---
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: 149 of 177
url: https://scriptura.si/works/orosius-historiae/149/
cite: "Paulus Orosius, tr. S. Alexander Laurent (AI-assisted, 2026), Seven Books of History against the Pagans, section 149. Scriptura (scriptura.si), https://scriptura.si/works/orosius-historiae/149/"
---

# 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.

## 149. Book 7 · Chapter 15

Source: https://scriptura.si/works/orosius-historiae/149/ · cite a paragraph as https://scriptura.si/works/orosius-historiae/149/#p-N

[¶0] In the year 911 from the founding of the City, Marcus Antoninus Verus, the fourteenth from Augustus, took up the rule together with his brother Aurelius Commodus, and held it for nineteen years. These were the first to protect the commonwealth with equal right.

> Latin: 1 Anno ab urbe condita DCCCCXI Marcus Antoninus Verus quartus decimus ab Augusto regnum cum Aurelio Commodo fratre suscepit mansitque in eo annis decem et nouem. hi primi rempublicam aequo iure tutati sunt.

*Note: Orosius tangles the joint emperors. “Marcus Antoninus Verus” is Marcus Aurelius; his adoptive brother and colleague, born Lucius Ceionius Commodus, reigned as Lucius Verus, whom Orosius calls Aurelius Commodus here (after Jerome) and Annius Antoninus Verus in the next section (after Eutropius). Marcus’s son Commodus first appears at 7.15.12.*

[¶1] Then they waged war against the Parthians with admirable valour and success. Annius Antoninus Verus set out for that war; for Vologaeses, king of the Parthians, was laying waste Armenia, Cappadocia and Syria in a heavy invasion.

> Latin: 2 bellum deinde contra Parthos admirabili uirtute et felicitate gesserunt. Annius Antoninus Verus ad id bellum profectus est. Vologesus enim, rex Parthorum, graui eruptione Armeniam Cappadociam Syriamque uastabat.

[¶2] But Antoninus, after great deeds had been done through most energetic generals, took Seleucia, a city of Assyria situated on the river Hydaspes, with four hundred thousand people, and celebrated a triumph with his brother for the Parthian victory; and not long afterwards, while he was sitting in a carriage with his brother, he was choked by a stroke of the illness which the Greeks call apoplexy, and died.

> Latin: 3 sed Antoninus, per strenuissimos duces magnis rebus gestis, Seleuciam Assyriae urbem super Hydaspen fluuium sitam cum quadringentis milibus hominum cepit et cum fratre de uictoria Parthica triumphauit; ac non multo post, dum cum fratre in uehiculo sedet, casu morbi, quem apoplexian Graeci uocant, suffocatus interiit.

*Note: The emperor who died of apoplexy in a carriage beside his brother, in 169, was Lucius Verus, not Marcus. Seleucia stood on the Tigris; the Hydaspes is a river of the Punjab.*

[¶3] After his death Marcus Antoninus presided over the commonwealth alone. But in the days of the Parthian war, grievous persecutions of the Christians — now for the fourth time, counting from Nero — arose by his command in Asia and in Gaul, and many of the saints were crowned with martyrdom.

> Latin: 4 Eo defuncto Marcus Antoninus solus reipublicae praefuit. sed in diebus Parthici belli persecutiones Christianorum quarta iam post Neronem uice in Asia et in Gallia graues praecepto eius exstiterunt multique sanctorum martyrio coronati sunt.

*Note: The martyrdoms at Lyon and Vienne, described by Eusebius (Ecclesiastical History 5.1), took place in 177, about a decade after the Parthian war.*

[¶4] There followed a plague poured out over very many provinces, and so great a pestilence laid waste all Italy that everywhere estates, fields and towns, abandoned without cultivator or inhabitant, gave way to ruins and to forests.

> Latin: 5 secuta est lues plurimis infusa prouinciis, totamque Italiam pestilentia tanta uastauit, ut passim uillae, agri atque oppida sine cultore atque habitatore deserta in ruinas siluasque concesserint.

[¶5] The Roman army, moreover, and all the legions stationed far and wide in distant winter quarters were, they say, so consumed that the Marcomannic war, which arose immediately afterwards, is reported to have been waged only through a new levy of soldiers, which Marcus Antoninus held continuously for three years at Carnuntum.

> Latin: 6 exercitum uero Romanum cunctasque legiones per longinqua late hiberna dispositas ita consumptas ferunt, ut Marcomannicum bellum, quod continuo exortum est, non nisi nouo dilectu militum, quem triennio iugiter apud Carnuntium Marcus Antoninus habuit, gestum fuisse referatur.

[¶6] That this war was conducted by the providence of God has been most plainly declared by many proofs, but above all by the letter of that most grave and most moderate emperor.

> Latin: 7 hoc quidem bellum prouidentia Dei administratum esse cum plurimis argumentis tum praecipue epistula grauissimi ac modestissimi imperatoris apertissime declaratum est.

[¶7] For when nations had risen up, barbarous in their savagery and countless in their multitude — that is, the Marcomanni, Quadi, Vandals, Sarmatians, Suebi and almost all Germany — and the army, having advanced as far as the territory of the Quadi and been surrounded by the enemy, was facing, through lack of water, a danger from thirst more imminent than that from the enemy:

> Latin: 8 nam cum insurrexissent gentes inmanitate barbarae, multitudine innumerabiles, hoc est Marcomanni Quadi Vandali Sarmatae Suebi atque omnis paene Germania, et in Quadorum usque fines progressus exercitus circumuentusque ab hostibus propter aquarum penuriam praesentius sitis quam hostis periculum sustineret:

[¶8] at the invocation of the name of Christ, which certain soldiers suddenly made openly, pouring themselves out in prayer with great constancy of faith, so great a force of rain poured down that it refreshed the Romans most abundantly and without harm, while it drove the barbarians, terrified by repeated strokes of lightning — especially since very many of them were being killed — to flight.

> Latin: 9 ad inuocationem nominis Christi, quam subito magna fidei constantia quidam milites effusi in preces palam fecerunt, tanta uis pluuiae effusa est, ut Romanos quidem largissime ac sine iniuria refecerit, barbaros autem crebris fulminum ictibus perterritos, praesertim cum plurimi eorum occiderentur, in fugam coegerit.

[¶9] Cutting down their backs even to annihilation, the Romans carried off a most glorious victory, one to be preferred to almost all the titles of the ancients, with an untrained and small number of soldiers but with the most powerful help of Christ.

> Latin: 10 quorum terga Romani usque ad internecionem caedentes gloriosissimam uictoriam et omnibus paene antiquorum titulis praeferendam rudi paruoque militum numero sed potentissimo Christi auxilio reportarunt.

[¶10] There are said to be extant even now, in the hands of many, letters of the emperor Antoninus in which he acknowledges that through the invocation of the name of Christ by Christian soldiers both that thirst was driven off and the victory was granted.

> Latin: 11 exstare etiam nunc apud plerosque dicuntur litterae imperatoris Antonini, ubi inuocatione nominis Christi per milites Christianos et sitim illam depulsam et conlatam fatetur fuisse uictoriam.

*Note: The “rain miracle” in the land of the Quadi (c. 172) is shown on the Column of Marcus Aurelius as the work of a rain god; the Christian version and the emperor’s letter go back to Tertullian (Apology 5). The letter now attached to Justin’s First Apology is a forgery.*

[¶11] This same Antoninus took his son Commodus as partner in the rule; he also remitted the tributes of past time throughout all the provinces, ordered all the vexatious records of the treasury’s business to be piled together in the Forum and burned at once, and tempered the harsher laws with new constitutions. Finally, while stationed in Pannonia, he died of a sudden illness.

> Latin: 12 idemque Antoninus Commodum filium suum adsumpsit in regnum; praeteriti etiam temporis per omnes prouincias tributa donauit omniaque simul fiscalium negotiorum calumniosa monumenta congesta in foro iussit incendi seuerioresque leges nouis constitutionibus temperauit. postremo in Pannonia constitutus repentino morbo diem obiit.