In the year 847 from the founding of the City, Trajan, a Spaniard by birth, the eleventh from Augustus, took up the helm of the commonwealth, which Nerva handed over to him, and held it for nineteen years.
1 Anno ab urbe condita DCCCXLVII Traianus, genere Hispanus, undecimus ab Augusto reipublicae gubernacula Nerua tradente suscepit ac per annos decem et nouem tenuit.
He assumed the insignia of empire at Cologne, a city of Gaul; soon he restored Germany beyond the Rhine to its former condition; he subdued many nations beyond the Danube; he made provinces of the regions lying beyond the Euphrates and the Tigris; and he seized Seleucia, Ctesiphon and Babylon.
2 apud Agrippinam Galliae urbem insignia sumpsit imperii; mox Germaniam trans Rhenum in pristinum statum reduxit; trans Danuuium multas gentes subegit; regiones autem trans Euphraten et Tigrin sitas prouincias fecit; Seleuciam et Ctesiphontem et Babylonem occupauit.
In persecuting the Christians, indeed, he was deceived by error — the third from Nero. He had ordered that those found anywhere should be forced to sacrifice to idols and those who refused should be killed, and very many were being killed; but, warned by a report from Plinius Secundus, who among other judges had been appointed a persecutor, that these men did nothing contrary to Roman laws apart from confessing Christ and holding honourable gatherings, and that, in their confidence in an innocent confession, death seemed grievous or fearful to none of them, he at once tempered the edict with milder rescripts.
3 in persequendis sane Christianis errore deceptus tertius a Nerone, cum passim repertos cogi ad sacrificandum idolis ac detrectantes interfici praecepisset plurimique interficerentur, Plinii Secundi, qui inter ceteros iudices persecutor datus fuerat, relatu admonitus, eos homines praeter confessionem Christi honestaque conuenticula nihil contrarium Romanis legibus facere, fiducia sane innocentis confessionis nemini mortem grauem ac formidulosam uideri, rescriptis ilico lenioribus temperauit edictum.
Nevertheless, soon afterwards the Golden House at Rome, built by Nero at the cost of all private and public resources, was consumed by a sudden fire, so that it might be understood that a persecution, even when sent by another, was punished above all in the monuments of the very man from whom it had first arisen, and in its author himself.
4 uerumtamen continuo Romae aurea domus, a Nerone totis priuatis publicisque rebus inpensis condita, repentino conflagrauit incendio, ut intellegeretur missa etiam ab alio persecutio in ipsius potissime monumentis, a quo primum exorta esset, atque in ipso auctore puniri.
Four cities of Asia were overthrown by an earthquake — Elaea, Myrina, Pitane and Cyme — and two cities of Greece, those of the Opuntians and the Oritae; three cities of Galatia were destroyed by the same earthquake; the Pantheon at Rome was burned down by lightning; and an earthquake at Antioch brought down almost the whole city.
5 terrae motu quattuor urbes Asiae subuersae, Elaea Myrina Pitane Cyme, et Graeciae ciuitates duae, Opuntiorum et Oritorum; tres Galatiae ciuitates eodem terrae motu dirutae; Pantheum Romae fulmine concrematum; terrae motus in Antiochia paene totam subruit ciuitatem.
Then, in an incredible upheaval, at one and the same time the Jews, as if maddened by frenzy, blazed up in different parts of the world. For throughout all Libya they waged most atrocious wars against the inhabitants; and the land was then so desolated by the killing of its cultivators that, had not the emperor Hadrian afterwards brought colonies gathered from elsewhere and settled them there, it would have remained utterly empty, scraped bare of inhabitants.
6 incredibili deinde motu sub uno tempore Iudaei quasi rabie efferati per diuersas terrarum partes exarserunt. nam et per totam Libyam aduersus incolas atrocissima bella gesserunt: quae adeo tunc interfectis cultoribus desolata est, ut, nisi postea Hadrianus imperator collectas illuc aliunde colonias deduxisset, uacua penitus terra abraso habitatore mansisset.
All Egypt, moreover, and Cyrene and the Thebaid they threw into turmoil with bloody seditions. At Alexandria, however, battle was joined, and they were defeated and crushed. In Mesopotamia too war was made on them by the emperor’s command when they rebelled; and so many thousands of them were wiped out in vast slaughter.
7 Aegyptum uero totam et Cyrenen et Thebaidam cruentis seditionibus turbauerunt. in Alexandria autem commisso proelio uicti et adtriti sunt. in Mesopotamia quoque rebellantibus iussu imperatoris bellum inlatum est. itaque multa milia eorum uasta caede deleta sunt.
Indeed, they destroyed Salamis, a city of Cyprus, killing all its inhabitants. Trajan, as some report, died of a flux of the bowels at Seleucia, a city of Isauria.1
8 sane Salaminam urbem Cypri interfectis omnibus accolis deleuerunt. Traianus, ut quidam ferunt, apud Seleuciam Isauriae urbem profluuio uentris extinctus est.
1Trajan died at Selinus in Cilicia in AD 117 (Cassius Dio 68.33); Orosius follows Eutropius (8.5), who names Seleucia in Isauria.