In the year 1025 from the founding of the City, Claudius, the twenty-eighth emperor, assumed the imperial power by the will of the senate, and at once attacked in war the Goths, who had by then been laying waste Illyricum and Macedonia for fifteen years, and destroyed them with incredible slaughter. The senate decreed him a golden shield in the senate house and, on the Capitol, a statue likewise of gold; but soon afterwards, at Sirmium, before he had completed two years in power, he was seized by disease and died.
1 Anno ab urbe condita MXXV Claudius uicesimus octauus uoluntate senatus sumpsit imperium statimque Gothos iam per annos quindecim Illyricum Macedoniamque uastantes bello adortus incredibili strage deleuit. cui a senatu clipeus aureus in curia et in Capitolio statua aeque aurea decreta est; sed continuo apud Sirmium, priusquam biennium in imperio expleret, morbo correptus interiit.
On the death of Claudius, his brother Quintillus was chosen emperor by the army — a man of singular moderation, and the only one fit to be preferred even to his brother — and was killed on the seventeenth day of his reign.
2 Claudio mortuo Quintillus frater eius ab exercitu imperator electus, uir quidem unicae moderationis et solus fratri praeferendus, septimo decimo die imperii interfectus est.
In the year 1027 from the founding of the City, Aurelian, the twenty-ninth, obtained the imperial power and held it for five years and six months, a man most outstanding in military energy.
3 Anno ab urbe condita MXXVII Aurelianus uicesimus nonus imperium adeptus quinque annis ac sex mensibus tenuit, uir industria militari excellentissimus.
Undertaking an expedition to the Danube, he routed the Goths in great battles and restored Roman dominion to its ancient boundaries. Then, turning to the east, he brought under his power Zenobia, who after the murder of her husband Odenathus was claiming for herself Syria, which he had won back — and he did so more by the terror of battle than by battle itself.
4 expeditione in Danuuium suscepta Gothos magnis proeliis profligauit dicionemque Romanam antiquis terminis statuit. inde in orientem conuersus Zenobiam, quae occiso Odenato marito suo Syriam receptam sibi uindicabat, magis proelii terrore quam proelio in potestatem redegit.
Tetricus, who in Gaul was quite unequal to withstanding the mutinies of his own soldiers, and who even wrote to him, “Rescue me, unconquered one, from these evils” — and was thereby the betrayer of his own army — he overcame without effort. So, as the recoverer of the east and the north, he celebrated a triumph with great glory. He girded the city of Rome with stronger walls.
5 Tetricum, in Gallia minime sufficientem sustinere seditiones militum suorum scribentemque etiam: Eripe me his, inuicte, malis ac per hoc proditorem exercitus sui, sine labore superauit. sic orientis et aquilonis receptor magna gloria triumphauit. urbem Romam muris firmioribus cinxit.
At last, when he decreed that a persecution be carried out against the Christians, the ninth from Nero, a thunderbolt fell in front of him, to the great terror of those standing around, and not long afterwards he was killed on a journey.
6 nouissime cum persecutionem aduersus Christianos agi nonus a Nerone decerneret, fulmen ante eum magno pauore circumstantium ruit ac non multo post in itinere occisus est.