---
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: 114 of 177
url: https://scriptura.si/works/orosius-historiae/114/
cite: "Paulus Orosius, tr. S. Alexander Laurent (AI-assisted, 2026), Seven Books of History against the Pagans, section 114. Scriptura (scriptura.si), https://scriptura.si/works/orosius-historiae/114/"
---

# 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.

## 114. Book 6 · Chapter 2

Source: https://scriptura.si/works/orosius-historiae/114/ · cite a paragraph as https://scriptura.si/works/orosius-historiae/114/#p-N

[¶0] So Mithridates, king of Pontus and Armenia, after he had attempted to deprive Nicomedes, king of Bithynia and a friend of the Roman people, of his kingdom, and had been warned by the senate that if he tried it the Roman people would make war upon him, in anger at once overran Cappadocia, drove out King Ariobarzanes, and laid waste the whole province with fire and sword.

> Latin: 1 Igitur Mithridates rex Ponti atque Armeniae postquam Nicomedem Bithyniae regem amicum populi Romani regno priuare molitus est atque a senatu monitus, si facere temptaret, bellum sibi a populo Romano inferendum fore, iratus Cappadociam continuo peruasit atque expulso ab ea Ariobarzane rege cunctam prouinciam igni ferroque uastauit.

*Note: Mithridates VI ruled Pontus and Lesser Armenia; Greater Armenia was the kingdom of his son-in-law Tigranes.*

[¶1] Next he seized Bithynia with like slaughter. He afflicted Paphlagonia with a similar fate, driving out its kings Pylaemenes and Nicomedes. Afterwards, when he had come to Ephesus, he ordered by a cruel edict that whatever Roman citizens were found throughout all Asia should all be killed on a single day.

> Latin: 2 Bithyniam deinde pari clade corripuit. Paphlagoniam simili exitu adflixit pulsis ex ea Pylaemene et Nicomede regibus. post cum uenisset Ephesum, crudeli praecepit edicto, ut per totam Asiam quicumque inuenti essent ciues Romani sub una die omnes necarentur.

[¶2] And it was done; nor can it in any way be set out or grasped in words how great a multitude of Roman citizens was then slain, what grief there was in very many provinces, what groaning both of those who were to be killed and of those who killed, when each and every man was compelled either to betray innocent guests and friends or to be himself endangered by the penalty due to his guests.

> Latin: 3 et factum est; nec explicari aut conprehendi ullo modo uerbis potest, quae tunc multitudo Romanorum ciuium caesa sit, quis maeror plurimarum prouinciarum, quis gemitus occidendorum pariter atque occidentium fuerit, cum singuli quique aut prodere innocentes hospites et amicos, aut ipsi periclitari poena hospitum cogerentur.

[¶3] Archelaus too, Mithridates’ general, sent ahead into Achaea with 120,000 foot and horse, took Athens and all Greece, partly by force and partly by surrender.

> Latin: 4 Archelaus quoque dux Mithridatis cum CXX milibus peditum atque equitum in Achaiam praemissus Athenas cunctamque Graeciam partim ui partim deditione obtinuit.

[¶4] Sulla, to whom the Mithridatic War had fallen after his consulship, long besieged Archelaus at the Piraeus, the port of the Athenians, fortified with a sevenfold wall, and took the city of Athens itself by force. Afterwards he engaged Archelaus in a pitched battle: 110,000 of Archelaus’s army are reported to have been killed, and scarcely 10,000 to have survived.

> Latin: 5 Sylla, cui post consulatum Mithridaticum bellum obuenerat, Archelaum apud Piraeum, Atheniensium portum septemplici muro conmunitum, diu obsedit, ipsam Atheniensium urbem ui cepit. postea iusto proelio cum Archelao conflixit: centum decem milia de exercitu Archelai interfecta, uix decem milia superfuisse referuntur.

[¶5] On learning of the disaster, Mithridates sent seventy thousand of his choicest soldiers from Asia to reinforce Archelaus. In a second battle fifty thousand of these were killed, and there Diogenes, the son of Archelaus, was slaughtered.

> Latin: 6 conperta clade Mithridates lectissima septuaginta milia militum Archelao in subsidium misit ex Asia. secundo proelio quinquaginta milia ex his interfecta sunt ibique Diogenes Archelai filius trucidatus est.

[¶6] In a third battle all the forces Archelaus had were wiped out. For twenty thousand of his soldiers, driven into a marsh, were killed by the insatiable wrath of the victor when they implored Sulla’s protection, and as many again were forced into a river and drowned; the rest of the wretches were butchered here and there.

> Latin: 7 tertio bello omnes copiae, quas Archelaus habebat, extinctae sunt. nam uiginti milia militum eius in paludem pulsa cum Syllae fidem inplorarent, insatiabili uictoris ira interfecta sunt totidemque alia in flumen coacta ac necata, reliqui miserorum passim trucidati sunt.

[¶7] Moreover Mithridates had set his mind on killing the leading men of the noblest cities in Asia and confiscating their goods. And when he had already killed 1,600 in this way, the Ephesians, fearing the example, shut out his garrison and barred their gates; the people of Smyrna, Sardis, Colophon and Tralles did likewise.

> Latin: 8 porro autem Mithridates in Asia nobilissimarum urbium principes occidere bonaque eorum publicare animo intenderat. cumque iam mille sescentos ita interfecisset, Ephesii exemplum uerentes excluso praesidio eius portas obiecerunt; similiter Smyrnaei Sardi Colophonii Trallianique fecerunt.

[¶8] Mithridates, thrown into confusion, made terms of peace with Sulla through his general Archelaus. Meanwhile Fimbria, the henchman of the Marian crimes and the most reckless of all men, killed the consul Flaccus, under whom he had gone out as legate, at Nicomedia;

> Latin: 9 perturbatus Mithridates per Archelaum ducem suum cum Sylla de pace pepigit. interea Fimbria Marianorum scelerum satelles, homo omnium audacissimus, Flaccum consulem, cui legatus ierat, apud Nicomediam occidit;

[¶9] and soon, seizing the army, he put Mithridates’ son to flight from Asia to Miletopolis, attacked the king’s quarters, drove the king himself out of Pergamum, and, pursuing him in his flight, besieged him at Pitane; and he would surely have taken him, had Lucius Lucullus put the care of the commonwealth before civil discords and been willing to hem him in by sea by setting his fleet in the way.

> Latin: 10 ac mox arrepto exercitu Mithridatis filium ex Asia ad Miletopolin fugat, stationem regis inuadit ipsumque Pergamo pellit fugientemque insecutus apud Pitanam obsedit, et profecto cepisset, si L. Lucullus ciuilibus discordiis curam reipublicae praetulisset eumque mari coartare obiecta classe uoluisset.

[¶10] Then Fimbria, angered with the people of Ilium, by whom he believed himself repulsed when they shut their gates on him out of zeal for Sulla’s party, utterly destroyed with slaughter and fire the city of Ilium itself, that ancient parent of Rome. But Sulla at once restored it. The same Fimbria, when he was besieged by Sulla’s army at Thyatira, was driven by despair to kill himself with his own hand in the temple of Aesculapius.

> Latin: 11 inde Fimbria Iliensibus iratus, a quibus pro Syllanae partis studio obiectu portarum repulsus uidebatur, ipsam urbem Ilium, antiquam illam Romae parentem, funditus caede incendioque deleuit. sed eam Sylla continuo reformauit. idem Fimbria apud Thyatiram cum ab exercitu Syllae obsideretur, desperatione adactus in templo Aesculapii manu sua interfectus est.

[¶11] Fannius and Magius, deserters from Fimbria’s army, joined Mithridates; at their urging Mithridates made a treaty with Sertorius through envoys sent to Spain. Sertorius sent Marcus Marius to him to confirm the treaty; the king kept him at his court and soon made him general in place of Archelaus, who had gone over to Sulla with his wife and children.

> Latin: 12 Fannius et Magius de exercitu Fimbriae profugi Mithridati sese adiunxerunt: quorum hortatu Mithridates cum Sertorio per legatos in Hispaniam missos foedus pepigit. Sertorius ad eum M. Marium firmandi foederis causa misit: quem rex apud se retentum breui ducem fecit in locum Archelai, qui se ad Syllam cum uxore liberisque contulerat.

[¶12] Marius and Eumachus, the generals sent by Mithridates against Lucullus, having quickly gathered a great army, engaged Publius Rutilius near Chalcedon and cut him down together with the greater part of his army.

> Latin: 13 Marius et Eumachus duces a Mithridate aduersus Lucullum missi, magno exercitu breui congregato cum P. Rutilio apud Chalcedonam congressi sunt eumque cum plurima exercitus ipsius parte ceciderunt.

[¶13] Lucullus encircled Mithridates with a ditch while he was besieging the Cyzicenes, and compelled him to suffer what he was inflicting; and he sent to the Cyzicenes themselves, to bid them be of good heart, a messenger, one of his soldiers skilled in swimming, who, buoyed up on two skins, holding the crossbar between them and paddling with his feet, crossed seven miles of water.

> Latin: 14 Lucullus Mithridatem Cyzicenos obsidentem fossa cinxit eumque quod faciebat pati conpulit atque ad ipsos Cyzicenos, ut bono animo essent, nuntium misit unum ex militibus nandi peritum: qui duobus utribus suspensus mediam ipse regulam tenens plantisque subremigans septem milia passuum transmeauit.

[¶14] Mithridates, suffering from want, ordered part of his forces, drawn up under arms, to go home; Lucullus intercepted it and destroyed it entirely, for he is said to have killed more than fifteen thousand men on that occasion.

> Latin: 15 Mithridates inopia laborans partem copiarum instructam armis domum abire praecepit: quam Lucullus excipiens uniuersam disperdidit, nam amplius quam quindecim milia hominum tunc interfecisse narratur.

[¶15] At that time too Fannius, who had joined Mithridates, and Metrophanes, the king’s praetor, defeated by Mamercus, fled with two thousand horsemen into Mysia, and turning aside from there into Maeonia, they came upon the Inarime hills and plains.

> Latin: 16 tunc etiam Fannius, qui se Mithridati iunxerat, et Metrophanes regius praetor a Mamerco uicti, cum duobus milibus equitum in Moesiam profugerunt atque inde in Maeoniam digressi in colles camposque Inarimos inciderunt.

*Note: Orosius writes Moesia, but the region meant is Mysia in north-western Asia Minor, next to Maeonia (Lydia), not the Danubian province of Moesia.*

[¶16] There not only are mountains seen scorched and rocks darkened as if with a kind of soot, but the plains too lie squalid with burnt soil for fifty miles, crumbling, without a single trace of fire or furnace, with ash hanging down into the depths; in three places, moreover, scorching chasms are shown, which the Greeks call physae.

> Latin: 17 ubi non solum montes usti uel saxa quasi quadam fuligine obfuscata cernuntur, uerum etiam campi ambusto solo squalidi per quinquaginta milia passuum sine uno ignis uel fornacis indicio et pendulo in profundum cinere putres iacent; tribus etiam locis torridae uoragines ostenduntur, quas Graeci physas uocant.

*Note: This is the volcanic district on the borders of Lydia and Mysia that the Greeks called Katakekaumene, “the Burnt Land”.*

[¶17] Wandering among these for a long time, they were at last delivered from unexpected dangers and came secretly to the king’s camp. Deiotarus, king of Gallograecia, slaughtered the king’s prefects in war.

> Latin: 18 in quibus diu oberrantes inopinatis tandem periculis exempti sunt et clam in regis castra uenerunt. Deiotarus rex Gallograeciae praefectos regis bello trucidauit.

[¶18] Meanwhile Mithridates, besieged at Cyzicus by the very delay with which he was besieging it, reduced his army to great want and pestilence. For he is said to have lost more than three hundred thousand men by hunger and disease in that same siege; he himself seized a ship and fled secretly from the camp with a few.

> Latin: 19 Interea Mithridates apud Cyzicum eadem mora, qua obsidebat, obsessus in magnam penuriam pestilentiamque exercitum suum coartauit. nam plus quam trecenta milia hominum fame et morbo in eadem obsidione amisisse fertur; ipse cum paucis arrepta naui clam fugit e castris.

[¶19] Lucullus, a spectator of another’s disaster without the shedding of his soldiers’ blood, won a new kind of victory; soon he attacked Marius, defeated him and put him to flight: in this battle more than eleven thousand of Marius’s soldiers are reported to have been killed.

> Latin: 20 Lucullus, incruento milite spectator cladis alienae, nouum genus uictoriae adeptus est; mox Marium adortus uicit fugauitque: in quo proelio plus quam undecim milia Marianorum militum interfecta referuntur.

[¶20] Afterwards Lucullus, engaging the same Marius in a naval battle, sank or captured thirty-two royal ships and a good many transports. Many of those whom Sulla had proscribed were slain there.

> Latin: 21 Lucullus postea cum eodem Mario nauali proelio congressus triginta et duas naues regias et conplures onerarias aut demersit aut cepit. multi ibi ex his quos Sulla proscripserat, interempti sunt.

[¶21] Marius, dragged out the next day from the cave where he was hiding, paid the deserved penalty for his hostile spirit.

> Latin: 22 Marius postera die de spelunca, ubi latebat, extractus meritas hostilis animi poenas luit.

[¶22] With the same onset Lucullus laid waste Apamea and, beneath Mount Olympus, captured, stormed and plundered Prusa, a most strongly fortified city.

> Latin: 23 eodem uero Lucullus impetu Apamiam uastauit et sub monte Olympo Prusam munitissimam ciuitatem captam expugnatamque diripuit.

[¶23] Mithridates, sailing against Byzantium with a fleet made ready, was caught by a storm and lost eighty beaked ships; he himself, when his ship, already shattered, was sinking, leapt across into the light galley of Seleucus the pirate, with the pirate himself helping him. From there he reached Sinope, and afterwards Amisus, with great difficulty.

> Latin: 24 Mithridates aduersus Byzantium instructa classe nauigans tempestate correptus octoginta rostratas naues perdidit; ipse cum quassa iam naui mergeretur, in myoparonem Seleuci piratae ipso pirata iuuante transiluit. inde Sinopem ac post Amisum cum magna difficultate peruenit.