---
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: 34 of 177
url: https://scriptura.si/works/orosius-historiae/34/
cite: "Paulus Orosius, tr. S. Alexander Laurent (AI-assisted, 2026), Seven Books of History against the Pagans, section 34. Scriptura (scriptura.si), https://scriptura.si/works/orosius-historiae/34/"
---

# 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.

## 34. Book 2 · Chapter 13

Source: https://scriptura.si/works/orosius-historiae/34/ · cite a paragraph as https://scriptura.si/works/orosius-historiae/34/#p-N

[¶0] In the year just before the year 300 from the founding of the City, while envoys sent to the Athenians to bring back the laws of Solon were awaited, famine and pestilence held Roman arms in check.

> Latin: 1 Anno qui proximus trecentesimo ab urbe condita fuit, dum legati ad Athenienses propter Solonis leges transferendas missi exspectantur, arma Romana fames pestilentiaque compescuit.

[¶1] In the year 300 itself, that is, in the ninety-fifth Olympiad, the power of the consuls was handed over to decemvirs for the purpose of establishing the Attic laws, and this brought great ruin upon the commonwealth.

> Latin: 2 Ipso autem trecentesimo anno, hoc est olympiade nonagensima quinta, potestas consulum decemuiris tradita constituendarum legum Atticarum gratia magnam perniciem reipublicae inuexit.

*Note: The decemvirate of 451 BC fell in the eighty-second Olympiad. The ninety-fifth Olympiad (400–397 BC) is far too late.*

[¶2] For first of the decemvirs, Appius Claudius alone, the others standing down, prolonged his command for himself; and at once a conspiracy of the rest followed, so that, scorning the custom by which the insignia of command lay with one man while the power was shared, all of them drove everything along according to their own lusts.

> Latin: 3 nam primus ex decemuiris cedentibus ceteris solus Appius Claudius sibi continuauit imperium, statimque aliorum coniuratio subsecuta est, ut more contempto, quo insigne imperii penes unum potestas autem communis erat, omnes omnia propriis libidinibus agitarent.

[¶3] So, among the other things that they all most insolently presumed to do, suddenly each of them went out in public with twelve fasces and the other insignia of command;

> Latin: 4 itaque inter cetera, quae insolentissime cuncti praesumebant, repente singuli cum duodenis fascibus ceterisque imperatoriis insignibus processerunt:

[¶4] and by this new beginning of a wicked order, with the scruple of the consulship cast aside, a column of tyrants shone forth. Having added two tables of laws to the ten earlier ones, and doing a great many things with the most insolent arrogance, on the day on which it was customary to lay down their magistracies they went out with the same insignia.

> Latin: 5 et nouo improbae ordinationis incepto, ablegata religione consulum emicuit agmen tyrannorum, duabus tabulis legum ad decem priores additis, agentes insolentissimo fastu plurima, die, quo deponere magistratus mos erat, cum isdem insignibus processerunt.

[¶5] The lust of Appius Claudius greatly increased the hatred against them: in order to violate the maiden Verginia, he first brought a suit claiming her as a slave; driven by this, her father Verginius, out of grief for her liberty and shame at the disgrace, struck down his daughter, who was being dragged off into slavery, in the sight of the people — a dutiful parricide.

> Latin: 6 maximam etiam Appii Claudii libido auxit inuidiam, qui ut Verginiae uirgini stuprum inferret, prius seruitutis causam intulit; quamobrem adactus Verginius pater dolore libertatis et pudore dedecoris protractam ad seruitutem filiam in conspectu populi pius parricida prostrauit.

[¶6] The people, moved by the horror of this necessity and warned of the danger to their liberty, occupied the Aventine Hill under arms; nor did they cease to defend their liberty with arms until the conspiracy of the confederates had abdicated from their very offices.

> Latin: 7 qua populus necessitatis atrocitate permotus et periculo libertatis admonitus montem Auentinum occupauit armatus. nec tueri libertatem armis destitit, nisi postquam se coniuratorum conspiratio ipsis quoque honoribus abdicauit.

[¶7] In the one hundred and third and in the one hundred and fifth Olympiad, throughout almost the whole year, there were such frequent and such severe earthquakes in Italy that Rome was wearied by constant reports of countless shocks and of the collapse of country houses and towns;

> Latin: 8 Tertia et quinta post centesimam olympiade per totum fere annum tam crebri tamque etiam graues in Italia terrae motus fuerunt, ut de innumeris quassationibus ac ruinis uillarum oppidorumque adsiduis Roma nuntiis fatigaretur,

*Note: These Olympiad dates do not fit the events: Mamercus Aemilius, dictator for the third time, took Fidenae in 426 BC, in the eighty-eighth Olympiad.*

[¶8] then there was so unbroken and parching a drought that it denied any hope of the earth bringing forth its fruits, both for the present year and for the next;

> Latin: 9 deinde ita iugis et torrida siccitas fuit, ut praesentis tunc futurique anni spem gignendis terrae fructibus abnegarit,

[¶9] and in the same times, when the people of Fidenae, enemies made terrible by a host of very large auxiliaries crowding round them, were threatening the Roman citadel, Aemilius, dictator for the third time, with difficulty took Fidenae itself and so drove off and healed a great mass of evil.

> Latin: 10 isdemque temporibus cum Fidenates hostes maximorum auxiliorum manu stipante terribiles Romanis arcibus imminerent, Aemilius tertium dictator magnam mali molem ipsis Fidenis uix captis depulit et sanauit.

[¶10] So great among them was the contention of evils and of passions that either wars pouring in from outside blotted out the disasters at home, or, after the losses of the wars, when truces had brought relief, various pestilences, blazing up from sky and earth, corrupted everything with unceasing assault.

> Latin: 11 tanta in ipsis erat malorum animorumque contentio, ut uel domesticas clades superfusa forinsecus bella oblitterarent uel post damna bellorum indutias relaxatas diuersae pestes caelo terraque excandescentes incessabili infestatione corruperunt.