---
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: 92 of 177
url: https://scriptura.si/works/orosius-historiae/92/
cite: "Paulus Orosius, tr. S. Alexander Laurent (AI-assisted, 2026), Seven Books of History against the Pagans, section 92. Scriptura (scriptura.si), https://scriptura.si/works/orosius-historiae/92/"
---

# 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.

## 92. Book 5 · Chapter 4

Source: https://scriptura.si/works/orosius-historiae/92/ · cite a paragraph as https://scriptura.si/works/orosius-historiae/92/#p-N

[¶0] In the same consulship Viriathus, in Spain, a Lusitanian by race, a shepherd and a brigand — first by infesting the roads, then by laying waste the provinces, and finally by defeating, routing, and subduing the armies of Roman praetors and consuls — was the greatest terror to all the Romans.

> Latin: 1 Isdem consulibus Viriatus in Hispania genere Lusitanus, homo pastoralis et latro, primum infestando uias deinde uastando prouincias postremo exercitus praetorum et consulum Romanorum uincendo fugando subigendo maximo terrori Romanis omnibus fuit.

[¶1] For as he crossed and roamed far and wide over the Ebro and the Tagus, very great rivers of widely distant regions, the praetor Gaius Vetilius met him; and with his whole army almost immediately cut down to the point of annihilation, the praetor himself scarcely escaped, slipping away in flight with a few men.

> Latin: 2 siquidem Hiberum et Tagum, maxima et diuersissimorum locorum flumina, late transgredienti et peruaganti C. Vecilius praetor occurrit: qui continuo caeso usque ad internecionem paene omni exercitu suo uix ipse praetor cum paucis fuga lapsus euasit.

[¶2] Next, the same Viriathus broke the praetor Gaius Plautius in many battles and put him to flight. Afterwards Claudius Unimanus too, sent against Viriathus with great preparation for war, as if to wipe out the earlier stain, himself added a more shameful infamy.

> Latin: 3 deinde C. Plautium praetorem idem Viriatus multis proeliis fractum fugauit. post etiam Claudius Unimammus cum magno instructu belli contra Viriatum missus quasi pro abolenda superiore macula turpiorem ipse auxit infamiam.

*Note: The praetor was Claudius Unimanus; Orosius’s “Unimammus” is a corruption of the name.*

[¶3] For when he engaged with Viriathus, the Roman army lost all the forces he had brought with him and its greatest strength. Viriathus set up the robes of state, the fasces, and the other Roman insignia as trophies in his mountains.

> Latin: 4 nam congressus cum Viriato uniuersas quas secum deduxerat copias maximasque uires Romani amisit exercitus. Viriatus trabeas fasces ceteraque insignia Romana in montibus suis tropaea praefixit.

[¶4] At the same time 300 Lusitanians joined battle with 1,000 Romans in a certain pass, in which, as Claudius reports, 70 Lusitanians fell, but 320 Romans;

> Latin: 5 Eodem tempore CCC Lusitani cum mille Romanis in quodam saltu contraxere pugnam, in qua LXX Lusitanos, Romanos autem CCCXX cecidisse Claudius refert;

[¶5] and when the victorious Lusitanians were departing, scattered and unconcerned, one of them, separated far from the rest, was caught on foot by horsemen who surrounded him; he pierced the horse of one of them with his lance, and with a single stroke of his sword cut off that rider’s head, and so struck all of them with fear that, while they all looked on, he walked away contemptuously and at his ease.

> Latin: 6 et cum uictores Lusitani sparsi ac securi abirent, unus ex his longe a ceteris segregatus cum, circumfusis equitibus pedes ipse deprehensus unius eorum equo lancea perfosso ipsius equitis ad unum gladii ictum caput desecuisset, ita omnes metu perculit, ut prospectantibus cunctis ipse contemptim atque otiosus abscederet.

[¶6] In the consulship of Appius Claudius and Quintus Caecilius Metellus, Appius Claudius engaged the Salassi, a Gallic people, and was defeated, losing five thousand soldiers. When the battle was renewed, he killed five thousand of the enemy. But since, under the law which had laid down that anyone who had slain five thousand of the enemy should have the right to a triumph, he too had sought a triumph but, on account of his earlier losses, had not obtained it, he resorted to infamous impudence and ambition and celebrated a triumph at his own private expense.

> Latin: 7 Appio Claudio Q. Caecilio Metello consulibus Appius Claudius aduersus Salassos Gallos congressus et uictus quinque milia militum perdidit. reparata pugna, quinque milia hostium occidit. sed cum iuxta legem, qua constitutum erat, ut quisque quinque milia hostium peremisset triumphandi haberet potestatem, iste quoque triumphum expetisset, propter superiora uero damna non impetrauisset, infami impudentia atque ambitione usus priuatis sumptibus triumphauit.

[¶7] In the consulship of Lucius Caecilius Metellus and Quintus Fabius Maximus Servilianus, among other prodigies an androgyne was seen at Rome and, by order of the haruspices, was drowned in the sea. But the performance of this impious expiation availed nothing; for so great a pestilence suddenly broke out that those who served in conducting funerals were at first too few and then there were none at all; and now even great houses were left empty of the living and full of the dead: vast inheritances within, and no heirs whatever.

> Latin: 8 L. Caecilio Metello Q. Fabio Maximo Seruiliano consulibus inter cetera prodigia androgynus Romae uisus iussu haruspicum in mare mersus est. sed nihil impiae expiationis procuratio profecit; nam tanta subito pestilentia exorta est, ut ministri quoque faciendorum funerum primum non sufficerent deinde non essent; iamque etiam magnae domus uacuae uiuis plenae mortuis remanserunt: largissimae introrsum hereditates et nulli penitus heredes.

[¶8] At length the means was denied not only of living in the City but even of approaching the City, so foul was the stench breathed out through the whole City from corpses rotting under their roofs and in their own beds.

> Latin: 9 denique iam non solum in urbe uiuendi sed etiam adpropinquandi ad urbem negabatur facultas, tam saeui per totam urbem tabescentium sub tectis atque in stratis suis cadauerum putores exhalabantur.

[¶9] That cruel expiation, which paved the way for the deaths of men by the death of a man, at last made known to the Romans, now blushing amid their miseries, how wretched and vain it was. For it had been performed beforehand in aid of forestalling disaster, and the pestilence followed all the same; which nevertheless, without any satisfactions of sacrifices, was allayed only when the chastisement had been fulfilled according to the measure of a hidden judgement.

> Latin: 10 Expiatio illa crudelis et uiam mortibus hominum morte hominis struens tandem Romanis inter miserias suas erubescentibus, quam misera et uana esset, innotuit. ante enim in suffragium praeueniendae cladis est habita, et sic pestilentia consecuta est; quae tamen sine ullis sacrificiorum satisfactionibus tantummodo secundum mensuram arcani iudicii expleta correptione sedata est.

[¶10] If those artisans of deception, the haruspices, had happened to celebrate that rite just as the diseases were declining, as is their wont, they would without doubt have claimed for themselves, their gods, and their rites the glory of restored health. Thus the wretched city, perversely religious to the point of sacrilege, was mocked by lies from which it could not be freed.

> Latin: 11 quam si artifices illi circumuentionum haruspices sub ipsa ut adsolent declinatione morborum forte celebrassent, procul dubio sibi dis et ritibus suis reductae sanitatis gloriam uindicassent. ita misera et ad sacrilegia male religiosa ciuitas mendaciis, quibus liberari non poterat, ludebatur.

[¶11] Then the consul Fabius, fighting against the Lusitanians and Viriathus, drove off the enemy and freed the town of Buccia, which Viriathus was besieging, and received it in surrender together with very many other strongholds. He also committed a deed that would be execrable even to the remotest barbarians of Scythia, not to say to Roman good faith and moderation: for he cut off the hands of five hundred of their leaders, whom he had invited into alliance and received under the law of surrender.

> Latin: 12 Igitur Fabius consul contra Lusitanos et Viriatum dimicans Bucciam oppidum, quod Viriatus obsidebat, depulsis hostibus liberauit et in deditionem cum plurimis aliis castellis recepit. fecit facinus etiam ultimis barbaris Scythiae, non dicam Romanae fidei et moderationi, exsecrabile. quingentis enim principibus eorum, quos societate inuitatos deditionis iure susceperat, manus praecidit.

[¶12] Pompeius, consul of the following year, entered the territory of the Numantines and withdrew after suffering a very great disaster, not only with almost his whole army routed but also with very many of the nobles who were serving in that campaign slain.

> Latin: 13 Pompeius sequentis anni consul fines Numantinorum ingressus accepta maxima clade discessit, non solum exercitu paene omni profligato uerum etiam plurimis nobilium, qui ei militiae aderant, interemptis.

*Note: Quintus Pompeius, consul in 141 BC; not Pompey the Great.*

[¶13] Viriathus, however, after he had crushed Roman generals and armies for fourteen years, was killed through the treachery of his own men, the Romans behaving bravely towards him in this one thing alone: that they judged his assassins unworthy of a reward.

> Latin: 14 Viriatus autem cum per quattuordecim annos Romanos duces atque exercitus protriuisset, insidiis suorum interfectus est, in hoc solo Romanis circa eum fortiter agentibus, quod percussores eius indignos praemio iudicarunt.

[¶14] I could, indeed, not only now but often, have interwoven those inextricable wars of the East, which seldom ever either begin or end except in crimes; but the wars of the Romans, with whom our business lies, are so great that those of others are rightly disdained.

> Latin: 15 At ego non modo nunc, uerum etiam saepe intertexere orientis illa inextricabilia bella poteram, quae raro umquam nisi sceleribus aut incipiunt aut terminantur; sed Romanorum, cum quibus nobis actio est, tanta sunt, ut iure fastidiantur aliena.

[¶15] For at that time Mithridates, king of the Parthians, sixth from Arsaces, having defeated the prefect of Demetrius, invaded as victor the city of Babylon and all its territory. He subdued, moreover, all the nations that lie between the river Hydaspes and the Indus. He extended his bloody rule even to India.

> Latin: 16 Mithridates tunc siquidem, rex Parthorum sextus ab Arsace, uicto Demetrii praefecto Babylonam urbem finesque eius uniuersos uictor inuasit. omnes praeterea gentes, quae inter Hydaspen fluuium et Indum iacent, subegit. ad Indiam quoque cruentum extendit imperium.

*Note: This is Mithridates I of Parthia, not the king of Pontus who dominates the later chapters of this book.*

[¶16] Demetrius himself, who met him in a second war, he defeated and captured; and upon his capture a certain Diodotus, together with his son Alexander, usurped his kingdom and the royal name.

> Latin: 17 Demetrium ipsum secundo sibi bello occurrentem uicit et cepit: quo capto Diodotus quidam cum Alexandro filio regnum eius et regium nomen usurpauit.

*Note: This is Diodotus Tryphon. The boy was Antiochus VI, son of Alexander Balas, whom Tryphon set up as king and later murdered; Orosius turns him into Diodotus’s own son Alexander.*

[¶17] He afterwards killed this same Alexander, his son, whom he had had as partner in danger in seizing the kingdom, so as not to have him as a sharer in holding it.

> Latin: 18 qui postea ipsum Alexandrum filium, quem participem periculi in peruadendo regno habuerat, ne in obtinendo consortem haberet, occidit.

[¶18] In the consulship of Marcus Aemilius Lepidus and Gaius Hostilius Mancinus various prodigies appeared and, so far as lay in men’s power, were attended to according to custom. But favourable chances do not always support the haruspices, those fowlers of outcomes and builders of deceits.

> Latin: 19 M. Aemilio Lepido C. Hostilio Mancino consulibus prodigia apparuere diuersa et, quantum in ipsis fuit, ex more curata sunt. sed non semper aucupatoribus euentuum et structoribus fallaciarum haruspicibus opportuni casus suffragantur.

[¶19] For the consul Mancinus, after he had taken over the army from Popilius at Numantia, conducted all his battles so unsuccessfully, and was brought to such extreme despair, that he was compelled to make a most shameful treaty with the Numantines.

> Latin: 20 namque Mancinus consul postquam a Popilio apud Numantiam suscepit exercitum, adeo infeliciter proelia cuncta gessit atque in id suprema desperatione perductus est, ut turpissimum foedus cum Numantinis facere cogeretur.

[¶20] Although Pompeius too had a little earlier concluded another treaty with these same Numantines, equally infamous, the senate ordered the treaty dissolved and Mancinus surrendered to the Numantines. He was exposed before the gates of the Numantines, his body stripped and his hands bound behind his back, and remaining there until nightfall, deserted by his own and not received by the enemy, he presented a spectacle lamentable to both.

> Latin: 21 quamuis et Pompeius iam aliud aeque infame foedus cum isdem Numantinis paulo ante pepigisset, senatus dissolui foedus et Mancinum dedi Numantinis praecepit, qui nudato corpore manibusque post tergum reuinctis ante portas Numantinorum expositus ibique usque in noctem manens, a suis desertus, ab hostibus autem non susceptus lacrimabile utrisque spectaculum praebuit.