---
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: 93 of 177
url: https://scriptura.si/works/orosius-historiae/93/
cite: "Paulus Orosius, tr. S. Alexander Laurent (AI-assisted, 2026), Seven Books of History against the Pagans, section 93. Scriptura (scriptura.si), https://scriptura.si/works/orosius-historiae/93/"
---

# 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.

## 93. Book 5 · Chapter 5

Source: https://scriptura.si/works/orosius-historiae/93/ · cite a paragraph as https://scriptura.si/works/orosius-historiae/93/#p-N

[¶0] Grief compels me to cry out at this point. Why, Romans, do you falsely claim for yourselves those great names of justice, good faith, courage, and mercy? Learn these more truly from the Numantines.

> Latin: 1 Exclamare hoc loco dolor exigit. cur falso uobis, Romani, magna illa nomina iustitiae fidei fortitudinis et misericordiae uindicatis? a Numantinis haec uerius discite.

[¶1] Was courage needed? They conquered by fighting. Was good faith required? Trusting others to be like themselves, they let go under a concluded treaty those whom they could have killed.

> Latin: 2 fortitudine opus fuit? pugnando uicerunt. fides exigebatur? credentes aliis secundum se, quos occidere potuerant, pacto foedere dimiserunt.

[¶2] Was justice to be proved? Even the senate proved it by its silence, when those same Numantines, through their envoys, demanded back either the peace alone, inviolate, or all those whom they had released alive on receiving the pledge of peace.

> Latin: 3 iustitia probanda erat? probauit eam uel tacitus senatus, cum idem Numantini per legatos suos aut inuiolatam pacem solam aut omnes, quos pignore pacis accepto uiuos dimiserant, reposcebant.

[¶3] Did mercy seem to need examining? They gave proof enough, both by sending an enemy army away to life and by not receiving Mancinus for punishment.

> Latin: 4 misericordia examinanda uidebatur? satis documenti dederunt uel emittendo ad uitam inimicum exercitum uel ad poenam non recipiendo Mancinum.

[¶4] Ought Mancinus, I ask, to have been surrendered — he who, holding out the shield of a concluded treaty, warded off the impending slaughter of a defeated army, and who preserved the endangered strength of his country for better times?

> Latin: 5 Mancinusne rogo dedendus fuit, qui uicti exercitus inpendentem trucidationem praetento umbone pacti foederis dispulit, qui periclitantes patriae uires in meliora tempora reseruauit?

[¶5] Or, if the treaty that was concluded displeased you, why was the soldier redeemed by this pledge either received when he returned, or not given back when he was demanded? Or, if the provision, such as it was, that saved the soldiers pleased you, why was Mancinus, who concluded it, alone surrendered?

> Latin: 6 aut, si displicuit foedus quod pactum est, cur miles hoc pignore redemptus aut, cum reuerteretur, receptus est aut, cum repeteretur, redditus non est? aut, si placuit seruati militis qualiscumque prouisio, cur Mancinus, qui hoc pepigit, solus deditus fuit?

[¶6] Not long before, Varro, so that a premature battle might be joined, overbore his colleague Paulus, who struggled against it, hurled the anxious army headlong, and at Cannae — infamous for Roman disasters — did not array his ill-starred forces for combat but set them out for death; there, through his impatience alone, on which Hannibal had long been counting for his victory, he lost more than forty thousand Roman soldiers.

> Latin: 7 Nuper Varro, ut praepropera pugna iniretur, collegam Paulum obluctantem impulit, trepidantem praecipitauit exercitum, infelices copias apud infames illas Romanis cladibus Cannas non disposuit certamini sed opposuit morti; plus quam XL milia ibi militum Romanorum sola inpatientia sua, de qua sibi uictoriam iam dudum Hannibal praesumebat, amisit.

[¶7] And having lost his colleague Paulus as well — and what a man he was! — he at last dared, most shamelessly, to return to the City almost alone, and he earned the reward of his shamelessness.

> Latin: 8 collega etiam Paulo - quo tandem uiro! - perdito, nouissime in urbem paene solus impudentissime redire ausus est meruitque impudentiae suae praemium.

[¶8] For thanks were publicly rendered to him in the senate because he had not despaired of the commonwealth — which he himself, however, had brought to despair.

> Latin: 9 nam gratiae ei, quod de republica non desperasset, quam tamen ipse fecerat desperatam, publice in senatu actae sunt.

[¶9] Mancinus, on the other hand, who laboured not to lose an army surrounded by the fortune of war, was condemned to surrender by that same senate.

> Latin: 10 Porro autem Mancinus, qui sorte bellica circumuentum exercitum ne perderet laborauit, ab eodem senatu deditione damnatus est.

[¶10] I know, Romans, that you were displeased with that conduct in Varro as well, but it was a concession to the times; and that you were pleased with this conduct in Mancinus, but took liberties as the times allowed. And so from the beginning you have brought it about that a citizen does not take fitting counsel for the ungrateful, nor an enemy faithfully trust the faithless.

> Latin: 11 scio, Romani, et illud in Varrone displicuit, sed tempori concessum est, et hoc in Mancino placuit, sed secundum tempus praesumptum est; atque ideo ab initio perfecistis, ut nec ciuis consulat conuenienter ingratis nec hostis fideliter credat infidis.

[¶11] Meanwhile in Further Spain Brutus, in a very harsh and difficult war, crushed sixty thousand Gallaeci who had come to the aid of the Lusitanians, though he had surrounded them while they were off their guard; of these, fifty thousand are reported to have been killed in that battle and six thousand captured, while a few escaped by flight.

> Latin: 12 Interea Brutus in ulteriore Hispania LX milia Gallaecorum, qui Lusitanis auxilio uenerant, asperrimo bello et difficili quamuis incautos circumuenisset, oppressit: quorum in eo proelio L milia occisa, sex milia capta referuntur, pauci fuga euaserunt.

[¶12] In Hither Spain Lepidus, as proconsul, stubbornly attempted to storm the Vaccaei, a harmless and suppliant people, even though the senate forbade it. But soon, suffering a most grievous disaster, he paid the penalty for his wicked obstinacy. For six thousand Romans were most justly cut down in this unjust war; the rest escaped, stripped of their camp and having lost even their arms.

> Latin: 13 in citeriore Hispania Lepidus proconsule Vaccaeos, innoxiam gentem et supplicem, etiam senatu prohibente pertinaciter expugnare temptauit. sed mox accepta clade grauissima improbae pertinaciae poenas luit. sex milia quippe Romanorum in hoc iniusto bello iustissime caesa sunt, reliqui exuti castris, armis etiam perditis, euaserunt.

[¶13] This disaster under Lepidus was no less shameful than the one under Mancinus. So let them now ascribe these times to themselves as times of happiness — I will not say the Spaniards, beaten and wearied by so many wars, but at least the Romans themselves, subdued by such continual disasters and so often overcome;

> Latin: 14 Nec minus turpis haec sub Lepido clades quam sub Mancino fuit. ita nunc sibi haec tempora loco felicitatis adscribant ut non dixerim Hispani tot pulsati fatigatique bellis, sed uel ipsi saltem Romani tam continuis subacti cladibus totiensque superati;

[¶14] so that, without reproaching them with how many of their praetors, how many legates, how many consuls, how many legions and how great armies were consumed, I recall this alone: into what madness of fear the Roman soldier had been dulled, so that he could no longer plant his foot and steady his mind even to make trial of war, but at the very sight of an enemy — a Spaniard especially — he would flee, believing himself conquered almost before he was seen.

> Latin: 15 ut non exprobrem, quot praetores eorum, quot legati, quot consules, quot legiones quantique exercitus consumpti sint, illud solum reuoluo, quanta fuerit timoris amentia miles Romanus hebetatus, ut iam ne ad experimentum quidem belli cohibere pedem atque offirmare animum posset, sed mox conspecto Hispano specialiter hoste diffugiens uinci se paene prius crederet quam uideri.

[¶15] By which proof it is plain that those times were judged wretched on both sides, since the Spaniards, even though they were able to conquer, nevertheless unwillingly abandoned their sweet leisure and endured foreign wars, while the Romans were defeated the more shamefully the more impudently they thrust themselves upon the peace of others.

> Latin: 16 quo argumento patet apud utrosque misera illa tempora iudicata, cum et Hispani etsi uincere poterant, inuiti tamen desererent dulcia otia sua et bella externa tolerarent, et Romani quanto inpudentius alienae quieti sese ingererent, tanto turpius uincerentur.