---
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: 19 of 177
url: https://scriptura.si/works/orosius-historiae/19/
cite: "Paulus Orosius, tr. S. Alexander Laurent (AI-assisted, 2026), Seven Books of History against the Pagans, section 19. Scriptura (scriptura.si), https://scriptura.si/works/orosius-historiae/19/"
---

# 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.

## 19. Book 1 · Chapter 19

Source: https://scriptura.si/works/orosius-historiae/19/ · cite a paragraph as https://scriptura.si/works/orosius-historiae/19/#p-N

[¶0] In the year 64 before the founding of the City, Sardanapalus reigned as the last of the Assyrian kings, a man more corrupt than a woman. Seen by his prefect Arbaces, who then governed the Medes, among herds of harlots, dressed as a woman and spinning purple wool on a distaff, he was held in execration; soon, when the peoples of the Medes had been roused, he was challenged to war, defeated, and threw himself onto a burning pyre. From then on the kingdom of the Assyrians passed to the Medes.

> Latin: 1 Anno ante urbem conditam LXIIII nouissimus apud Assyrios regnauit Sardanapallus, uir muliere corruptior: qui inter scortorum greges feminae habitu purpuram colo tractans a praefecto suo Arbato, qui tunc Medis praeerat, visus atque exsecrationi habitus, mox etiam excitis Medorum populis ad bellum provocatus et victus ardenti pyrae se iniecit. exin regnum Assyriorum in Medos concessit.

*Note: Orosius has Arbatus; Diodorus, following Ctesias, calls him Arbaces.*

[¶1] Then, amid many battles swarming up on every side, which it hardly seems fitting to discuss in order, it passed through various fortunes to the Scythians and Chaldaeans, and by a like path returned again to the Medes.

> Latin: 2 deinde multis proeliis undique scatescentibus, quae per ordinem disserere nequaquam aptum uidetur, per uarios prouentus ad Scythas Chaldaeosque et rursus ad Medos parili uia rediit.

[¶2] In this brief account one must weigh how great were the ruins and disasters of nations, how many wars flowed forth, when so many and such great kingdoms changed hands so often.

> Latin: 3 in qua breuitate pensandum est: quantae ruinae cladesque gentium fuere, quanta bella fluxerunt ubi totiens tot et talia regna mutata sunt.

[¶3] After this Phraortes ruled the Medes, who spent the twenty-two years of his reign in very frequent wars with the Assyrians and the Persians.

> Latin: 4 post haec Medis Fraortes imperitauit, qui creberrimis Assyriorum Persarumque bellis XXII regni sui annos consumpsit.

[¶4] After him reigned Diocles, a man most experienced in arms and always occupied in wars, who at his death handed on the empire, widely enlarged, to Astyages.

> Latin: 5 post hunc Diocles regnauit, uir armis experientissimus semperque bellis immoratus: qui auctum late imperium moriens Astyagi dedit.

*Note: Herodotus’s line of Median kings is Deioces, Phraortes, Cyaxares, Astyages. Orosius’s Diocles, though the name recalls Deioces, stands where Cyaxares should.*

[¶5] Astyages, lacking male offspring, had a grandson, Cyrus, born among the Persians. But as soon as Cyrus grew up, he gathered a band of Persians and declared war on his grandfather.

> Latin: 6 Astyages, uirili prole uacuus, Cyrum nepotem apud Persas genitum habuit. sed Cyrus mox ut adoleuit congregata Persarum manu auo certamen indixit.

[¶6] Now Astyages had forgotten the crime he had once committed against Harpagus — when he killed Harpagus’s only son, a little boy, and set him before his father to be eaten, and, lest a happy ignorance should take anything away from that most unhappy bereavement, taunted the father with the infamous feast by showing him the head and hands —

> Latin: 7 porro Astyages oblitus sceleris sui quod in Harpalum dudum admiserat, cum filium eius unicum et paruulum interfecit epulandumque patri adposuit ac, ne quid infelicissimae orbitati felix ignorantia subtraheret, infames epulas ostensis patri cum capite manibus inproperauit, -

*Note: Harpagus in Herodotus and Justin; Orosius has Harpalus.*

[¶7] forgetting this deed, then, he entrusted the supreme command of the war to Harpagus himself, who at once betrayed the army he had received and handed it over to Cyrus. On learning this, Astyages himself set out against the Persians with such forces as he could snatch up, and renewed the conflict more fiercely, having made it known to his men that anyone who tried to retreat from the battle would be met with the sword.

> Latin: 8 huius ergo facti immemor, ipsi Harpalo summam belli committit, qui acceptum exercitum statim Cyro per proditionem tradit. quo conperto Astyages raptis secum copiis in Persas ipse proficiscitur acriusque certamen instaurat, proposito suis, metu si quis e proelio cedere moliretur, ferro exciperetur.

[¶8] Under this compulsion the Medes fought hard, and the line of the Persians, driven back once more, was gradually giving way, when their mothers and wives ran out to meet them and begged them to return to the battle; and when they hesitated, the women lifted their garments, exposed their bodies, and asked whether they wished to flee back into the wombs of their mothers or their wives.

> Latin: 9 qua necessitate instanter Medis pugnantibus pulsa iterum Persarum acies cum paulatim cederet, matres et uxores eorum obuiam occurrunt, orant in proelium reuertantur; cunctantibus sublata ueste obscena corporis ostendunt quaerentes, num in uteros matrum uel uxorum uellent refugere.

[¶9] At this, blushing with shame, they returned to the battle and, charging, forced those from whom they had been fleeing to flee. There and then Astyages was captured; Cyrus took nothing from him but his kingdom, and set him over the very great nation of the Hyrcanians, for Astyages himself did not wish to return to the Medes. This was the end of the empire of the Medes.

> Latin: 10 quo facto erubescentes in proelium redeunt et facta inpressione quos fugiebant fugere conpellunt. ibi tunc Astyages capitur, cui Cyrus nihil aliud quam regnum abstulit, eumque maximae Hyrcanorum genti praeposuit. in Medos uero reuerti ipse noluit. is finis imperii Medorum fuit.

[¶10] But the cities which had been tributary to the Medes revolted from Cyrus, and this became for Cyrus the cause and origin of many wars.

> Latin: 11 sed ciuitates, quae tributariae Medorum erant, a Cyro defecerunt: quae res Cyro multorum bellorum causa et origo exstitit.