---
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: 152 of 177
url: https://scriptura.si/works/orosius-historiae/152/
cite: "Paulus Orosius, tr. S. Alexander Laurent (AI-assisted, 2026), Seven Books of History against the Pagans, section 152. Scriptura (scriptura.si), https://scriptura.si/works/orosius-historiae/152/"
---

# 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.

## 152. Book 7 · Chapter 18

Source: https://scriptura.si/works/orosius-historiae/152/ · cite a paragraph as https://scriptura.si/works/orosius-historiae/152/#p-N

[¶0] In the year 962 from the founding of the City, Aurelius Antoninus Bassianus, also called Caracalla, the eighteenth from Augustus, obtained the principate and held it for not quite seven years.

> Latin: 1 Anno ab urbe condita DCCCCLXII Aurelius Antoninus Bassianus idemque Caracalla octauus decimus ab Augusto principatum adeptus est mansitque in eo annis non plenis septem.

[¶1] He lived more harshly than his father, and more intemperate in lust than all other men, for he even took his stepmother Julia as his wife. While preparing a war against the Parthians, he was surrounded by the enemy between Edessa and Carrhae and killed.

> Latin: 2 uixit patre asperior, omnibus autem hominibus libidine intemperantior, qui etiam nouercam suam Iuliam uxorem duxerit. hic contra Parthos bellum moliens, inter Edessam et Carras ab hostibus circumuentus occisus est.

*Note: Julia Domna was Caracalla’s mother, not his stepmother, and the marriage is a hostile fiction found in Eutropius (8.20) and the Historia Augusta.*

[¶2] After him Macrinus, the nineteenth from Augustus, who was praetorian prefect, seized the empire together with his son Diadumenian; but when a year had run its course he was at once killed at Archelais in a military uprising.

> Latin: 3 Post hunc nonus decimus ab Augusto Ophilus Macrinus, qui praefectus praetorio erat, cum filio Diadumeno inuasit imperium sed emenso anno continuo apud Archelaidem militari tumultu occisus est.

*Note: Marcus Opellius Macrinus; Orosius’s manuscripts call him Ophilus Macrinus, a corruption of Opellius, and his son Diadumenian Diadumenus.*

[¶3] In the year 970 from the founding of the City, Elagabalus, the twentieth from Augustus, obtained the empire and held it for four years.

> Latin: 4 Anno ab urbe condita DCCCCLXX Marcus Aurelius Antoninus uicensimus ab Augusto imperium adeptus tenuit annis quattuor.

*Note: Orosius calls him Marcus Aurelius Antoninus, the official name of the emperor Elagabalus (218–222). The name Elagabalus comes from the sun god of Emesa (Heliogabalus in 7.18.5), whose priest he was.*

[¶4] This man, a priest of the temple of Heliogabalus, left behind no memory of himself except one sufficiently infamous for debaucheries, outrages and every kind of obscenity. When a military uprising broke out, he was killed at Rome together with his mother.

> Latin: 5 hic sacerdos Heliogabali templi nullam sui nisi stuprorum flagitiorum totiusque obscenitatis infamem satis memoriam reliquit. tumultu autem militari exorto, Romae cum matre interfectus est.

[¶5] In the year 974 from the founding of the City, Severus Alexander, the twenty-first from Augustus, was created emperor by the will of the senate and the soldiers, and for thirteen years was worthy of the praise of justice;

> Latin: 6 Anno ab urbe condita DCCCCLXXIIII Aurelius Alexander uicensimus primus ab Augusto senatus ac militum uoluntate imperator creatus tredecim annis digno aequitatis praeconio fuit;

*Note: Orosius calls him Aurelius Alexander; he reigned as Marcus Aurelius Severus Alexander (222–235).*

[¶6] his mother Mamaea, a Christian, took care to hear the presbyter Origen. For at once, having made an expedition against the Persians, he crushed their king Xerxes, victorious in a very great war.

> Latin: 7 cuius mater Mamea Christiana Origenem presbyterum audire curauit: nam statim expeditione in Persas facta Xerxen regem eorum maximo bello uictor oppressit.

*Note: Julia Mamaea summoned Origen to Antioch (Eusebius, Ecclesiastical History 6.21), but she was not a Christian; Rufinus calls her only a religious woman. The Persian king was Ardashir I, founder of the Sasanian dynasty, known to Greek and Latin writers as Artaxerxes; Orosius follows Eutropius’s Xerxes.*

[¶7] Using Ulpian as his assessor, he displayed the utmost moderation towards the commonwealth; but he was killed in a military uprising at Mainz.

> Latin: 8 Ulpiano usus adsessore summam sui moderationem reipublicae exhibuit; sed militari tumultu apud Mogontiacum interfectus est.