The first king among the Assyrians who was able to rise above the rest was Ninus. When Ninus had been killed, his wife Semiramis, queen of all Asia, restored the city of Babylon and established it as the capital of the kingdom for the Assyrians.
1 Rex primus apud Assyrios, qui eminere ceteris potuit, Ninus fuit. occiso Nino Samiramis uxor eius, totius Asiae regina, Babylonam urbem instaurauit caputque regni Assyriis ut esset instituit.
The kingdom of the Assyrians stood for a long time with its power unshaken; but when Arbatus, whom others call Arbaces, prefect of the Medes and himself a Mede by nation, had killed his king Sardanapalus at Babylon, he transferred the name and the sovereignty of the kingdom to the Medes.1
2 regnum Assyriorum diu inconcussa potentia stetit; sed cum Arbatus, quem alii Arbacen uocant, praefectus Medorum idemque natione Medus, Sardanapallum regem suum apud Babylonam interfecisset, regni nomen et summam ad Medos transtulit.
1Arbaces, the Median general who in the tradition going back to Ctesias (preserved by Diodorus) overthrew Sardanapalus. Orosius’s text calls him Arbatus; this translation keeps that form here, where Orosius sets the two names side by side, and uses Arbaces elsewhere.
Thus the kingdom of Ninus and of Babylon was diverted to the Medes in the same year in which, among the Latins, Procas began to reign — the father of Amulius and Numitor, and grandfather of Rhea Silvia, who was the mother of Romulus.
3 ita Nini et Babylonis regnum eo anno in Medos deriuatum est, quo anno apud Latinos Procas, Amuli et Numitoris pater, auus autem Rheae Siluiae, quae mater Romuli fuit, regnare coepit.
And so that I may show fully that all these things were arranged by ineffable mysteries and by the most profound judgements of God, and did not happen either by human strength or by uncertain chance: all ancient histories begin from Ninus, and all Roman histories spring from Procas.
4 ut autem omnia haec ineffabilibus mysteriis et profundissimis Dei iudiciis disposita, non aut humanis uiribus aut incertis casibus accidisse perdoceam, omnes historiae antiquae a Nino incipiunt, omnes historiae Romanae a Proca exoriuntur.
Further, from the first year of the reign of Ninus to the time when Babylon began to be restored by Semiramis, sixty-four years intervene; and from the first year of Procas, when he began to reign, to the founding of the City by Romulus, there are likewise sixty-four years. Thus in the reign of Procas the seed of the future Rome was sown, though no shoot yet appeared; and in the same year of the reign of that same Procas the kingdom of Babylon came to an end, though Babylon itself still stood.2
5 deinde a primo anno imperii Nini usque quo Babylon a Samiramide instaurari coepta est, interueniunt anni LXIIII, et a primo anno Procae, cum regnare coepit, usque ad conditionem urbis factam a Romulo intersunt aeque anni LXIIII. ita regnante Proca futurae Romae sementis iacta est, etsi nondum germen apparet. eodem anno regni ipsius Procae Babylonis regnum defecit, etsi adhuc Babylon ipsa consistit.
2Orosius’s Babylon–Rome parallel: 64 years from the accession of Ninus to the founding of Babylon, and 64 from the accession of Procas to the founding of Rome; Babylon falls to the Medes in Procas’s first year, and is finally taken by Cyrus just as Rome expels its kings. The scheme is taken up again at 7.2.
When Arbaces departed for Media, however, the Chaldaeans kept part of the kingdom in their own hands, and claimed Babylon for themselves against the Medes.
6 discedente autem Arbato in Medos, partem regni penes se retinuere Chaldaei, qui Babylonam sibi aduersum Medos uindicauerunt.
Thus the power of Babylonia lay with the Medes, its ownership with the Chaldaeans; but the Chaldaeans, on account of the ancient dignity of the royal city, preferred not to call it theirs but themselves its own.
7 ita Babyloniae potestas apud Medos, proprietas apud Chaldaeos fuit: Chaldaei autem propter antiquam regiae urbis dignitatem non illam suam, sed se illius uocare maluerunt.
Hence it came about that Nebuchadnezzar and the other kings after him down to Cyrus, although we read that they were powerful with the strength of the Chaldaeans and illustrious with the name of Babylonia, are nevertheless not reckoned in the number and succession of the illustrious kings.
8 unde factum est, ut Nabuchodonossor ceterique post eum usque ad Cyrum reges, quamuis Chaldaeorum uiribus potentes et Babyloniae nomine clari legantur, in numero tamen et cardine regum non habentur inlustrium.
Babylon, then, was dishonoured under the prefect Arbaces in the same year in which Rome — to speak properly — was sown under King Procas. Babylon was finally overthrown by King Cyrus at the very time when Rome was first freed from the domination of the Tarquin kings.
9 Babylon itaque eo anno sub Arbato praefecto dehonorata, quo Roma sub Proca rege, ut proprie dixerim, seminata est. Babylon nouissime eo tempore a Cyro rege subuersa, quo primum Roma a Tarquiniorum regum dominatione liberata est.
For at one and the same coincidence of times the one fell and the other rose; the one then first endured the domination of foreigners, the other then first spurned the arrogance even of its own; the one, as though dying, then gave up its inheritance, while the other, coming of age, then recognized itself as heir; then the empire of the east fell and the empire of the west arose.
10 siquidem sub una eademque conuenientia temporum illa cecidit, ista surrexit; illa tunc primum alienorum perpessa dominatum, haec tunc primum etiam suorum aspernata fastidium, illa tunc quasi moriens dimisit hereditatem, haec uero pubescens tunc se agnouit heredem; tunc orientis occidit et ortum est occidentis imperium.
And not to linger longer over words, I commit myself to the teeth of the raving, but to be set free by the protection of the truth.
11 Et ne diutius uerbis morer, committo me dentibus insanientium, sed ueritatis praesidio liberandum.