Book 1 · Chapter 1

Now almost all the men devoted to writing, among the Greeks as well as the Latins, who have handed down in words the deeds of kings and peoples for long remembrance, have begun their writing with Ninus, son of Belus, king of the Assyrians —

1 Et quoniam omnes propemodum tam apud Graecos quam apud Latinos studiosi ad scribendum uiri, qui res gestas regum populorumque ob diuturnam memoriam uerbis propagauerunt, initium scribendi a Nino Beli filio, rege Assyriorum, fecere -

for though in their blind opinion they would have it believed that the origin of the world and the creation of mankind had no beginning, they nonetheless define kingdoms and wars as having begun with him,

2 qui cum opinione caeca mundi originem creaturamque hominum sine initio credi uelint, coepisse tamen ab hoc regna bellaque definiunt,

as if until then the human race had lived in the manner of cattle, and only then, shaken and roused as it were to a new foresight, had woken up —

3 quasi uero eatenus humanum genus ritu pecudum uixerit et tunc primum ueluti ad nouam prouidentiam concussum suscitatumque uigilarit -:

I, however, have resolved to trace the beginning of man’s misery from the beginning of man’s sin, touching only on a few points and those briefly.

4 ego initium miseriae hominum ab initio peccati hominis ducere institui, paucis dumtaxat isdemque breuiter delibatis.

Now from Adam, the first man, to Ninus, the ‘great’ king as they call him, in whose time Abraham was born, there are 3,184 years, which all the historians have either passed over or not known.¹

5 sunt autem ab Adam primo homine usque ad Ninum 'magnum' ut dicunt regem, quando natus est Abraham, anni I̅I̅I̅CLXXXIIII, qui ab omnibus historiographis uel omissi uel ignorati sunt.

From Ninus, or Abraham, to Caesar Augustus — that is, to the birth of Christ, which fell in the forty-second year of Caesar’s rule, when peace had been made with the Parthians, the gates of Janus were shut, and wars ceased throughout the world — 2,015 years are reckoned, over which the leisure and the labours of all have been spent between those who did the deeds and those who wrote them.

6 a Nino autem uel Abraham usque ad Caesarem Augustum id est usque ad natiuitatem Christi, quae fuit anno imperii Caesaris quadragesimo secundo, cum facta pace cum Parthis Iani portae clausae sunt et bella toto orbe cessarunt, colliguntur anni I̅I̅XV, in quibus se inter actores scriptoresque omnium otia negotiaque triuerunt.

The matter itself therefore demands that we touch, as briefly as may be, on at least a few things from those books which, in speaking of the origin of the world, won belief for things past by foretelling things to come and by the proof that followed:

7 quapropter res ipsa exigit ex his libris quam breuissime uel pauca contingere, qui originem mundi loquentes praeteritorum fidem adnuntiatione futurorum et post subsequa probatione fecerunt:

not that we would seem to press their authority on anyone, but because it is worth the trouble to recall an opinion widely held, which we share with everyone:

8 non quo auctoritatem eorum cuiquam uideamur ingerere, sed quo operae pretium sit de opinione uulgata quae nobis cum omnibus communis est commonere:

first, that if the world and man are governed by divine providence, which is just as it is good; and if man — who through the changeableness of his nature and the freedom of his will is both weak and stubborn — must be governed with kindness when he needs help, just as he must be justly chastised when he is unrestrained in his freedom,

9 primum quia, si diuina prouidentia, quae sicut bona ita et iusta est, agitur mundus et homo, hominem autem, qui conuertibilitate naturae et libertate licentiae et infirmus et contumax est, sicut pie gubernari egenum opis oportet ita iuste corripi inmoderatum libertatis necesse est,

then anyone who looks at the human race through himself and in himself perceives that this world has rightly been exercised, from the beginning of man, by goods and evils in turn;

10 iure ab initio hominis per bona malaque alternantia, exerceri hunc mundum sentit quisquis per se atque in se humanum genus uidet;

next, since we are taught that sin and the punishment of sin began with the first man himself; and further, since even these writers, starting from the middle of time and nowhere mentioning the ages before, have described nothing but wars and disasters —

11 deinde cum ab ipso primo homine peccatum punitionemque peccati coepisse doceamur; porro autem cum etiam isti de mediis temporibus inchoantes, quamuis superiorum nusquam meminerint, nihil nisi bella cladesque descripserint -

and what else are wars to be called but evils falling now on one side, now on the other? and evils of this kind, as they were then and as they are now, so far as they are, are without doubt either open sins or hidden punishments of sins —

12 quae bella quid aliud dicenda sunt, nisi uergentia in alterutrum mala; mala autem huiusmodi quae tunc erant, sicut et nunc sunt in quantum sunt, sine dubio aut manifesta peccata sunt aut occultae punitiones peccatorum -:

what is there to prevent us from unfolding the head of the matter whose body they have depicted, and from bearing witness, even by the slenderest account, that those earlier ages, which we show to have been far more numerous, endured similar miseries?

13 quid impedimenti est nos eius rei caput pandere, cuius illi corpus expresserint, et priora illa saecula, quae multo numerosiora monstramus, uel tenuissimo testari relatu similes miserias pertulisse?

Since, then, I am to speak from the founding of the world to the founding of the City, and from there to the principate of Caesar and the birth of Christ, from which time the empire of the world has remained under the power of the City, or even down to our own days, so far as I am able to bring them to knowledge;

14 Dicturus igitur ab orbe condito usque ad urbem conditam, dehinc usque ad Caesaris principatum natiuitatemque Christi ex quo sub potestate urbis orbis mansit imperium, uel etiam usque ad dies nostros, in quantum ad cognitionem uocare suffecero,

and since I am to display, as from a watchtower, the conflicts of the human race and the world kindled by the torch of greed and burning with evils in its various parts, I think it necessary

15 conflictationes generis humani et ueluti per diuersas partes ardentem malis mundum face cupiditatis incensum e specula ostentaturus necessarium reor,

first to set out the very globe of lands that the human race inhabits, as it was divided by our ancestors into three parts and then marked out into regions and provinces;

16 ut primum ipsum terrarum orbem quem inhabitat humanum genus, sicut est a maioribus trifariam distributus deinde regionibus prouinciisque determinatus, expediam;

so that, when the local disasters of wars and plagues are displayed, those who are interested may the more easily gain a knowledge not only of events and times but also of places.

17 quo facilius, cum locales bellorum morborumque clades ostentabuntur, studiosi quique non solum rerum ac temporum sed etiam locorum scientiam consequantur.