---
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: 33 of 177
url: https://scriptura.si/works/orosius-historiae/33/
cite: "Paulus Orosius, tr. S. Alexander Laurent (AI-assisted, 2026), Seven Books of History against the Pagans, section 33. Scriptura (scriptura.si), https://scriptura.si/works/orosius-historiae/33/"
---

# 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.

## 33. Book 2 · Chapter 12

Source: https://scriptura.si/works/orosius-historiae/33/ · cite a paragraph as https://scriptura.si/works/orosius-historiae/33/#p-N

[¶0] But at Rome — to return to the point in time from which I digressed: for it is not by any interval in the miseries that I am compelled to pass over to other peoples; rather, just as the evils that once boiled over everywhere bound themselves together in the very events, so too they are related intermingled; for my purpose is to compare the times of the world with one another, not to mock the sufferings of any one part of it —

> Latin: 1 At Romae - ut ad id tempus redeam unde digressus sum: neque enim interuallo miseriarum ad alios transire conpellor, sed, sicuti se quondam efferuescentia ubique mala. ipsis actibus conligarunt, ita etiam permixta referuntur: nobis quippe conferre inter se tempora orbis, non cuiusquam partis eius laboribus insultare propositum est -

[¶1] at Rome, then, in the year 290 from the founding of the City, when war had been suspended for a little, a grievous pestilence — which there has always either cut short the rare truces once made or forced them to be made — blazed up violently through the whole city, so that it was fitting that a prodigy had gone before in which the sky was seen to be on fire, since the head of the nations burned with so great a fire of diseases.

> Latin: 2 Romae ergo post urbem conditam anno CCLXL suspenso ad modicum bello grauis pestilentia, quae semper ibi raras indutias aut factas intercepit aut ut fierent coegit, per uniuersam ciuitatem uiolenter incanduit, ut merito praecedente prodigio caelum ardere uisum sit, quando caput gentium tanto morborum igne flagrauit.

*Note: The transmitted numeral is CCLXL, an irregular form; read as 290.*

[¶2] For in that year the pestilence carried off both consuls, Aebutius and Servilius, destroyed the military forces for the most part, and wiped out many nobles and above all the plebs with a foul wasting;

> Latin: 3 nam eo anno Aebutium et Seruilium ambo consules pestilentia consumpsit, militares copias plurima ex parte confecit, multos nobiles praecipueque plebem foeda tabe deleuit;

[¶3] although already in the fourth year before, a plague had broken out and depopulated the same people.

> Latin: 4 quamuis iam etiam superiore quarto anno oborta lues eundem populum depopulata sit.

[¶4] In the following year exiled citizens and runaway slaves, led by Herdonius, a Sabine, seized and burned the Capitol.

> Latin: 5 Proximo dehinc anno ciues exules seruique fugitiui duce Herbonio, uiro Sabino, inuaserunt incenderuntque Capitolium.

*Note: Appius Herdonius, the Sabine who seized the Capitol in 460 BC (Livy 3.15–18); the Latin text has Herbonius.*

[¶5] There the younger men, under the consul and commander Valerius, resisted most bravely; but the hazard of the battle was so savage and grievous that the consul Valerius himself was killed there, and, on top of an unworthy victory over slaves, disgraced it further by his own death.

> Latin: 6 ubi fortissime quidem Valerio consule et imperatore obstitere iuniores; sed adeo atrox et graue discrimen proelii fuit, ut ipse quoque consul Valerius ibi fuerit occisus et indignam de seruis uictoriam insuper etiam sua morte foedarit.

[¶6] There followed a year in which a consul was besieged together with his defeated army. For the Aequi and Volsci overcame the consul Minucius when he engaged them in battle, and as he fled they surrounded him on Mount Algidus with famine and the sword; and it would have ended in disaster had not Quinctius Cincinnatus, that outstanding dictator, crushed the enemy and broken the tight siege.

> Latin: 7 Sequitur annus, in quo cum uicto exercitu consul obsessus est. nam Minucium consulem congressum proelio Aequi Vulscique superarunt et fugientem in Algido fame ferroque cinxerunt, actumque infeliciter foret, ni Quintius Cincinnatus, praecipuus ille dictator, artatam obsidionem oppresso hoste soluisset.

[¶7] He was found in the country and summoned from the plough to the fasces; taking up the office and drawing up an army, he soon emerged victor, set a yoke of oxen upon the Aequi, and, holding victory as though it were the plough-handle, was the first to drive the subjugated enemy before him.

> Latin: 8 qui repertus in rure, ab aratro arcessitus ad fasces, sumpto honore instructoque exercitu mox uictor effectus iugum boum Aequis inposuit uictoriamque quasi stiuam tenens subiugatos hostes prae se primus egit.