---
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: 27 of 177
url: https://scriptura.si/works/orosius-historiae/27/
cite: "Paulus Orosius, tr. S. Alexander Laurent (AI-assisted, 2026), Seven Books of History against the Pagans, section 27. Scriptura (scriptura.si), https://scriptura.si/works/orosius-historiae/27/"
---

# 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.

## 27. Book 2 · Chapter 6

Source: https://scriptura.si/works/orosius-historiae/27/ · cite a paragraph as https://scriptura.si/works/orosius-historiae/27/#p-N

[¶0] At that same time, then, Cyrus, king of the Persians — whom I mentioned above for the sake of setting out the history, and who was then ranging under arms through Asia, Scythia and the whole East, while Tarquinius Superbus, as king or as enemy, was pressing the City either with servitude or with war —

> Latin: 1 Igitur eodem tempore Cyrus, rex Persarum - quem superius explicandae historiae causa commemoraveram, qui tunc Asiam Scythiam totumque orientem armis peruagabatur, cum Tarquinius Superbus urbem uel rex uel hostis aut seruitio premebat aut bello -

[¶1] Cyrus, as I have said, having subdued all those against whom he had gone, made for the Assyrians and Babylon, a nation and a city then wealthier than all others; but his advance was cut short by the river Gyndes, second in size only to the Euphrates.

> Latin: 2 Cyrus, ut dixi, cunctis aduersum quos ierat perdomitis, Assyrios et Babylonam petit, gentem urbemque tunc cunctis opulentiorem; sed impetum eius Gyndes fluuius, secundae post Euphraten magnitudinis, intercepit.

[¶2] For one of the royal horses, outstanding in whiteness and beauty, emboldened to attempt the crossing, was seized, swept away and drowned by the eddies which rose where the current was checked by the shallows of its rushing bed.

> Latin: 3 nam unum regiorum equorum candore formaque excellentem, transmeandi fiducia persuasum, qua per rapacem alueum offensi uado uertices attollebantur, abreptum praecipitatumque merserunt.

[¶3] The king in his anger resolved to take vengeance on the river, swearing that this river, which had now swallowed a splendid horse, should be left fordable by women scarcely wetting their knees. Nor was he slow to carry it out: with all his forces, through a whole year, he cut up the river Gyndes, drew it off through great trenches, and broke it into 460 channels.

> Latin: 4 rex iratus ulcisci in amnem statuit, contestans eum, qui nunc praeclarum equum uorauisset, feminis uix genua tinguentibus permeabilem reliquendum. nec peragendo segnior totis copiis perpeti anno Gynden fluuium per magnas concisum deductumque fossas in quadringentos sexaginta alueos comminuit.

*Note: Herodotus (1.189–190), the source of the story, gives 360 channels.*

[¶4] With his diggers well trained by this work, he also diverted the Euphrates, by far the strongest of rivers, which flows through the middle of Babylon.

> Latin: 5 eo opere praedoctis fossoribus, etiam Euphraten longe ualidissimum et mediam Babyloniam interfluentem deriuauit.

[¶5] And so, with the shallows now passable and parts of the riverbed lying open, he made a dry path, and took the city which mortals had thought almost incredible on both counts: that it could have been built by human labour, or could be destroyed by human valour.

> Latin: 6 ac sic meabilibus uadis siccum etiam patentibus aluei partibus iter fecit, cepitque urbem, quam uel humano opere exstrui potuisse uel humana uirtute destrui posse utrumque paene incredibile apud mortales erat.

[¶6] For many have recorded that Babylon was founded by the giant Nimrod and restored by Ninus or Semiramis.

> Latin: 7 namque Babylonam a Nebrot gigante fundatam, a Nino uel Samiramide reparatam multi prodidere.

*Note: Nimrod; Orosius’s form Nebrot follows the Greek Bible (Nebrōd), which calls him a giant. Genesis 10:8–10 makes Babel the beginning of his kingdom.*

[¶7] It lay on a level plain, visible from every side, in a most fertile natural setting, laid out in a square like a camp, with equal walls. The strength and size of its walls are scarcely credible in the telling: they were fifty cubits wide and four times as high.

> Latin: 8 haec campi planitie undique conspicua, natura loci laetissima, castrorum facie moenibus paribus per quadrum disposita. murorum eius uix credibilis relatu firmitas et magnitudo, id est latitudine cubitorum quinquaginta, altitudine quater tanta.

[¶8] Its circuit, moreover, ran to 480 stades. The wall was built of baked brick with bitumen poured between, and a moat, broad and wide, flowed round it on the outside in place of a river.

> Latin: 9 ceterum ambitus eius quadringentis octoginta stadiis circumuenitur. murus coctili latere atque interfuso bitumine conpactus, fossa extrinsecus late patens uice amnis circumfluit.

[¶9] In the face of the walls were a hundred gates of bronze. The breadth of the wall itself, along the battlements at the top, with dwellings for the defenders set out evenly on either side, could take swift four-horse chariots in the space between. Inside, the houses were marvellous, four storeys high, with a menacing loftiness.

> Latin: 10 a fronte murorum centum portae aereae. ipsa autem latitudo in consummatione pinnarum utroque latere habitaculis defensorum aeque dispositis, media intercapedine sui citas quadrigas capit. domus intrinsecus quatergeminae habitationis minaci proceritate mirabiles.

[¶10] And yet that great Babylon, the first city founded after the restoration of the human race, was now conquered, taken and overthrown with almost the slightest delay.

> Latin: 11 et tamen magna illa Babylon, illa prima post reparationem humani generis condita, nunc paene etiam minima mora uicta capta subuersa est.

[¶11] Then Croesus, king of the Lydians, famous for his wealth, who had come to the aid of the Babylonians, was defeated and fled anxiously back to his kingdom. Cyrus, after he had invaded Babylon as an enemy, overthrown it as a victor and set it in order as a king, carried the war into Lydia; there, without any trouble, he overcame an army already terrified by the earlier battle. He even captured Croesus himself, and having captured him granted him both his life and his patrimony.

> Latin: 12 ibi tunc Croesus rex Lydorum famosus opibus cum ad auxiliandum Babyloniis uenisset, uictus sollicite in regnum refugit. Cyrus autem posteaquam Babylonam ut hostis inuasit ut uictor euertit ut rex disposuit, bellum transtulit in Lydiam; ubi conterritum superiore iam proelio exercitum nullo negotio superauit. ipsum etiam Croesum cepit captumque et uita et patrimonio donauit.

*Note: Orosius reverses the order of events: Cyrus defeated Croesus and took Sardis about 546 BC, some years before he captured Babylon in 539.*

[¶12] There is no need at this point to dwell on the unstable conditions of mutable things: for the capture of Babylon confirms that whatever is made by work and by hand slips away and is consumed by age. As its empire was the first to arise and the most powerful, so too it was the first to give way, so that, as if by a kind of right of the succeeding age, the inheritance owed to posterity might be handed down — posterity, in its turn, being bound to keep the same formula for handing it on.

> Latin: 13 Exaggerare hoc loco mutabilium rerum instabiles status non opus est: quidquid enim est opere et manu factum, labi et consumi uetustate, Babylon capta confirmat: cuius ut primum imperium ac potentissimum exstitit ita et primum cessit, ut ueluti quodam iure succedentis aetatis debita posteris traderetur hereditas, ipsis quoque eandem tradendi formulam seruaturis.

[¶13] Thus great Babylon and vast Lydia succumbed to the first assaults of the approaching Cyrus; the mightiest arms of the East, together with their head, fell in the campaign of a single battle. And our people complain with unconsidered anxiety if the vast structure of the once most powerful Roman commonwealth now trembles, shaken more by the weakness of its own old age than by the strength of others.

> Latin: 14 ita ad proxima aduentantis Cyri temptamenta succubuit magna Babylon et ingens Lydia, amplissima orientis cum capite suo bracchia unius proelii expeditione ceciderunt: et nostri incircumspecta anxietate causantur, si potentissimae illae quondam Romanae reipublicae moles nunc magis inbecillitate propriae senectutis quam alienis concussae uiribus contremescunt.