis totius imperii Romani prouinciis urbibus ac populis uix paucos aliquando extitisse, quos iusta ultio inuito etiam uictore damnarit?

[¶14] And, not to burden words with words, I would not be rash in saying that only as large a band of common soldiers has lately been destroyed, even in war, as was then slaughtered of nobles in peace.

> Latin: 15 et, ut uerbis uerba non onerem, non temere dixerim, tantam uel in bello saltim extinctam modo fuisse gregariorum militum manum quanta tunc caesa est in pace nobilium.

[¶15] So, after Sulla’s death, Lepidus, champion of the Marian party, rising against Catulus, Sulla’s general, stirred up the reviving ashes of the civil wars. Twice then battle was fought in the field; very many Romans were slain — Romans already few in their very wretchedness, and still raging with that madness.

> Latin: 16 Igitur Sylla mortuo Lepidus, Marianae partis adsertor, aduersus Catulum Syllanum ducem surgens, rediuiuos bellorum ciuilium cineres suscitauit. bis tunc acie certatum est; plurimi Romanorum, iam ipsa paucitate miserorum et adhuc illo furore insanientium, caesi sunt.

[¶16] The city of the Albans, besieged and tormented by extreme famine, was saved by the surrender of its pitiable remnants; there Scipio, son of Lepidus, was then captured and killed. Brutus, fleeing into Cisalpine Gaul, was killed at Regium, with Pompey in pursuit.

> Latin: 17 Albanorum ciuitas, obsidione oppugnata atque excruciata fame ultima, miserabilium reliquiarum deditione seruata est; ubi tunc Scipio, Lepidi filius, captus atque occisus est. Brutus in Cisalpinam Galliam fugiens persequente Pompeio apud Regium interfectus est.

*Note: Regium Lepidi (Reggio Emilia) in Cisalpine Gaul, not Rhegium on the Strait of Messina. This Brutus was Marcus Junius Brutus, father of Caesar’s assassin.*

[¶17] Thus this civil war, not so much through the clemency of Catulus as through weariness of Sulla’s cruelty, vanished, like a fire in stubble, with the same speed with which it had blazed up.

> Latin: 18 ita hoc bellum ciuile non magis clementia Catuli quam taedio Syllanae crudelitatis, ut ignis in stipula, eadem celeritate qua exarsit euanuit.