---
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: 122 of 177
url: https://scriptura.si/works/orosius-historiae/122/
cite: "Paulus Orosius, tr. S. Alexander Laurent (AI-assisted, 2026), Seven Books of History against the Pagans, section 122. Scriptura (scriptura.si), https://scriptura.si/works/orosius-historiae/122/"
---

# 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.

## 122. Book 6 · Chapter 10

Source: https://scriptura.si/works/orosius-historiae/122/ · cite a paragraph as https://scriptura.si/works/orosius-historiae/122/#p-N

[¶0] Thereupon Caesar, having returned from the Britons into Gaul, after he had sent the legions into winter quarters, was surrounded and harried on every side by sudden tumults of war. For Ambiorix, conspiring with the Eburones and the Atuatuci, and encouraged by the counsel of the Treveri, trapped the legates Cotta and Sabinus in an ambush among the Eburones and killed them, together with their whole legion.

> Latin: 1 Exim Caesar a Britannis reuersus in Galliam postquam legiones in hiberna misit, repentinis bellorum tumultibus undique circumuentus et conflictatus est. namque Ambiorix cum Eburonibus et Atuatucis conspirans, animatus Treuerorum consilio Cottam et Sabinum legatos apud Eburonas cum tota funditus legione insidiis circumuentos interfecit.

[¶1] Ambiorix, elated by this victory, hastily drew the Atuatuci, the Nervii and very many others to arms, and made for the legate Cicero, who was then likewise in command of a legion in winter quarters.

> Latin: 2 Ambiorix hac uictoria elatus Atuatucos et Neruios plurimosque alios raptim ad arma contrahit atque ad Ciceronem legatum, qui similiter tunc legioni in hibernis praeerat, contendit.

[¶2] The size of the enemy’s multitude could be gathered from this: when, in besieging the camp, they were taught by Roman captives that a rampart had to be thrown around it, and they had no farming tools, they cut the earth with their swords and carried it away in their cloaks, and in scarcely three hours completed a rampart of ten feet and a ditch of fifteen feet, fifteen miles in circuit. Besides this they built 120 towers of remarkable height.

> Latin: 3 multitudo hostium ex hoc colligi potuit, quia cum in obsidione castrorum uallum circumdandum esse a captiuis Romanis docerentur et instrumenta ruralia non haberent, gladiis concidendo terram et sagulis exportando uix tribus horis uallum pedum decem et fossam pedum quindecim per milia passuum quindecim in circuitu perfecerunt. praeterea centum uiginti turres mirae altitudinis extruxerunt.

*Note: In Caesar (Gallic War 5.40) the 120 towers were raised in a single night by Cicero’s men inside the camp; Orosius gives them to the besiegers.*

[¶3] And when the enemy’s wedges, relieving one another, had already been fighting for seven days and nights, and a very strong wind had suddenly arisen, they hurled red-hot potsherds from slings and threw into the camp missiles set alight in their fires, which soon glowed red as they caught flame.

> Latin: 4 et cum iam septem dies noctesque succidui hostium cunei pugnarent ac uentus subito plurimus exortus esset, testas feruentes intorsere fundis flammataque focis tela ac mox concepto igne rutilantia intra castra iecerunt.

[¶4] When this was done, the wind, bearing swiftly down upon the thatched roofs, fanned the scattered fire into life. But not even so did the Romans, though overwhelmed on every side, give way to wounds, toils, watches, fasting or fires.

> Latin: 5 quo facto per culmea culmina raptim uentus insistens, sparsum animauit incendium. sed ne sic quidem Romani, cum undique obruerentur, uulneribus laboribus uigiliis ieiuniis incendiisue cesserunt.

[¶5] At length it was reported to Caesar that one legion had been destroyed and another was now almost finished.

> Latin: 6 tandem Caesari nuntiatum est unam deletam esse legionem, alteram iam paene confectam.

[¶6] As Caesar approached with two legions, the enemy abandoned the siege, and all, snatching up their forces, rushed upon him. Caesar deliberately hid himself in a very small camp and sent the cavalry ahead with orders to feign flight, so that, through the contempt he inspired, he might lure the enemy to cross the valley that lay between, which seemed dangerous for himself.

> Latin: 7 aduentante cum duabus legionibus Caesare, deserunt hostes obsidionem atque in eum cuncti raptis copiis ruunt. Caesar paruissimis se castris consulto condidit equitibusque praemissis, ut fugam fingerent, imperauit, ut ad transitum uallis, quae media erat sibique periculosa uidebatur, hostes contemptu sui inuitaret.

[¶7] As they approached, he ordered the gates to be blocked up besides. Seeing this, the Gauls, as if they had already won, turned to throwing a rampart round the camp from outside. Caesar suddenly poured out his army, ready for battle, from all the gates, and, turning the Gauls to flight, destroyed them with enormous slaughter.

> Latin: 8 quibus aduentantibus insuper obstrui portas praecepit. quo uiso Galli, quasi iam uicissent, ad obducendum extrinsecus uallum conuersi sunt. Caesar totis repente portis paratum effudit exercitum uersosque in fugam Gallos uastissima caede confecit.

[¶8] For there are said to have been sixty thousand of them then, of whom few escaped through trackless marshes.

> Latin: 9 nam sexaginta milia tunc fuisse referuntur, e quibus pauci per paludes inuias euaserunt.

[¶9] Indutiomarus, chief of the Treveri, who had great forces of armed men, after he had been informed of the agreement of all Gaul, resolved to destroy the camp of Labienus and the legion he commanded — a thing he thought easy to do — and then, joined with the Eburones and the Nervii, to go on to crush Caesar.

> Latin: 10 Indutiomarus Treuerorum princeps, magnas armatorum copias habens, postquam de consensu totius Galliae certior redditus est, Labieni castra legionemque cui is praeerat, quod facile factu arbitrabatur, delere statuit ac deinde Eburonibus Neruiisque coniunctus ad opprimendum Caesarem pergere.

[¶10] Labienus, by whatever arts he could, feigned fear; and so, as Indutiomarus, grown the more careless, was roving before the rampart with his jeering forces, he struck him down by a sudden sally.

> Latin: 11 Labienus quibus potest artibus simulat timorem atque ita Indutiomarum neglegentiorem cum insultantibus copiis pro uallo oberrantem repentina eruptione prostrauit.

[¶11] By this victory of Labienus the remaining attempts of the Gauls were checked, and Caesar was somewhat quieter for the rest of the winter.

> Latin: 12 hac uictoria Labieni reliqui Gallorum conatus repressi sunt et Caesar paulo quietior reliqua parte hiemis fuit.

[¶12] But understanding that greater tasks of war still remained for him — above all because, with the greater part of his army lost and others grievously wounded, he seemed fit not even to withstand, let alone to crush, the onset of the Gauls — he asked the proconsul Pompey to enrol legions and send them to his aid; and so, before the winter was over, three legions came to him in camp.

> Latin: 13 sed intellegens sibi maiora belli superesse negotia, maxime quia plurima parte exercitus amissa aliisque grauiter sauciis ne ad sustinendum quidem sibi idoneus, non dicam ad conprimendum Gallorum impetum uideretur, a Cn. Pompeio proconsule conscribi legiones sibique mitti in auxilium petit: itaque ante exactam hiemem tres ad eum legiones in castra uenerunt.

[¶13] So Caesar, before the enemy’s forces could come together, prepared at the beginning of spring to attack them while they were alarmed and to crush them while they were scattered in their own territories. First, then, he plundered the territory of the Nervii, and gave over the booty, which was most abundant, to his army.

> Latin: 14 igitur Caesar, priusquam in unum hostium copiae coirent, ineunte uere adgredi trepidos et opprimere sparsos in suis finibus parat. primum itaque Neruiorum fines diripit, praedam uero, quae copiosissima erat, exercitui permittit.

[¶14] Then he invaded in three columns the Menapii, who thought themselves very well protected by immense marshes and most impenetrable woods, and, after a slaughter carried far and wide beyond measure, received the survivors in surrender as suppliants.

> Latin: 15 deinde Menapios, qui sibi propter inmensas paludes atque inpeditissimas siluas munitissimi uidebantur, tribus agminibus inuadit nimiaque caede uulgo agitata residuos supplices in deditionem recepit.

[¶15] Labienus, in the following battle, killed all the forces of the Treveri, having lured them into battle by a stratagem before they could join the Germans who were approaching, and at once took their state itself.

> Latin: 16 Labienus sequenti proelio omnes Treuerorum copias interfecit arte in bellum prouocatas, priusquam Germanis aduentantibus iungerentur, et continuo ipsam ciuitatem capit.

[¶16] Caesar, wishing to avenge the death of the legates Sabinus and Cotta, after he learned that Ambiorix and the Eburones, the authors of the destruction of the legion, had taken refuge in the forest of the Ardennes —

> Latin: 17 Caesar ulcisci mortem Sabini et Cottae legatorum uolens, Ambiorigem et Eburones deletae legionis auctores postquam in Arduennam siluam refugisse conperit -

[¶17] which forest is the largest in all Gaul, and stretches from the banks of the Rhine and the borders of the Treveri as far as the Nervii, and extends in length more than fifty miles —

> Latin: 18 quae silua totius Galliae maxima est atque a ripis Rheni finibusque Treuerorum ad Neruios usque pertingit et in longitudine plus quam quinquaginta milibus passuum patet -

*Note: Caesar (Gallic War 6.29) says the forest extends for more than 500 miles.*

[¶18] weighing that it would be a matter of the greatest danger for his men if, strangers to the ground, they were divided up through obstructed and extensive forests to seek an enemy who knew the places thoroughly, invited all Gaul through messengers to seek out and plunder, each as he pleased, the booty hidden away in the forest of the Ardennes.

> Latin: 19 permetiens rem suis maximi periculi fore, si per obstructas spatiosasque siluas ignoti diuiderentur hostemque locis notissimum quaererent, omnem Galliam per nuntios inuitat, ut quique secundum placitum suum reconditas in Arduenna silua praedas quaerant diripiantque.

[¶19] When this was done, with Gauls dying on both sides, he avenged the very great wrongs done to the Romans without danger to any Roman.

> Latin: 20 quo facto Gallis utrimque morientibus maximas Romanorum iniurias sine cuiusquam Romani discrimine uindicauit.

[¶20] Thus, secure in this safest kind of conquest, he returned to Italy.

> Latin: 21 ita hoc tutissimo uincendi genere securus in Italiam rediit.