---
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: 26 of 177
url: https://scriptura.si/works/orosius-historiae/26/
cite: "Paulus Orosius, tr. S. Alexander Laurent (AI-assisted, 2026), Seven Books of History against the Pagans, section 26. Scriptura (scriptura.si), https://scriptura.si/works/orosius-historiae/26/"
---

# 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.

## 26. Book 2 · Chapter 5

Source: https://scriptura.si/works/orosius-historiae/26/ · cite a paragraph as https://scriptura.si/works/orosius-historiae/26/#p-N

[¶0] In the year 244 from the founding of the City, Brutus, the first consul among the Romans, strove not only to equal but even to surpass the first founder and king of Rome in parricide: for he dragged before the assembly his own two young sons and as many brothers of his wife, the young Vitellii, who had been accused of a plot to recall the kings to the City, beat them with rods and struck them with the axe.

> Latin: 1 Anno post urbem conditam CCXLIIII Brutus primus apud Romanos consul primum conditorem regemque Romae non solum exaequare parricidio sed et uincere studuit; quippe duos filios suos adulescentes totidemque uxoris suae fratres, Vitellios iuuenes, reuocandorum in Urbem regum placito insimulatos, in contionem protraxit, uirgis cecidit securique percussit.

[¶1] He himself then fell in the war with the Veientes and the Tarquinienses, fighting with Arruns, the son of Superbus, who fought him and died along with him.

> Latin: 2 ipse deinde Veientum Tarquiniensiumque bello cum Arrunte, Superbi filio, congresso sibi commortuoque procubuit.

[¶2] Porsenna, king of the Etruscans, a most formidable champion of the royal name, forcing Tarquinius upon them with an armed hand, terrified, shut in and besieged the trembling City for three years on end; and had not the enemy been moved either by Mucius, with his steadfast endurance in letting his hand be burned, or by the maiden Cloelia, with her admirable daring in crossing the river, the Romans would surely have been compelled to suffer either captivity, overcome by the pressing enemy, or slavery, subjected to the restored king.

> Latin: 3 Porsenna rex Etruscorum, grauissimus regii nominis suffragator, Tarquinium manu ingerens, tribus continuis annis trepidam urbem terruit conclusit obsedit; et nisi hostem uel Mucius constanti urendae manus patientia uel uirgo Cloelia admirabili transmeati fluminis audacia permouissent, profecto Romani conpulsi forent perpeti aut captiuitatem hoste insistente superati, aut seruitutem recepto rege subiecti.

[¶3] After this the Sabines, having scraped together forces from every side, marched on Rome with great preparation for war. Dismayed by this fear, the Romans created a dictator, whose authority and power should take precedence over the consul’s; and in that war this measure brought the greatest advantage.

> Latin: 4 post haec Sabini conrasis undique copiis magno apparatu belli Romam contendunt. quo metu consternati Romani dictatorem creant, cuius auctoritas et potentia consulem praeiret; quae res in illo tunc bello plurimum emolumenti tulit.

[¶4] There followed the secession of the plebs from the Fathers, when, while the dictator Marcus Valerius was conducting a levy of soldiers, the people, goaded by various injuries, occupied the Sacred Mount under arms. What could be more dreadful than this ruin, when the body, cut off from the head, was plotting the destruction of that through which it drew breath? And it would have been all over with the Roman name through this internal ruin, had not a speedy reconciliation crept in before the secession itself had come to know what it was.

> Latin: 5 sequitur discessio plebis a patribus, cum, M. Valerio dictatore dilectum militum agente, uariis populus stimulatus iniuriis Sacrum Montem insedit armatus. qua pernicie quid atrocius, cum corpus a capite desectum perditionem eius, per quod inspirabat, meditaretur? actumque de Romano nomine intestina pernicie foret, nisi maturata reconciliatio subrepsisset prius quam se discessio ipsa cognosceret.

[¶5] Beyond those open disasters of wars, a hidden ruin pressed upon itself and loomed over itself in wretched succession: for in the consulship of Titus Geganius and Publius Minucius the two greatest abominations of all evils, famine and pestilence, seized the weary City. There was a pause for a little while from battles; but from deaths there was no pause.

> Latin: 6 urguet se atque inminet sibi extra illas apertas bellorum clades successu misero clandestina pernicies: quippe T. Gesonio et P. Minucio consulibus duo uel maxima omnium malorum abominamenta, fames et pestilentia fessam urbem corripuere. cessatum est paulisper a proelis, cessatum tamen a mortibus non est.

*Note: Titus Geganius Macerinus, consul in 492 BC with Publius Minucius; the Latin text has Gesonius.*

[¶6] The Veientes, Etruscans and grievous enemies, rising to war with the forces of their neighbours joined to them, were met by the consuls Marcus Fabius and Gnaeus Manlius. There, after the solemn oath by which the Romans had bound themselves not to return to camp except after victory, the struggle was so savage, and the plight of vanquished and victors so alike, that, with the greater part of the army lost and the consul Manlius and the former consul Fabius killed in the battle, the consul Marcus Fabius refused the triumph offered him by the senate, because mourning rather was owed for such great losses to the commonwealth.

> Latin: 7 Veientes Etrusci graues hostes adiunctis sibi finitimorum copiis in bella surgentes obuiis M. Fabio et Cn. Manlio consulibus excipiuntur: ubi post sacramentum iurationis, quo se Romani deuouerant non nisi post uictoriam ad castra redituros, adeo atrox certamen fuit et uictis uictoribusque par forma, ut, amisso plurimo exercitu occisisque in pugna Manlio consule et Fabio consulari, M. Fabius consul oblatum sibi a senatu triumphum suscipere recusarit, quia tantis reipublicae detrimentis luctus potius debebatur.

[¶7] How great a bereavement that family of the Fabii, most glorious in numbers and strength, brought upon the commonwealth by its fall when it took the war against Veii as its lot is witnessed to this day by names of ill repute: the river that destroyed them and the gate that sent them out.

> Latin: 8 gloriosissima illa numero et uiribus Fabiorum familia Veientanum sortita certamen quantam reipublicae orbitatem occasu suo intulerit, infamibus usque ad nunc uocabulis testes sunt fluuius qui perdidit et porta quae misit.

*Note: The river Cremera, where the Fabii fell in 477 BC, and the Porta Carmentalis, through which they had marched out, afterwards called the Porta Scelerata (‘Accursed Gate’).*

[¶8] For when 306 Fabii, truly the brightest lights of the Roman state, had requested that a war against the Veientes be decreed to them as their special charge, they strengthened the hope of an expedition rashly undertaken by their first successes; then, drawn into an ambush and surrounded by the enemy, they were all slaughtered on the spot, only one being spared to announce the disaster, so that their country might hear of their loss more wretchedly than it had suffered it.

> Latin: 9 nam cum sex et trecenti Fabii, uere clarissima Romani status lumina, speciale sibi aduersum Veientes decerni bellum expetiuissent, spem temere sumptae expeditionis primis successibus firmauerunt: dehinc inducti in insidias circumuentique ab hostibus, omnes ibidem trucidati sunt, uno tantum ad enuntiandam cladem reseruato, ut miserius audiret patria perditos, quam perdidisset.

[¶9] Besides this, such things were being done not only at Rome, but every province was seething with its own fires; and what the foremost poet described of one city, I may say of the whole world: “Everywhere cruel grief, everywhere fear, and many a form of death.”

> Latin: 10 ad haec non Romae tantum talia gerebantur, sed quaeque prouincia suis ignibus aestuabat et, quod poeta praecipuus in una urbe descripsit, ego de toto orbe dixerim: crudelis ubique Luctus, ubique pauor et plurima mortis imago.