---
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: 87 of 177
url: https://scriptura.si/works/orosius-historiae/87/
cite: "Paulus Orosius, tr. S. Alexander Laurent (AI-assisted, 2026), Seven Books of History against the Pagans, section 87. Scriptura (scriptura.si), https://scriptura.si/works/orosius-historiae/87/"
---

# 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.

## 87. Book 4 · Chapter 22

Source: https://scriptura.si/works/orosius-historiae/87/ · cite a paragraph as https://scriptura.si/works/orosius-historiae/87/#p-N

[¶0] In the year 602 from the founding of the City, in the consulship of Lucius Censorinus and Manius Manilius, the Third Punic War broke out. When, therefore, the senate had decreed that Carthage must be destroyed, the consuls set out for Africa, and they, with Scipio, then a military tribune, occupied the camp of the elder Africanus near Utica.

> Latin: 1 Anno ab urbe condita DCII L. Censorino et M. Manilio consulibus tertium Punicum bellum exortum est. igitur cum senatus delendam Carthaginem censuisset, profecti in Africam consules et Scipio tunc tribunus militum prope Uticam maioris Africani castra tenuerunt.

*Note: The Latin has M., but the consul’s praenomen was Manius (usually abbreviated M’).*

[¶1] There the Carthaginians were summoned and ordered to hand over their arms and ships; and without delay so great a quantity of arms was suddenly handed over that the whole of Africa could easily have been armed from them.

> Latin: 2 ibi Carthaginiensibus euocatis iussisque ut arma et naues traderent nec moratis, tanta uis armorum repente tradita est, ut facile tota ex his Africa potuisset armari.

[¶2] But after the Carthaginians had handed over their arms and were ordered to abandon their city and withdraw ten miles from the sea, they turned their grief to desperation, resolved either to defend the city or to be buried together with it and beneath it; and they appointed two Hasdrubals as their generals.

> Latin: 3 sed Carthaginienses postquam arma tradiderunt et relicta urbe recedere procul a mari decem milibus passuum iussi sunt, dolorem ad desperationem contulerunt aut defensuri ciuitatem aut cum ipsa per ipsam sepeliendi, ducesque sibi duos Hasdrubales creauerunt.

[¶3] Setting first about making arms, they made up for the lack of bronze and iron with gold and silver. The consuls resolved to assault Carthage, whose site is said to have been of this kind:

> Latin: 4 arma primum facere adgressi aeris ferrique inopiam auri argentique metallis suppleuerunt. consules oppugnare Carthaginem statuunt, cuius situs fuisse huiusmodi dicitur:

[¶4] embraced by a wall twenty-two miles in length, it was girded almost entirely by the sea, except for the neck of land, which opened for three miles. This place had a wall thirty feet thick, of squared stone, forty cubits in height.

> Latin: 5 uiginti duo milia passuum muro amplexa, tota paene mari cingebatur absque faucibus, quae tribus milibus passuum aperiebantur. is locus murum triginta pedes latum habuit saxo quadrato in altitudinem cubitorum quadraginta.

[¶5] The citadel, which bore the name of Byrsa, took up a little more than two miles. On one side the wall was common to the city and the Byrsa, overhanging the sea, which they call the Pool, since it is made calm by the barrier of a projecting tongue of land.

> Latin: 6 arx, cui Byrsae nomen erat, paulo amplius quam duo milia passuum tenebat. ex una parte murus communis erat urbis et Byrsae imminens mari, quod mare Stagnum uocant, quoniam obiectu protentae linguae tranquillatur.

[¶6] The consuls, then, although they had battered and torn down a considerable part of the wall with their engines, were nevertheless defeated and repulsed by the Carthaginians; and as they fled, Scipio drove the enemy back within the walls and protected them. Censorinus returned to the City. Manilius, leaving Carthage aside, turned his arms against Hasdrubal.

> Latin: 7 consules igitur quamuis aliquantam muri partem quassatam machinis diruissent, tamen a Carthaginiensibus uicti ac repulsi sunt: quos fugientes Scipio repulso intra muros hoste defendit. Censorinus in urbem rediit. Manilius omissa Carthagine ad Hasdrubalem arma conuertit.

[¶7] Scipio, on the death of Masinissa, divided the kingdom of Numidia among the three sons of Masinissa. When he had returned to the neighbourhood of Carthage, Manilius stormed and plundered the city of Tezaga; twelve thousand Africans were slain there and six thousand captured. Hasdrubal, the general of the Carthaginians and grandson of Masinissa, was killed by his own people in the senate-house with the fragments of benches, on suspicion of treachery.

> Latin: 8 Scipio Masinissa mortuo inter Masinissae filios tres Numidiae regnum diuisit. quo circa Carthaginem reuerso Manilius Tezagam urbem expugnauit atque diripuit; duodecim milia ibi Afrorum caesa, sex milia capta sunt. Hasdrubal Poenorum imperator, Masinissae nepos, subselliorum fragmentis in curia a suis propter suspicionem proditionis occisus est.

[¶8] The praetor Juventius, engaging the Pseudo-Philip in Macedonia, was killed with very great slaughter of the whole Roman army.

> Latin: 9 Iuuentius praetor in Macedonia aduersus Pseudophilippum congressus cum maxima clade totius Romani exercitus interfectus est.

*Note: The Pseudo-Philip was Andriscus, who claimed to be a son of Perseus; he defeated and killed the praetor Publius Juventius Thalna in 149/148 BC.*