In the consulship of Marcus Plautius Hypsaeus and Marcus Fulvius Flaccus, a horrible and unheard-of destruction fell upon Africa when she was scarcely at rest from the ravages of wars.
1 M. Plautio Hypsaeo M. Fuluio Flacco consulibus uixdum Africam a bellorum excidiis quiescentem horribilis et inusitata perditio consecuta est.
For when immense multitudes of locusts had gathered throughout all Africa and had not only shaved away all hope of crops and consumed all the grasses together with part of their roots, and the leaves of the trees together with the tender shoots of the branches, but were even gnawing at the bitter bark and dry wood, they were suddenly caught up by a wind, driven together into masses, carried for a long time through the air, and plunged into the African sea.
2 namque cum per totam Africam inmensae lucustarum multitudines coaluissent et non modo iam cunctam spem frugum abrasissent herbasque omnes cum parte radicum, folia arborum cum teneritudine ramorum consumpsissent, uerum etiam amaras cortices atque arida ligna praeroderent, repentino abreptae uento atque in globos coactae portataeque diu per aerem, Africano pelago inmersae sunt.
When the waves, with the waters pressing on, had driven immense heaps of them far along the widely stretching shores, the rotting and putrefied mass breathed out an exceedingly foul and pestilential stench beyond all belief; from this there followed so great a pestilence among all living creatures alike that the putrefied carcasses of birds, cattle, and wild beasts, destroyed by the corruption of the air and lying everywhere, increased the evil of the corruption.
3 harum cum inmensos aceruos longe undis urguentibus fluctus per extenta late litora propulissent, taetrum nimis atque ultra opinionem pestiferum odorem tabida et putrefacta congeries exhalauit, unde omnium pariter animantum tanta pestilentia consecuta est, ut auium pecudum ac bestiarum corruptione aeris dissolutarum putrefacta passim cadauera uitium corruptionis augerent.
But how great the plague among men was, I myself shudder in my whole body as I relate it: for it is recorded that in Numidia, where Micipsa was then king, eight hundred thousand men perished, and along the sea-coast, which lies especially near the shore of Carthage and Utica, more than two hundred thousand; while at the city of Utica itself thirty thousand soldiers, who had been stationed for the defence of all Africa, were wiped out and swept away.
4 at uero quanta fuerit hominum lues, ego ipse, dum refero, toto corpore perhorresco: siquidem in Numidia, in qua tunc Micipsa rex erat, octingenta milia hominum, circa oram uero maritimam, quae maxime Carthaginiensi atque Uticensi litori adiacet, plus quam ducenta milia perisse traditum est, apud ipsam uero Uticam ciuitatem triginta milia militum, quae ad praesidium totius Africae ordinata fuerant, extincta atque abrasa sunt.
This disaster pressed on so suddenly and so violently that at Utica, it is said, more than 1,500 of those young men were carried out dead through a single gate on a single day.
5 quae clades tam repentina ac tam uiolenta institit, ut tunc apud Uticam sub una die per unam portam ex illis iunioribus plus quam mille quingentos mortuos elatos fuisse narretur.
Yet, with the leave and by the grace of almighty God — of whose mercy and in trust in whom I say these things — I would say this: although in our times too locusts sometimes arise, and that in various places, and often do harm, but tolerably, never yet in the Christian times has so great a force of inextricable evil befallen that the destruction wrought by locusts, which could in no way have been borne while they lived, did more harm when dead; so that, though everything was to perish while they lived, once they had perished it would have been more to be wished by all, as they perished, that they had not perished.
6 Verumtamen pace et gratia omnipotentis Dei dixerim, de cuius misericordia et in cuius fiducia haec loquor: quamuis et temporibus nostris exoriantur aliquando et hoc diuersis partibus lucustae et plerumque etiam sed tolerabiliter laedant, numquam tamen temporibus Christianis tanta uis inextricabilis mali accidit, ut pernicies lucustarum, quae nullo modo ferri uiua potuisset, mortua plus noceret et qua diu uiuente peritura erant omnia, ea perdita pereuntibus magis omnibus optandum fuerit, ne perisset.