---
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: 80 of 177
url: https://scriptura.si/works/orosius-historiae/80/
cite: "Paulus Orosius, tr. S. Alexander Laurent (AI-assisted, 2026), Seven Books of History against the Pagans, section 80. Scriptura (scriptura.si), https://scriptura.si/works/orosius-historiae/80/"
---

# 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.

## 80. Book 4 · Chapter 15

Source: https://scriptura.si/works/orosius-historiae/80/ · cite a paragraph as https://scriptura.si/works/orosius-historiae/80/#p-N

[¶0] At that time too the Romans were terrified by dreadful portents. For the disc of the sun was seen to diminish; at Arpi shields were seen in the sky, and the sun was seen to fight with the moon; at Capena two moons rose by day; in Sardinia two shields sweated blood; among the Faliscans the sky was seen to split open as though with a great chasm; and at Antium bloody ears of grain fell into the baskets of the reapers.

> Latin: 1 Diris tunc etiam Romani prodigiis territi sunt. nam et solis orbis minui uisus est et apud Arpos parmae in caelo uisae, sol quoque pugnasse cum luna, apud Capenas interdiu duas lunas ortas, in Sardinia sanguine duo scuta sudasse, Faliscis caelum scindi uelut magno hiatu uisum, apud Antium metentibus cruentas spicas in corbem decidisse.

[¶1] Hannibal therefore, knowing that the consul Flaminius was alone in the camp, so that he might overwhelm him the more quickly while unprepared, set out at the beginning of spring and took the nearer but marshy road; and the Sarnus, as it happened, overflowing far and wide, had left the plains sodden and loosened — those of which it is said: “and the plains which the Sarnus waters.”

> Latin: 2 igitur Hannibal sciens Flaminium consulem solum in castris esse, quo celerius imparatum obrueret primo uere progressus arripuit propiorem sed palustrem uiam et cum forte Sarnus late redundans pendulos et dissolutos campos reliquerat, de quibus dictum est: et quae rigat aequora Sarnus.

*Note: Hannibal’s march was through the floods of the Arno (Arnus) in Etruria. Orosius confuses it with the Sarnus in Campania, the river of the line he quotes from Virgil’s Aeneid (book 7).*

[¶2] Advancing into these with his army, Hannibal, as the mists especially, rising from the marsh, took away his view, lost a great part of his allies and beasts of burden. He himself, riding upon one elephant, the only one that had survived, barely escaped the difficulties of the route; but through the violence of the cold, the sleeplessness and the toil he lost an eye, with which he had long been ailing.

> Latin: 3 in quos cum exercitu progressus Hannibal nebulis maxime, quae de palude exhalabantur, prospectum auferentibus magnam partem sociorum iumentorumque perdidit. ipse autem uni elephanto, qui solus superfuerat, supersedens, uix difficultatem itineris euasit; sed oculum, quo iamdudum aeger erat, uiolentia frigoris uigiliarum ac laboris amisit.

[¶3] But when he was close to the camp of the consul Flaminius, he provoked Flaminius into battle by laying waste the surrounding country.

> Latin: 4 ubi uero proximus castris Flaminii consulis fuit, uastatione circumiacentium locorum Flaminium in bellum excitauit.

[¶4] This battle was fought at Lake Trasimene. There the Roman army, most unhappily encircled by the craft of Hannibal, was utterly slaughtered; the consul himself too was killed; twenty-five thousand Romans are reported to have been slain in that battle and six thousand captured. Of the army of Hannibal, two thousand fell.

> Latin: 5 haec pugna ad Trasumennum lacum facta est. ubi exercitus Romanus infelicissime arte circumuentus Hannibalis funditus trucidatus est; ipse quoque consul occisus; XXV milia Romanorum in eo proelio caesa, sex milia capta referuntur. de exercitu Hannibalis duo milia ceciderunt.

[¶5] This battle at Lake Trasimene became famous for so great a Roman disaster, especially since the ardour of the combatants was so intent that they did not feel at all the most violent earthquake, which happened to occur at that time and was so violent that it is said to have destroyed cities, moved mountains, split rocks and forced rivers to flow backwards.

> Latin: 6 famosum hoc apud Trasumennum lacum certamen fuit tanta clade Romana, maxime cum ita intentus pugnantum ardor extiterit, ut grauissimum terrae motum, qui tunc forte tam uehemens factus est, ut urbes diruisse, montes transtulisse, discidisse rupes et flumina retrorsum coegisse referatur, pugnantes omnino non senserint.

[¶6] The ruin suffered at Trasimene was followed by the battle of Cannae, although the time of the dictator Fabius Maximus came in between, who slowed the onset of Hannibal by delaying.

> Latin: 7 factam ad Trasumennum ruinam sequitur pugna Cannensis, quamuis Fabii Maximi dictatoris tempus medium fuerit, qui impetum Hannibalis cunctando tardauit.