In the year 795 from the founding of the City, Tiberius Claudius, the fourth from Augustus, obtained the rule and held it for fourteen years.
1 Anno ab urbe condita DCCXCV Tiberius Claudius ab Augusto quartus regnum adeptus est mansitque in eo annis quattuordecim.
At the beginning of his reign Peter, the apostle of the Lord Jesus Christ, came to Rome and taught with faithful word the faith of salvation to all who believed, and confirmed it with mighty works of power; and from then on there began to be Christians at Rome.
2 exordio regni eius Petrus, apostolus Domini Iesu Christi, Romam uenit et salutarem cunctis credentibus fidem fideli uerbo docuit potentissimisque uirtutibus approbauit; atque exim Christiani Romae esse coeperunt.
Rome felt this benefit conferred upon its faith. For when, after Caligula had been killed, the senate and consuls had passed many decrees for abolishing the empire, restoring the commonwealth to its ancient order, and utterly sweeping away the whole family of the Caesars,
3 sensit hoc conlatum fidei suae Roma beneficium. nam cum interfecto Caligula multa de abrogando imperio ac republica in antiquum ordinem restituenda euerrendaque penitus Caesarum uniuersa familia senatus et consules decreuissent,
Claudius, as soon as he had made his rule secure, used a great clemency hitherto unknown at Rome: lest vengeance, once begun, should rage against so great a multitude of nobles, he removed from memory those two days in which the state of the commonwealth had been unhappily debated and acted upon, and ordained pardon and perpetual forgetfulness for everything done or said in them.
4 Claudius mox ut confirmauit imperium, magna atque adhuc Romae incognita usus clementia, ne in tantam nobilium multitudinem ultio, si esset coepta, saeuiret, biduum illud, quo de reipublicae statu infeliciter consultatum actumque fuerat, memoriae exemit omniumque factorum dictorumue in eo ueniam et obliuionem in perpetuum sanxit.
Thus that renowned and celebrated amnesty of the Athenians — which the senate, on Cicero’s advice, had indeed tried to introduce at Rome after the killing of Julius Caesar, but which had come to nothing when Mark Antony and Octavian burst in to avenge the slain Caesar — this Claudius, although he was spurred to the slaughter of the conspirators by a far more savage cause, confirmed of his own clemency with no one asking it of him.
5 ita illam praeclaram et famosam Atheniensium amnestiam, quam quidem Romae inducere Iulio Caesare interfecto senatus Cicerone suadente temptauerat, sed Antonio et Octauiano propter ultionem extincti Caesaris inrumpentibus in inritum cesserat: hanc Claudius, quamuis multo truculentiore causa in caedem conspiratorum stimularetur, ultronea clementia nullo expetente firmauit.
At the same time there occurred also a great miracle of the present grace of God: for Furius Camillus Scribonianus, legate of Dalmatia, plotting civil war, had enticed many very strong legions to change their oath of allegiance.
6 accidit etiam eodem tempore praesentis gratiae Dei grande miraculum: siquidem Furius Camillus Scribonianus, Dalmatiae legatus, bellum ciuile molitus legiones multas fortissimasque ad sacramenti mutationem pellexerat.
Accordingly, on the day appointed for gathering together from every side to the new emperor, neither could the eagles be decked nor the standards be pulled up or moved in any way. The army, moved by so great and so unaccustomed a proof of miracle and turned to repentance, at once, on the fifth day, deserted Scribonianus and killed him, and held itself to the oath of its former service.
7 itaque die dato, ut in unum undique ad nouum imperatorem conueniretur, neque aquilae ornari neque conuelli quoquo modo signa moueriue potuerunt. exercitus tanta et tam inusitata miraculi fide motus et conuersus in paenitentiam Scribonianum quinta statim die destitutum interfecit seseque sacramento prioris militiae continuit.
That nothing was ever more grievous and more ruinous to the city of Rome than civil wars is well enough known. Let anyone deny, then, that this tyranny as it arose and this civil war as it rose up were suppressed by divine power on account of the coming of the apostle Peter and the tender seedlings of the Christians, still scarcely few, breaking forth into the profession of the holy faith — anyone, that is, who can produce from past times a similar example of civil wars being suppressed.
8 tristius ac perniciosius urbi Romae nihil umquam fuisse quam bella ciuilia satis notum est. itaque propter aduentum apostoli Petri et tenera Christianorum germina uixdum adhuc pauca ad sanctae fidei professionem erumpentia hanc exorientem tyrannidem et consurgens istud ciuile bellum neget quisquam diuinitus esse conpressum. qui praeteritis temporibus de conpressione bellorum ciuilium simile probarit exemplum.
In the fourth year of his rule Claudius, wishing to show himself a prince useful to the commonwealth, sought war everywhere and victory from any quarter. So he launched an expedition into Britain, which appeared to have been stirred into tumult over deserters who had not been returned: he crossed to the island, which no one either before Julius Caesar or after him had dared to approach,
9 Claudius quarto imperii sui anno, cupiens utilem reipublicae ostentare se principem, bellum ubique et uictoriam undecumque quaesiuit. itaque expeditionem in Britanniam mouit, quae excitata in tumultum propter non redhibitos transfugas uidebatur: transuectus in insulam est, quam neque ante Iulium Caesarem neque post eum quisquam adire ausus fuerat,
and there — to use the words of Suetonius Tranquillus — “without any battle or bloodshed, within a very few days, he received the surrender of the greater part of the island.” He also added to the Roman Empire the Orkney Islands, which lie in the Ocean beyond Britain, and returned to Rome in the sixth month after he had set out.
10 ibique - ut uerbis Suetoni Tranquilli loquar - sine ullo proelio ac sanguine intra paucissimos dies plurimam insulae partem in deditionem recepit. Orcadas etiam insulas ultra Britanniam in Oceano positas Romano adiecit imperio ac sexto quam profectus erat mense Romam rediit.
Let anyone who pleases now compare, with regard to one island, time with time, war with war, Caesar with Caesar — for of the outcome I make no comparison, since this was a most fortunate victory, that a most bitter disaster — and so at last let Rome recognize that through the hidden providence of him by whose acknowledgement, once received, it enjoys the fullest felicity, it had before had a share of felicity in the conduct of its affairs — in so far, however, as it is not perverted by the stumbling blocks of blasphemies.
11 Conferatur nunc, si cuiquam placet, sub una insula tempus et tempus, bellum et bellum, Caesar et Caesar - nam de fine nil confero, quoniam hoc felicissima uictoria, illud acerbissima clades fuit - et sic demum Roma cognoscat, per eius latentem prouidentiam in agendis rebus antea se partem felicitatis habuisse, cuius agnitione suscepta plenissima felicitate perfruitur, in quantum non tamen blasphemiarum offendiculis deprauatur.
In the same year of his rule a most grievous famine occurred throughout Syria, which the prophets too had foretold; but Helena, queen of the Adiabeni, who had been converted to the faith of Christ, ministered most generously to the needs of the Christians at Jerusalem with grain brought in from Egypt.1
12 Eodem anno imperii eius fames grauissima per Syriam facta est, quam etiam prophetae praenuntiauerant; sed Christianorum necessitatibus apud Hierosolymam conuectis ab Aegypto frumentis Helena Adiabenorum regina conuersa ad fidem Christi largissime ministrauit.
1Helena, queen of Adiabene, converted to Judaism, not to Christianity; Josephus (Antiquities 20.2) tells how she bought grain in Egypt for Jerusalem during this famine.
In the fifth year of his rule an island thirty stades in extent sprang up from the deep between Thera and Therasia.
13 Anno imperii eius quinto inter Theram et Therasiam insula de profundo emicuit triginta stadiorum spatio extenta.
In his seventh year, under Cumanus, procurator of Judaea, so great a sedition broke out in Jerusalem during the days of unleavened bread that, as the people were crushed together at the exit of the gates, thirty thousand Jews are reported to have been struck down by slaughter or suffocated in the crush.
14 Anno eius septimo sub procuratore Iudaeae Cumano in Hierosolymis tanta seditio in diebus azymorum exorta est, ut in portarum exitu populo coartato triginta milia Iudaeorum caede prostrata et conpressione suffocata referantur.
In the ninth year of the same reign, Josephus reports that the Jews were expelled from the City by Claudius. But Suetonius moves me more, who speaks in this way: “Claudius expelled from Rome the Jews, who were constantly rioting at the instigation of Christ”;2
15 Anno eiusdem nono expulsos per Claudium urbe Iudaeos Iosephus refert. sed me magis Suetonius mouet, qui ait hoc modo: Claudius Iudaeos inpulsore Christo adsidue tumultuantes Roma expulit;
2No such passage is found in Josephus; the expulsion is known from Suetonius (Claudius 25.4) and Acts 18:2. Suetonius’s text has Chresto, which Orosius gives as Christo.
but whether he ordered that the Jews rioting against Christ be restrained and suppressed, or whether he wished the Christians too to be expelled at the same time as men of a kindred religion, can by no means be determined.
16 quod, utrum contra Christum tumultuantes Iudaeos coherceri et conprimi iusserit, an etiam Christianos simul uelut cognatae religionis homines uoluerit expelli, nequaquam discernitur.
Be that as it may, in the following year there was so great a famine at Rome that the emperor, seized by the people in the middle of the Forum and most shamefully assailed with abuse and pieces of bread, with difficulty escaped the fury of the aroused populace by fleeing through a back door into the Palace.
17 Verumtamen sequenti anno tanta fames Romae fuit, ut medio foro imperator correptus a populo conuiciis et fragminibus panis turpissime infestatus, aegre per pseudothyrum in Palatium refugiens furorem excitatae plebis euaserit.
After a short interval, however, he killed thirty-five senators and three hundred Roman knights at once for the most trifling reasons; he himself died with clear signs of poison.
18 Paruo autem intercedente tempore triginta et quinque senatores et trecentos simul equites Romanos minimis causis interfecit; ipse autem manifestis ueneni signis est mortuus.