Afterwards, having as it were rounded the turning-post, he entered the river Indus from the Ocean and returned swiftly to Babylon.
1 Post quasi circumacta meta de Oceano Indum flumen ingressus, Babylonam celeriter rediit.
There envoys of the terrified provinces of the whole world were awaiting him: that is, of the Carthaginians and of the cities of all Africa, but also of the Spaniards, the Gauls, Sicily and Sardinia, and besides of the greater part of Italy.
2 ubi eum exterritarum totius orbis prouinciarum legati opperiebantur, hoc est Carthaginiensium totiusque Africae ciuitatum, sed et Hispanorum Gallorum Siciliae Sardiniaeque, plurimae praeterea partis Italiae.
So great a fear of a general stationed in the farthest East had seized the peoples of the farthest West that you could see there an embassy come from abroad out of the whole world, to a place which you would scarcely believe rumour had reached.
3 tantus timor in summo oriente constituti ducis populos ultimi occidentis inuaserat, ut inde peregrinam toto mundo cerneres legationem, quo uix crederes peruenisse rumorem.
But Alexander, at Babylon, while still thirsting for blood, his greed ill restrained, drank poison through the plot of a servant and died.
4 Alexander uero apud Babylonam, cum adhuc sanguinem sitiens male castigata auiditate ministri insidiis uenenum potasset, interiit.
O hard mind of men and heart ever inhuman! I myself, who review these things to establish the alternating calamity of all times — in relating so great an evil, at which the whole world trembled, receiving from it either death itself or the dread of death, have I shed a tear from my eyes? Have I grieved in my heart? In unrolling these things, have I made the miseries of those before us my own, for the sake of the common condition of living?
5 O dura mens hominum et cor semper inhumanum! ego ipse, qui haec pro adserenda omnium temporum alternanti calamitate percenseo, in relatu tanti mali, quo uel morte ipsa uel formidine mortis accepta totus mundus intremuit, numquid inlacrimaui oculis? numquid corde condolui? numquid reuoluens haec propter communem uiuendi statum maiorum miserias meas feci?
And yet, whenever I tell of myself — how I first saw barbarians unknown to me, how I avoided those who were hostile, how I flattered those who held the mastery, how I guarded against the faithless, how I slipped away from those who lay in wait,
6 cum tamen, si quando de me ipso refero, ut ignotos primum barbaros uiderim, ut infestos declinauerim, ut dominantibus blanditus sim, ut infideles praecauerim, ut insidiantes subterfugerim,
and finally how, when men pursued me on the sea and assailed me with stones and javelins, and were almost laying hands on me, I escaped, wrapped in a sudden mist — I would have all who hear me moved to tears, and I grieve in silence over those who do not grieve, setting it down to the hardness of those who do not believe what they have not endured.1
7 postremo ut persequentes in mari ac saxis spiculisque adpetentes, manibus etiam paene iam adprehendentes repentina nebula circumfusus euaserim, cunctos audientes me in lacrimas commoueri uelim et tacitus de non dolentibus doleam, reputans duritiae eorum, qui quod non sustinuere non credunt.
1Orosius’s own escape from Spain by sea, which brought him to Augustine in Africa about 414; he tells us nothing more of it.
The Spaniard and the Morinian came to Babylon to make supplication to Alexander, and, so as not to receive him as an enemy, of their own accord sought out a bloody master through Assyria and India, traversing the boundaries of the lands and unhappily known to both Oceans: and yet the memory of so violent a constraint has either faded through forgetfulness or grown cheap with age.
8 Hispanus et Morinus ad supplicandum Alexandro Babylonam adiit cruentumque ultro dominum, ne hostem exciperet, per Assyriam Indiamque quaesiuit, terrarum metas lustrans et utrique infeliciter notus Oceano: et tamen tam uiolentae necessitatis memoria uel obliuione defecit uel uiluit uetustate.
And do we think it will cling to everlasting remembrance that, while the greater part of the world was secure, a fugitive brigand violated a single corner? As if — I will not say the Indian or the Assyrian, with the roles reversed — but even the Spaniard himself, who suffers the enemy, had begged the Goths and Suebi for peace!
9 et nos perpetuae recordationi haesurum putamus, quod plurima orbis parte secura unum angulum fugax latro uiolauit? quasi uero Gotthorum et Sueborum pacem ut non dicam uersa uice Indus uel Assyrius, sed etiam uel ipse, qui hostem patitur, Hispanus orauerit.
But if those times of Alexander are judged worthy of praise for the valour by which the whole world was won, rather than of detestation for the ruin by which the whole world was overthrown, there will be found now too very many who think these present deeds worthy of praise because their authors have conquered much, and who reckon the miseries of others their own happiness.
10 at uero si illa Alexandri tempora laudanda potius propter uirtutem qua totus orbis obtentus, quam detestanda propter ruinam qua totus orbis euersus est iudicantur: inuenientur et modo plurimi, qui haec laudanda censeant, quia multa uicerunt et miserias aliorum felicitatem suam reputent.
But someone may say: these are enemies of Romania. The answer will be: so too did Alexander seem then to the whole East, and such too did the Romans seem to others, while they attacked with wars peoples unknown to them and at peace. But the former strove to acquire kingdoms, these strive to overthrow them. The devastations of an enemy are one thing, the judgements of a conqueror another.2
11 sed dicat quisquam: isti hostes Romaniae sunt. respondebitur: hoc et tunc toto orienti de Alexandro uidebatur, talesque et Romani aliis uisi sunt, dum bellis ignotos quietosque petiuerunt. sed illi adquirere regna, isti euertere student. separata sunt hostis excidia et iudicia uictoris.
2Romania: the Roman world as a single whole, a word of late antiquity; Orosius uses it again in Athaulf’s saying at 7.43.5.
For those, too, first afflicted with wars the peoples whom they afterwards ordered by their own laws; and these now trouble as enemies what — may God not permit it! — if they held it subdued, they would strive to settle after their own fashion, to be called great kings by posterity, though now they are adjudged by us the most savage of enemies.
12 siquidem et illi prius eos bellis adflixerunt, quos postea suis legibus ordinarunt: et hi nunc hostiliter turbant quae - in quo non permiserit Deus - si edomita obtinerent, ritu suo conponere molirentur, dicendi posteris magni reges, qui nunc nobis saeuissimi hostes adiudicantur.
By whatever name such deeds are reckoned — that is, whether they be called miseries or valour — both, compared with those of earlier times, are lesser in this time, and so both tell in our favour in the comparison with Alexander and the Persians: if it is now to be called valour, the enemy’s is less; if misery, that of the Romans is less.
13 quolibet haec gesta talia nomine censeantur, hoc est siue dicantur miseriae siue uirtutes, utraque prioribus conparata in hoc tempore minora sunt, atque ita utraque pro nobis faciunt in conparatione Alexandri atque Persarum: si uirtus nunc uocanda est, minor est hostium; si miseria, minor est Romanorum.