駁異教徒史 第 1 章

THE FIRST BOOK OF PAULUS OROSIUS'S HISTORIES AGAINST THE PAGANS. I have obeyed your instructions, most blessed father Augustine; and would that I had done so as effectively as willingly. Yet I am little moved in either direction as to whether I have acted rightly or not. For you have already laboured over this judgment — whether I were able to do what you commanded; but I, content with the testimony of obedience alone, if only I have adorned it with goodwill and effort, am satisfied. For in the great house of a great householder, although there are many animals of diverse kinds useful as an aid to the household estate, yet the care of the dogs is not the least;

to these alone it is implanted by nature to be driven of their own will toward that for which they are prepared, and through a certain inborn formula of obedience to be held in suspense by the mere expectation of a disciplined fear, until by a nod or a sign they are sent forth to the freedom of carrying it out. For they have their own appetites, as much more excellent than the brutes as they approach the rational — that is, to discern, to love, to serve. For discerning between their masters and strangers, they do not hate those whom they pursue, but are zealous for those whom they love; and loving their master and the house, they keep watch not as though fitted by nature of body, but, anxious from the consciousness of a solicitous love, they keep vigil.

Hence also, by a mystical sacrament in the Gospels, the Canaanite woman did not blush to say that the little dogs eat the crumbs under their masters' table, and the Lord did not disdain to hear it. Blessed Tobias too, following the angel as his guide, did not spurn to have a dog as his companion. Therefore, joined to your general love by a special love, I have willingly obeyed your will. For although my submission ought to be ascribed to the precept of your fatherhood, and the whole is yours — namely my work, which goes out from you and returns to you — yet in this one thing alone I have rendered it more abundantly: that I did it willingly.

You had commanded me to oppose the empty-talking depravity of those who, alien to the City of God, are called pagans from the crossroads and country districts of rural places, or 'gentiles' because they savour earthly things; who, since they do not seek the future, but either forget or are ignorant of the past, nevertheless defame the present times, as though most beset with evils beyond the ordinary, for this reason alone: that Christ is believed and God is worshipped, while the idols are less worshipped:

— you had commanded me, then, that out of all the records of histories and annals which can at present be had, I should set forth, in a briefly arranged text of a volume, whatever I might find throughout the ages gone by — things grievous through wars, or corrupted by diseases, or sorrowful through famine, or terrible through earthquakes, or unusual through floods of waters, or to be dreaded through eruptions of fires, or savage through strokes of lightning and ravages of hail, or even wretched through parricides and crimes.

Especially since it was not fitting that your Reverence, while pressing on with an eleventh book against these very pagans — ten of whose rising rays have already, as soon as they were lifted up from the watchtower of the Church's brightness, shone over the whole world — should be detained with a slight little work; and since your holy son, Julian of Carthage, the servant of God, demanded with the same confidence with which he had asked it that his petition in this matter be satisfied: I undertook the task, and was myself first of all weighed down with confusion. To one who reflects on it again and again, the disasters of the present times seemed to have boiled up beyond measure. For I found that days gone by were not only equally as grievous as these, but even the more cruelly wretched the further they were estranged from the remedy of the true religion:

so that this investigation has rightly made clear that death, greedy for blood, reigned while the religion that would forbid bloodshed was unknown; that when this religion began to dawn, death was stupefied; that it is shut in now that this religion already prevails; and that it will be utterly no more when this alone shall reign — excepting, of course, and setting apart those very last days at the end of the age, under the appearing of the Antichrist or even under the conclusion of the judgment, in which the Lord Christ foretold through the holy Scriptures, by His own attestation also, that there would be afflictions such as never were before; for though indeed the manner remains the same as it is now and ever shall be, yet by a more open and graver crisis, through the unbearable tribulations of those times, the proving of the saints

and destruction shall overtake the ungodly. And since almost all the learned men, both among the Greeks and among the Latins, who applied themselves to writing — those who handed down in words the deeds of kings and peoples for lasting remembrance — began their writing from Ninus, son of Belus, king of the Assyrians (for, although in their blind opinion they would have the origin of the world and the creation of mankind believed to be without beginning, they nevertheless fix the beginning of kingdoms and wars from this man, as if forsooth up to that time the human race had lived after the manner of cattle, and only then for the first time had been, as it were, shaken and roused up to a fresh foresight and awoke): I have determined to draw the beginning of human misery from the beginning of man's sin, lightly touching only on a few matters and those briefly.

Now from Adam, the first man, up to Ninus, 'the great' king as they call him, when Abraham was born, there are 3,184 years, which have either been omitted or unknown by all the historians. But from Ninus, that is from Abraham, up to Caesar Augustus, that is up to the nativity of Christ — which was in the forty-second year of Caesar's reign, when, peace having been made with the Parthians, the gates of Janus were shut and wars ceased throughout the whole world — there are reckoned 2,015 years, in which both the doers and the writers of all things spent their leisure and their toil. Therefore the matter itself requires that from these books we touch as briefly as possible upon a few things, books which, speaking of the origin of the world, established the trustworthiness of the past by the announcement of things to come and by the subsequent proof:

not that we may seem to thrust their authority upon anyone, but that it may be worth our while to give a reminder concerning the common opinion which we share with all. First, because, if by divine providence — which, as it is good, so also is just — the world and man are governed, and since man, who by the changeableness of his nature and the freedom of his license is both weak and stubborn, must, just as he needs aid to be piously guided in his need, so also justly be chastened in his immoderate use of liberty, then rightly from the beginning of man, through goods and evils alternating, this world is, as anyone perceives who sees the human race through himself and in himself, kept in exercise; and next, since we are taught that sin and the punishment of sin began from the very first man;

furthermore, since even those writers, beginning from the middle of the ages, though they nowhere make mention of earlier times, have described nothing but wars and disasters — and what else are these wars to be called but evils inclining against one another? and evils of this kind, such as existed then, just as they exist now in so far as they exist, are without doubt either manifest sins or the hidden punishments of sins — what hindrance is there for us to lay open the head of that thing whose body they have set forth, and to testify, even by the slightest account, that those earlier ages, which we show to be far more numerous, endured like miseries?

Being about therefore to speak from the founding of the world up to the founding of the City, and thence up to the principate of Caesar and the nativity of Christ, from which time the dominion of the world has remained under the power of the City, or even up to our own days, in so far as I shall be able to bring it to knowledge, and being about to display from the watchtower the conflicts of the human race and, as it were, the world burning with evils in its various parts, set ablaze by the torch of cupidity, I think it necessary that first I set out the very globe of the lands which the human race inhabits, as it has been divided by our forefathers into three parts and then determined by regions and provinces;

so that more easily, when the local disasters of wars and diseases are displayed, all the studious may attain the knowledge not only of events and times but also of places. Our forefathers established the globe of the whole earth, hemmed in round about by the border of the ocean, to be three-cornered, and called its three parts ASIA, EUROPE, and AFRICA — although some thought that there were two, that is, Asia, and then Africa to be reckoned within Europe. Asia, surrounded on three sides by the ocean, extends across the whole region of the orient on the transverse. Toward the west it touches on its right hand Europe, beginning under the pole of the north; on its left it lets go Africa; but beneath Egypt and Syria it has our sea, which we generally call the Great Sea.

Europe begins, as I said, under the region of the north, from the river Tanais, where the Riphaean mountains, turned away from the Sarmatian ocean, pour forth the river Tanais, which, passing by the altars and boundaries of Alexander the Great situated in the territories of the Rhobasci, swells the Maeotian marshes, whose immense overflow enters the Euxine Sea broadly near the city Theodosia. Thence near Constantinople long straits are sent forth, until this sea which we call Ours receives them. The western ocean is the boundary of Europe in Spain, especially where, near the islands of Gades, the Pillars of Hercules are seen and the tide of the ocean is admitted into the jaws of the Tyrrhenian sea.

The beginning of Africa is from the borders of Egypt and of the city of Alexandria, where the city Paraetonium is situated, upon this Great Sea which flows between all the regions and the middle lands. Thence through places which the inhabitants call Catabathmos, not far from the camp of Alexander the Great and above the lake Chalearzum, then beside the borders of the upper Oasitae, drawn transversely through the Ethiopian deserts, it touches the southern ocean. The boundaries of Africa toward the west are the same as those of Europe, that is, the jaws of the Gaditanian strait. But its furthest boundary is Mount Atlas and the islands which they call the Fortunate. And since I have briefly given the general divisions of the threefold world, I shall take care to indicate, as I promised, the regions of those parts as well.

Asia, at its middle front toward the east, has in the Eastern Ocean the mouths of the river Ganges; on the left a promontory, Caligardamana, beneath which, toward the south-east, lies the island Taprobane, from which the Indian Ocean begins to be named; on the right it has, where Caucasus fails, the promontory Samara of Mount Imavus, beneath which toward the north lie the mouths of the river Ottorogorra, from which the Seric Ocean is named. Within these bounds is INDIA, which has on the west the river Indus, which is received by the Red Sea, on the north Mount Caucasus; the rest, as I said, is bounded by the Eastern and the Indian Ocean. This has 44 peoples, besides the island Taprobane, which has ten cities, and besides the very many other habitable islands. From the river Indus, which is on the east;

up to the river Tigris, which is on the west, these are the regions: ARACHOSIA, PARTHIA, ASSYRIA, PERSIS, and MEDIA, of a mountainous and rugged terrain. These have on the north Mount Caucasus, on the south the Red Sea and the Persian Gulf, and in their midst the chief rivers Hydaspes and Arbis. In these are 32 peoples. But generally it is called Parthia, although the Holy Scriptures often call the whole of it Media. From the river Tigris up to the river Euphrates is MESOPOTAMIA, beginning on the north between Mount Taurus and Caucasus. To it on the south succeeds Babylonia, then Chaldaea, last of all Arabia Eudaemon (the Blessed), which between the Persian and the Arabian gulf extends toward the east in a narrow tract of land.

In these are 28 peoples. From the river Euphrates, which is on the east, up to Our Sea, which is on the west, then on the north — that is, from the city Dagusa, which is situated on the boundary of Cappadocia and Armenia, not far from the place where the Euphrates rises — up to Egypt and the furthest Arabian gulf, which on the south extends with a long and narrow furrow, very thick with rocks and islands, away from the Red Sea (that is, from the ocean) toward the west: it is generally named SYRIA, having the greatest provinces, Commagene, Phoenicia, and Palestine, besides the Saracens and the Nabataeans, whose peoples are 12.

At the head of Syria is CAPPADOCIA, which has on the east Armenia, on the west Asia, on the north the Themiscyrian plains and the Cimmerian sea, on the south Mount Taurus, beneath which lie Cilicia and Isauria, as far as the Cilician gulf, which faces toward the island Cyprus. ASIA THE REGION, or, to speak properly, Asia Minor, except for the eastern part by which it advances toward Cappadocia and Syria, is surrounded on every side by the sea: on the north by the Pontus Euxinus, on the west by the Propontis and the Hellespont, on the south by Our Sea. There is Mount Olympus. Lower Egypt has on the east Syria Palestine, on the west Libya, on the north Our Sea, on the south the mountain which is called Climax.

and Upper Egypt and the river Nile, which seems to emerge from the shore of the beginning Red Sea, at a place which is called the Mossylon emporium; then flowing long toward the west, making an island by name Meroe in its midst, at last bent toward the north, increased by timely flood-waters, it irrigates the plains of Egypt. Some authors report that this river has its source not far from Atlas and is straightway swallowed in the sands; thence, after a short interval, it overflows in a most vast lake, and from here, as far as the ocean toward the east, it glides through the Ethiopian deserts, and again, bent to the left, descends to Egypt. This indeed is true, that there is such a great river, which has such a rise and such a course, and in very fact produces all the marvels of the Nile;

this river the barbarians, near its source, call Dara, but the other dwellers nearby call it Nuhul; yet here, in the region of the peoples who are called the Libyo-Egyptians, not far from that river which we said bursts forth from the shore of the Red Sea, it is received into an immense lake and swallowed up; unless perhaps by a hidden passage it disgorges into the channel of that one which descends from the east. UPPER EGYPT extends lengthwise toward the east. It has on the north the Arabian gulf, on the south the ocean; for on the west it begins from Lower Egypt, and toward the east it is bounded by the Red Sea. There are 24 peoples. And since we have described the southern part of all Asia, it remains that the part which is left, from the east to the north, be set forth.

MOUNT CAUCASUS first rises up between the Colchians, who are above the Cimmerian sea, and the Albanians, who are by the Caspian sea. Its ridge indeed seems to be one as far as the furthest east, but there are many names; and many wish this very ridge to be believed to be of Mount Taurus, because in very truth the mountain Parcohatras of Armenia, lying midway between Taurus and Caucasus, is thought to join Taurus with Caucasus; but that this is not so is distinguished by the river Euphrates, which, poured forth from the root of Mount Parcohatras, stretching toward the south, shuts out that mountain on the left, Taurus on the right. And so Caucasus itself, between the Colchians and Albanians, where it also has its gates, is called Mount Caucasus;

from the Caspian Gates up to the Armenian Pylae, or up to the source of the river Tigris, between Armenia and Iberia, the mountains are called the Acroceraunia; from the source of the Tigris up to the city Carrae, between the Massagetae and the Parthians, the mountain is Ariobarzanes; from the city Carrae up to the town of Cathippi, between the Hyrcanians and the Bactrians, is Mount Memarmali, where amomum grows; from which the nearest ridge is called Mount Parthau; from the town of Cathippi up to the village Safris, between the Dahae Sacaraucae and the Parthyenae, is Mount Oscobares, where the river Ganges rises and laser grows; from the source of the river Ganges up to the sources of the river Ottorogorra, which are on the north, where the mountain-dwelling Paropanisadae are, is Mount Taurus;

from the sources of the Ottorogorra up to the city Ottorogorra, between the Chuni, the Scythians, and the Gandaridae, is Mount Caucasus. But the last, between the Eoae and the Passyadrae, is Mount Imavus, where the river Chrysorhoas and the promontory Samara are received by the Eastern Ocean. Therefore from Mount Imavus, that is, from the lowest Caucasus and the right-hand part of the east where the Seric Ocean stretches, up to the Boreum promontory and the Boreum river, thence as far as the Scythian sea which is on the north, up to the Caspian sea which is on the west, and up to the extended ridge of Caucasus which is on the south, the peoples of the Hyrcanians and Scythians are 42, wandering widely on account of the barren spreading-out of the lands.

THE CASPIAN SEA arises from the ocean under the region of the North Wind, and both its shores around the ocean are held to be desert and uncultivated places. Thence toward the south it stretches through long narrows, until, spread out over great spaces, it is bounded by the roots of Mount Caucasus. And so from the Caspian sea which is on the east, along the shore of the northern ocean up to the river Tanais and the Maeotian marshes which are on the west, along the shore of the Cimmerian sea which is on the south-west, up to the head and gates of Caucasus which are on the south, the peoples are 34. But generally the nearest region is called Albania, the further, under the sea and Mount Caspius, is named that of the Amazons. The boundaries of Asia have been set forth as briefly as possible.

Now I shall traverse Europe with my pen, in so far as it is granted to the knowledge of man. It begins from the Riphaean mountains and the river Tanais and the Maeotian marshes which are on the east, along the shore of the northern ocean up to Gaul Belgica and the river Rhine which descends on the west, then up to the Danube — which they also call the Hister — which is on the south and, directed toward the east, is received by the Pontus. On the east is Alania, in the middle Dacia where Gothia also is, then Germania, where the Suebi hold the greatest part; of all of whom the peoples are 54. Now I shall set out whatever the Danube shuts off from the barbarian land toward Our Sea.

MOESIA has on the east the mouths of the river Danube, on the south-east Thrace, on the south Macedonia, on the south-west Dalmatia, on the west Histria, on the north-west Pannonia, on the north the Danube. THRACE has on the east the gulf of the Propontis and the city Constantinople, which was previously called Byzantium, on the north a part of Dalmatia and the gulf of the Euxine Sea, on the west and south-west Macedonia, on the south the Aegean Sea. MACEDONIA has on the east the Aegean Sea, on the north Thrace, on the south-east Euboea and the Macedonian gulf, on the south Achaia, on the west-north-west the Acroceraunian mountains in the narrows of the Adriatic gulf, which mountains are opposite Apulia and Brundisium, on the west Dalmatia, on the north-west Dardania, on the north Moesia.

ACHAIA is on almost every side girt by the sea; for it has on the east the Myrtoan Sea, on the south-east the Cretan Sea, on the south the Ionian Sea, on the south-west and west the islands Cephalenia and Cassiope, on the north the Corinthian gulf, on the north-east a narrow ridge of land by which it is joined to Macedonia, or rather to Attica; which place is called the Isthmus, where Corinth is, having in Attica toward the north, not far off, the city Athens. DALMATIA has on the east Macedonia, on the north-east Dardania, on the north Moesia, on the west Histria and the Liburnian gulf and the Liburnian islands, on the south the Adriatic gulf.

PANNONIA, NORICUM, and RAETIA have on the east Moesia, on the south Histria, on the south-west the Pennine Alps, on the west Gaul Belgica, on the north-west the source and limit of the Danube which separates Germania from Gaul between the Danube and Gaul, on the north the Danube and Germania. THE SITUATION OF ITALY stretches from the north-west to the south-east, having on the south-west the Tyrrhenian Sea, on the north the Adriatic gulf; that part of it which is common and contiguous to the mainland is barred by the barriers of the Alps, which, rising up from the Gallic sea above the Ligustic gulf, shut off first the territories of the Narbonenses, then Gaul and Raetia, until they are fixed in the Liburnian gulf.

GAUL BELGICA has on the east the limit of the river Rhine and Germania, on the south-east the Pennine Alps, on the south the province of Narbonensis, on the west the province of Lugdunensis, on the north-west the British Ocean, on the north the island Britain. GAUL LUGDUNENSIS, drawn out in length and bent narrowly, half-encircles the province of Aquitania. It has on the east Belgica, on the south a part of the province of Narbonensis, where the city Arelas is situated and where the river Rhône is received by the Gallic sea.

THE PROVINCE OF NARBONENSIS, a part of the Gauls, has on the east the Cottian Alps, on the west Spain, on the north-west Aquitania, on the north Lugdunensis, on the north-east Gaul Belgica, on the south the Gallic sea which is between Sardinia and the Balearic islands, having in front, where the river Rhône goes out into the sea, the Stoechades islands. THE PROVINCE OF AQUITANIA, by the oblique course of the river Loire, which for the most part is its boundary, is drawn round in a circle. It has on the north-west the ocean which is called the Aquitanian gulf, on the west the Spains, on the north and east Lugdunensis, on the south-east and south it touches the province of Narbonensis.

ALL SPAIN, by the situation of its lands, is three-cornered, and by the surrounding of the ocean and of the Tyrrhenian sea is made almost an island. Its first angle, looking toward the east, hemmed in on the right by the province of Aquitania, on the left by the Balearic sea, is inserted into the territories of the Narbonenses. The second angle points toward the north-west; where Brigantia, a city of Gallaecia, is situated and raises up a very lofty lighthouse, among the few works worth recording, toward the watch-point of Britain. Its third angle is that where the islands of Gades, directed toward the south-west, look out upon Mount Atlas with a gulf of the ocean lying between.

Hither Spain (Hispania Citerior), beginning on the east, the Pyrenean forest-range leads down from the part of the north up to the Cantabri and Astures, and thence through the Vaccaei and the Oretani, whom it has on the west, Carthage, set on the shore of Our Sea, marks its bound. Further Spain (Hispania Ulterior) has on the east the Vaccaei, the Celtiberi, and the Oretani, on the north the ocean, on the west the ocean, on the south the Gaditanian strait of the ocean; whence Our Sea, which is called the Tyrrhenian, is admitted. And since the ocean has islands which they call Britain and Hibernia, which are situated on the far side of the Gauls toward the prospect of Spain, they shall be briefly set forth. BRITAIN, an island of the ocean, extends lengthwise toward the north; on the south it has the Gauls.

Its nearest shore a city opens to those crossing over, which is called Rutupiae harbour; whence, not far off, it looks out toward the Menapi and Batavi set in the south among the Morini. This island has in length 800 miles, in breadth 200 miles. But at its back, where it lies open to the boundless ocean, it has the Orkney islands, of which 20 are deserted, 13 are inhabited. Then the island Thule, which, separated by an infinite space from the rest, set toward the north-west in the middle of the ocean, is scarcely known to a few. The island HIBERNIA, situated between Britain and Spain, stretches out with a longer space from the south-west toward the north.

Its forward parts, directed toward the Cantabrian ocean, look from afar across a spacious interval upon Brigantia, a city of Gallaecia, meeting them from the south-west toward the north-west, especially from that promontory where the mouth of the river Scena is, and where the Velabri and Luceni dwell. This island, nearer to Britain, narrower in extent of land, but more advantageous by the temperateness of its sky and soil, is inhabited by the peoples of the Scotti. To this also the island Mevania is very near, itself too not small in extent, convenient in soil; it is likewise inhabited by the peoples of the Scotti. These are the boundaries of all Europe. As for AFRICA, as I said, since our forefathers described it as to be reckoned the third part of the world, they followed not the measures of spaces but the principles of divisions.

For this Great Sea, since it arises on the west from the ocean and inclines more toward the south, made the boundary of Africa, narrowed between itself and the ocean. Whence also some, although understanding it to be equal in length yet much narrower, thought it shameless to call it a third part, but rather, reckoning Africa within Europe, preferred to call it a portion of the second part. Moreover, since much more of the land in Africa is uncultivated and unknown through the heat of the sun than in Europe through the rigour of the cold — for indeed almost all living and germinating things approach more patiently and tolerably to the extreme of cold than to the extreme of heat — this is precisely the reason that Africa is seen to be in all respects lesser in extent and in peoples:

because both by its nature it has less space, and by the inclemency of the sky it has more desert. Its description by provinces and peoples is this: LIBYA CYRENAICA AND PENTAPOLIS is the first part of Africa after Egypt. It begins from the city Paraetonium and the mountains of Catabathmos, thence by the second sea it extends up to the Altars of the Philaeni. Behind it, up to the southern ocean, it has the peoples of the Libyo-Ethiopians and the Garamantes. To this on the east is Egypt, on the north the Libyan sea, on the west the Greater Syrtes and the Troglodytae — opposite whom is the island of Calypso — on the south the Ethiopian ocean.

THE PROVINCE OF TRIPOLITANA, which is also called Subventana or the region of the Arzuges, where Leptis Magna is the city — although the Arzuges are generally named along the whole length of the African frontier — has on the east the Altars of the Philaeni between the Greater Syrtes and the Troglodytae, on the north the Sicilian or rather the Adriatic sea and the Lesser Syrtes, on the west Byzacium up to the Lake of the Salinae, on the south the barbarian Gaetuli, Nathabres, and Garamantes, reaching up to the Ethiopian ocean. BYZACIUM, ZEUGIS, AND NUMIDIA. We find that Zeugis was formerly the general name not of one district, but of the whole province.

Byzacium therefore, where the city Hadrumetum is, Zeugis, where great Carthage is, Numidia, where the cities Hippo Regius and Rusiccada are — these have on the east the Lesser Syrtes and the Lake of the Salinae, on the north Our Sea which faces toward the islands Sicily and Sardinia, on the west Mauretania Sitifensis, on the south the mountains of the Uzarae and beyond them the Ethiopian peoples wandering up to the Ethiopian ocean. MAURETANIA SITIFENSIS AND CAESARIENSIS have on the east Numidia, on the north Our Sea, on the west the river Malva, on the south Mount Astrix, which divides between the living land and the lying sands as far as the ocean; in which the Gangine Ethiopians wander. MAURETANIA TINGITANA is the furthest part of Africa.

This has on the east the river Malva, on the north Our Sea up to the Gaditanian strait, which is narrowed between Abena and Calpe, two promontories opposite each other, on the west Mount Atlas and the Atlantic ocean, on the south-west Mount Hesperium, on the south the peoples of the Autololi, whom they now call the Galaules, reaching up to the Hesperian ocean. This is the boundary of all Africa. Now I shall measure out the places, names, and dimensions of the islands which are in Our Sea. THE ISLAND CYPRUS is girt on the east by the Syrian sea, which they call the Issican gulf, on the west by the Pamphylian sea, on the north by the Cilician Aulon, on the south by the sea of Syria and Phoenicia. Its extent

is in length 175 miles, in breadth 125 miles. THE ISLAND CRETE is bounded on the east by the Carpathian sea, on the west and north by the Cretan sea, on the south by the Libyan sea, which they also call the Adriatic. It has in length 172 miles, in breadth 50. THE CYCLADES ISLANDS, of which the first on the east is Rhodes, on the north Tenedos, on the south Carpathos, on the west Cythera, are bounded on the east by the shores of Asia, on the west by the Icarian sea, on the north by the Aegean sea, on the south by the Carpathian sea. Now the Cyclades are all 54 in number. These extend from north to south 500 miles, from east to west 200 miles. THE ISLAND SICILY.

has three promontories: one which is called Pelorum and looks toward the north, to which the city Messana is nearest; the second which is called Pachynum, beneath which is the city of Syracuse, looks toward the south-east; the third which is called Lilybaeum, where the city of the same name is also situated, is directed toward the west. This has from Pelorum to Pachynum 159 miles, from Pachynum to Lilybaeum 187. This is girt on the east by the Adriatic sea, on the south by the African sea which is opposite the Subventani and the Lesser Syrtes, on the west and north it has the Tyrrhenian sea, on the north up to the east the Adriatic strait which divides the Tauromenitani of Sicily and the Bruttii of Italy.

THE ISLANDS SARDINIA AND CORSICA are divided by a small strait, that is, of 20 miles. Of these, Sardinia has on the south, opposite Numidia, the Caralitani; opposite the island of Corsica, that is, toward the north, it has the Ulbienses. Its extent in length is 230 miles, in breadth 80 miles. This has on the east and north the Tyrrhenian sea which faces toward the harbour of the city of Rome, on the west the Sardinian sea, on the south-west the Balearic islands set far off, on the south the Numidian gulf, on the north, as I said, Corsica. THE ISLAND CORSICA is angular with many promontories. It has on the east the Tyrrhenian sea and the harbour of the City, on the south Sardinia, on the west the Balearic islands, on the north-west and north the Ligustic gulf.

It holds in length 160 miles, in breadth 26 miles. THE BALEARIC ISLANDS are two, greater and lesser, in which are two towns apiece; the greater has opposite it, toward the north, Tarraco, a city of Spain, the lesser has Barcelona. Beneath the greater lies the island Ebusus. Then on the east they look toward Sardinia, on the north-east the Gallic sea, on the south and south-west the Mauretanian sea, on the west the Iberian sea. These are the islands set throughout the whole Great Sea from the Hellespont up to the ocean, which are held to be more celebrated both for cultivation and for memory. I have briefly reviewed, as I could, the provinces and islands of the whole world.

Now I shall set forth, in so far as I shall be able, the local miseries of the several peoples, as from the beginning they arose unceasingly, and in what manner and from what causes they arose. When, after the fashioning and adorning of this world, man — whom God had made upright and unstained — and consequently the human race, depraved by lusts, had grown foul with sins, immediately a just punishment followed the unjust license. The sentence of God the Creator and Judge, destined for sinning man and for the earth on account of man, and to endure always so long as men shall inhabit the earth, all of us, unwilling though we be, either prove by denying or, by confessing, endure; and against stubborn minds their own infirmity brands itself as a witness, to whom the Scripture has not faithfully given persuasion.

Then, when the sea had poured back over all the earth and the flood had been let loose, so that, with the whole world covered over, there was one single expanse of sky and ocean, the entire human race was destroyed, with only a few preserved in the ark by the merit of their faith to restore the lineage — this the most truthful writers teach most clearly. Yet even those men have borne witness to it who, though indeed ignorant of past ages and of the very Author of the ages, nonetheless learned of it by inference and conjecture from the stones which we are accustomed to behold on remote mountains, rough with shells and oysters, and often even hollowed out by waters.

And although still more matters of this kind, both worthy of relating and certain in their reliability, could be brought forward by me, nevertheless let these suffice as the two principal points: concerning the transgression of the first man, the condemnation of his offspring and of his life, and then concerning the destruction of the whole human race; so much only that, if pagan historians have anywhere in some order touched upon our own matters, these may be set forth more fully alongside the rest, in the very order in which they fall. In the year 1300 before the founding of the City, Ninus, king of the Assyrians, was the first — so they themselves wish to hold — to carry arms abroad out of a lust for extending his dominion, and for fifty years he waged a bloody life through wars across all of Asia.

Rising from the south and from the Red Sea, he subdued by devastation the Euxine Sea beneath the farthest north, and taught the Scythian barbarians — still then unwarlike and innocent — to rouse their sluggish savagery, to know their own strength, and now to drink not the milk of cattle but the blood of men, and at the last to conquer while themselves being conquered. Most recently he overthrew in battle and slew Zoroaster, king of the Bactrians, the same who, as they say, was the inventor of the magical art. Afterward Ninus himself, while assaulting a city that was defecting from him, was struck by an arrow and perished. To him at his death succeeded his wife Semiramis, bearing the spirit of a man under the appearance of a son; and for forty-two years she exercised in the slaughter of nations the peoples already greedy by their habit of blood.

Not content with the boundaries which she had received from her husband — then the sole warrior — acquired in fifty years, the woman added to her empire Ethiopia, crushed by war and smeared over with blood. She also made war upon the Indians, into whose land no one entered except herself and Alexander the Great. And this — to pursue and butcher peoples living in peace — was therefore at that time crueler and graver than it is now, because then among those peoples there were neither any conflagrations of wars abroad, nor so great an exercise of greed at home.

This woman, burning with lust and thirsting for blood, amid unceasing fornications and murders, after she had killed all those whom she had summoned in royal fashion, kept as harlots, and delighted in her embraces, at last covered her private disgrace with a public crime: having shamefully conceived a son, impiously exposed him, and incestuously lain with him. For she decreed that, with no reverence for nature shown between parents and children, the seeking of unions should be free to each as he pleased. In the year 1160 before the founding of the City, the region bordering Arabia, then called the Pentapolis, was utterly burned by fire from heaven, as among others even Cornelius Tacitus relates, who speaks thus: 'Not far from there are plains which they say were once fertile and inhabited by great cities, but were burned up by the stroke of lightning.'

'But the traces remain, and the very land, though solid in appearance, has lost its fruit-bearing power.' And although in this passage he expressed nothing about the cities burned on account of the sins of men, as if he were ignorant of it, a little later, as though forgetting his own design, he adds and says: 'I, just as I would grant that once-famous cities blazed with fire from heaven, so I judge that the land is infected and corrupted by the exhalation of the lake.' By which saying, although unwillingly, he openly disclosed concerning the burned cities — which beyond doubt blazed by the guilt of sins — that he had both known of it and granted it, confessing that it was not the assurance of knowledge that was lacking in him, but the will to express that assurance. Which shall now be set forth more fully by me.

On the border of Arabia and Palestine, where the mountains, dismissed on either side, are received by the plains lying below them, there were five cities: Sodom, Gomorrah, Adama, Zeboiim, and Zoar. But of these Zoar was small, while the others were ample and great, since they enjoyed both the fertility of the soil and the river Jordan, which, spread out over the level ground and very conveniently divided, was expended upon increases of abundance. To this whole region, ill-using its goods, the abundance of things became the cause of evils. For out of abundance grew luxury, out of luxury foul lusts, to such a degree that males, working shamefulness upon males, rushed headlong without even regard for places, conditions, or ages.

And so God in His wrath rained upon this land fire and brimstone, and condemned the whole region, together with its peoples and cities, burned up, to eternal destruction, that it might be a witness of His judgment; so that even now indeed the form of the region appears, but a region of ash is found, and the middle valley, which the Jordan had watered, is now covered by an overspreading sea. And so great was the kindling of divine indignation over matters reckoned, as is supposed, trifling, that because of this — that those people, ill-using their goods, had made the fruits of mercies into the nourishments of lusts — the very land also, which had held these cities, first burned up by fires and afterward overwhelmed by waters, perished into eternal damnation before the common sight.

And so now, if it please them, let those who hurl spittle, as far as in them lies, against Christ — whom we have shown to be the Judge of the ages — distinguish the causes and compare the punishments between Sodom and Rome; which causes are above all not to be re-examined by me, for the very reason that they are known to all. And yet how gladly would I accept their verdicts, if only they would faithfully confess as they truly feel. Although, since it is but few who murmur about the Christian times, and that in corners, I think it should not be taken so very ill, when, by the harmonious voice and equal judgment of the whole Roman people, both the sentiment and the speech are well known.

Indeed, by a certain small and slight commotion he most indubitably attested that for a little while his habit of pleasures had wavered with regard to itself, so that one cried out freely: 'If only the circus were restored, nothing would have happened to me' — that is, the swords of the Goths accomplished nothing at Rome, if the Romans be granted leave to watch the chariot-races. Unless perhaps, as is the case with very many at this particular time — who, out of long repose, count even a small anxiety that arises as an intolerable labor — they prefer these most merciful admonitions, by which we are all at some time chastised, to the punishments of others heard and read about.

These at least I admonish concerning this very outcome of the Sodomites and the Gomorraeans, that they may be able to learn and understand how God has punished sinners, how He is able to punish, and how He will punish. In the year 1070 before the founding of the City, the Telchines and Caryatii waged a stubborn battle against Phoroneus, king of the Argives, and the Parrhasians, with doubtful hope and without the fruit of victory. And those same Telchines, a little after being defeated in war, fugitives from their fatherland and ignorant of affairs, believing that they were withdrawing themselves utterly from contact with the whole of human habitation, seized the island of Rhodes — which was formerly called Ophiussa — as though it were a safe possession. In the year 1040 before the founding of the City, there was in Achaia a savage flood with very great devastation of almost the whole province.

And because this was poured forth in the times of Ogygius, who was then the founder and king of Eleusis, it gave its name to the place and the time. In the year 1008 before the founding of the City, that there was in Egypt first an unusual and even loathsome abundance, and then a continual and intolerable famine, which Joseph, a just and wise man, relieved by divine foresight — this Pompeius the historian and his abbreviator Justinus teach, who among other things speaks thus: 'Joseph was the youngest in age among his brothers; fearing his outstanding genius, his brothers intercepted him and sold him to foreign merchants. Carried by them into Egypt, when he had grasped the magical arts there by his skillful genius, in a short time he became most dear to the king himself.'

'For he was most shrewd in prodigies, and he was the first to establish the interpretation of dreams, and nothing of divine or human law seemed unknown to him; so much so that, foreseeing many years in advance even the coming sterility of the fields, he gathered together the harvests; and his proofs were so great that the responses seemed to come not from a man, but from God. The son of Joseph was Moses, whom, besides the inheritance of his father's knowledge, the beauty of his form also commended. But the Egyptians, when they suffered scab and lichen-rash, warned by an oracle, drove him out together with the sick beyond the borders of Egypt, lest the plague should creep upon a greater number.' This Justinus.

But since this same Moses — whom these men attest to have been wise and knowing — wrote down these things more fully and more truly, as deeds done by himself and his own people, first their ignorance must be supplied by his reliability and authority, which even these men approve, and then the deceitful malice of the Egyptian priests must be refuted, who either by cunning — which is the more manifest case — strove to withdraw from memory the evident wrath and mercy of the true God, by a confused and piecemeal exposition, lest, to the dishonor of their own idols, they should show that he deserved to be worshipped, by whose counsel these evils were foretold and by whose aid they were avoided, as they themselves had taught; or perhaps — that we may take it more indulgently — they simply forgot.

For by the foresight of that Joseph of ours, who was the servant of the true God and piously and earnestly solicitous on behalf of his lord's creation, they abounded in harvests as though priests; but, because they were false priests, they did not grieve while the rest were starving. Indeed, whoever is pleased forgets; whoever grieves, remembers. Yet although the histories and annals are silent about this period, the very land of Egypt proclaims itself a witness: which, then brought under royal power and restored to its cultivators, has paid out of all its produce, even down to now, an unceasing tribute of a fifth part. And so this great famine was under the king of the Egyptians, a Diopolitan, whose name was Amosis, at which time Baleus ruled the Assyrians, and Apis the Argives.

But before the seven years of famine there preceded another seven years of abundance. And the more carelessly their plenty would have perished, the more abundantly it had sprung up, our Joseph by his shrewdness collected and stored it, and preserved all Egypt. He acquired for Pharaoh the entire wealth and for God the glory, rendering by a most just stewardship to whom tribute, tribute, to whom honor, honor; and he gathered all the herds, lands, and revenues; but those very men, who had sold themselves together with their lands by a valuation for the receiving of alms, he released under a fixed agreement of a fifth part.

This Joseph, whom God appointed for the Egyptians the author of their preserved welfare, who would believe that he so fell out of their memory in a short time, that a little afterward they consigned his sons and his whole kindred to slavery, afflicted them with labors, and ravaged them with massacres? Wherefore it is no wonder, if even now there are found some who, when they have turned aside the sword hanging over their own necks by holding out the Christian name, either dissemble or defame the very name of Christ — by which alone they are saved — and assert that they are burdened by His times, by whose merits they are set free. In the year 810 before the founding of the City, Amphictyon reigned at Athens, the third from Cecrops.

In whose times an inundation of waters consumed the greater part of the peoples of Thessaly, with a few set free through the refuges of the mountains, especially on Mount Parnassus, around whose circuit Deucalion then held the kingdom; he then cherished and nourished those who fled to him in boats, taken up upon the twin ridges of Parnassus; from him, for this reason, they say the race of men was restored. Then too in Ethiopia, Plato is witness that very many plagues and dire diseases blazed up almost to the point of desolation. And lest perchance the times of God's wrath and of warlike fury be believed to be separated, at that same season Father Liber, having subdued India, soaked it with blood, filled it with slaughter, and polluted it with lusts — a nation in no way ever liable to harm any man, content only with its homely quiet.

But in the year 805 before the founding of the City, Pompeius and Cornelius attest that unspeakable evils and intolerable plagues fell upon the Egyptians; and these two, since they both propose that these things are to be referred to the Jews, have moved me somewhat by their divergence. For Pompeius, or rather Justinus, speaks in this manner: 'The Egyptians, when they suffered scab and lichen-rash, warned by an oracle, drove Moses together with the sick beyond the borders of Egypt, lest the plague should creep upon a greater number. Having therefore been made leader of the exiles, he carried off the sacred things of the Egyptians by theft; and when the Egyptians sought to recover them by arms, they were compelled by storms to return home.' But Cornelius speaks thus concerning the same matter:

'Very many authors agree that, when a wasting disease had arisen throughout Egypt which disfigured bodies, King Bocchoris, having approached the oracle of Hammon and sought a remedy, was bidden to purge the kingdom and to convey that kind of men, as hateful to the gods, away into other lands. So when the populace had been sought out and gathered together and abandoned in waste places, while the rest were torpid amid tears, Moses, one of the exiles, warned them not to expect any aid of gods or of men, but to trust in a heavenly leader of their own, by whose aid in the first place they had repelled their present miseries.' And so Cornelius says that the Jews were driven into the deserts by the Egyptians themselves compelling them, and afterward incautiously adds that it was by the help of Moses their leader that they had repelled their miseries in Egypt.

Whereby it is shown that certain things which were vigorously done through Moses had been concealed. Likewise Justinus asserts that Moses, driven out equally with the people, had stolen the sacred things of the Egyptians, which the Egyptians, endeavoring to recover by arms, were forced by storms and driven back, returned home. And here he disclosed something more, even if not the whole, of what the other concealed. Wherefore, since both bore testimony to Moses, that great leader, let the deeds and words be set forth from him, just as through him both deeds were done and words were spoken. When the Egyptians had oppressed the people of God — that is, the lineage of Joseph, by whose help they had been saved — with servitude and tortured them with toil, and moreover compelled them by cruel command to kill their own offspring, God commanded that His people be sent away, free to serve Himself, through Moses His messenger;

and being despised, He drove the obstinate with the harshest punishments: who, burdened and crushed by ten plagues, at last even compelled to hasten away those whom they had been unwilling to release.

AFTER the waters turned into blood, bringing to those burning with thirst remedies of penalties more grievous than the penalties themselves; AFTER the horrid foulness of frogs crawling through all things clean and unclean; AFTER the fiery gnats, nowhere avoidable while the whole air quivered; AFTER the dog-flies darting even through the inner parts of the limbs with horrid motions and bitterly inflicting torments as grievous as they were vile; AFTER the sudden ruin and general destruction of all the cattle and beasts of burden; AFTER the boils breaking out and the ulcers running, and — as they themselves preferred to say — the scab and lichen-rash erupting over their whole bodies; AFTER the hail mixed with fire, crushing men, herds, and trees on every side; AFTER the clouds of locusts, when all else was consumed, pursuing the very roots of the seeds themselves;

AFTER the darkness dreadful with apparitions, palpable in thickness, deadly in duration; and finally AFTER the uniform slaying of the firstborn offspring throughout all Egypt and the equal tempest of bereavement among all — those who had not yielded to God commanding yielded to Him punishing, but soon, by a most wicked repentance, daring to pursue those they had released, they paid the uttermost penalties of their unspeakable obstinacy. For their king drove the whole army of Egypt, equipped with chariots and horsemen, against the wanderers; whose number we can conjecture by this argument alone, and above all, that six hundred thousand men feared and fled from him.

But God, the protector of the oppressed and the avenger of the obstinate, suddenly divided the Red Sea, and with its margins spread apart on either side, He hung up the walls of the stiffened waves erect into the likeness of a mountain, so that, provoked by the hope of an unobstructed path, the pious might enter the way of a salvation despaired of, the impious the pit of a death unforeseen. And so, while the Hebrews walked safely over the dry ground, with the masses of standing waters poured back behind them, the whole multitude of Egypt was overwhelmed and slain together with its king, and the entire province, before tortured by plagues, was emptied by this last slaughter. There exist even now most certain monuments of these deeds.

For the tracks of the chariots and the ruts of the wheels are seen through not only on the shore but even in the deep, as far as sight is admitted; and if perchance for a time they are disturbed, whether by chance or by curiosity, they are at once divinely restored by the winds and waves to their former appearance: so that whoever is not taught the fear of God by zeal for the religion made manifest may be terrified by the example of His wrath in the vengeance once enacted. In these times also so continuous and grievous a heat blazed forth that the sun, conveyed through trackless ways, is said not to have affected the whole world with warmth but to have scorched it with fire; and the Ethiopian could not bear the impressed fervor that was greater than usual, nor the Scythian that which was unaccustomed;

from which also certain men, while not conceding to God His ineffable power, hunting after empty little reasonings, wove the ridiculous fable of Phaethon. Likewise in the year 775 before the founding of the City, among the fifty sons of the brothers Danaus and Aegyptus, parricides were committed in a single night. Then Danaus himself, the contriver of such great crimes, driven from the kingdom which he had acquired by so many outrages, withdrew to Argos, and there, having unworthily persuaded the Argives to a crime, drove from the kingdom Sthenelas — who had received him a fugitive and destitute — and reigned himself. The cruel hospitality and crueler religion of Busiris, a most bloodthirsty tyrant in Egypt, was then in vogue; who used to offer the blood of innocent guests as a drink to the gods, the partners of his crimes:

which without doubt I might have seen to be execrable to men, but whether it would have seemed execrable even to those gods themselves. Then too there was joined to the incest of Tereus the parricide of Procne and Philomela, and a banquet more execrable than both was added through unspeakable foods, when, on account of her sister's chastity snatched away and her tongue cut out, the mother slew her little son and the father ate him. In the same times Perseus was conveyed from Greece into Asia, where he subdued barbarous nations in a grievous and long war, and at last as victor gave his name to the conquered people: for from Perseus the Persians were named. But I now am compelled to confess that, for the convenience of providing an end, I pass over very many things out of so great a surrounding host of the evils of the age, and abbreviate all.

For I could by no means ever pass beyond so dense a forest, unless at times I flew up with frequent leaps. For since the kingdom of the Assyrians was conducted through 1160 years up to Sardanapalus by nearly fifty kings, and almost never rested up to that time, whether in wars to be waged or to be sustained, what end will be found, if we should attempt to commemorate them by counting — not to say by describing? Especially since the affairs of the Greeks are not to be passed over, and those of the Romans above all to be reviewed. Nor is it now necessary for me to enumerate the foul deeds of Tantalus and Pelops, fables fouler still.

Of these, Tantalus, king of the Phrygians, when he had most shamefully carried off Ganymede, son of Tros, king of the Dardanians, detained him with a greater foulness of a joined struggle, as the poet Phanocles confirms, who relates that a very great war was stirred up on this account: either because he wishes this very Tantalus, being a follower of the gods, to seem to have prepared the abducted boy for the lust of Jupiter by a procurer's familiar service — he who would not even hesitate to spend his own son Pelops upon his banquets. It is wearisome even to relate the contests, however great, of Pelops himself against Dardanus and the Trojans: which, because they are wont to be celebrated in fables, are heard more carelessly.

Those things too I pass over which are related — Palaephatus being the writer — concerning Perseus, Cadmus, the Thebans and Spartans, through the inextricable recurrences of alternating evils. I am silent about the outrages of the Lemnian women; I pass over the lamentable flight of Pandion, king of the Athenians; the hatreds, defilements, and parricides of Atreus and Thyestes, hateful even to heaven, I disguise. I omit Oedipus, slayer of his father, husband of his mother, brother of his sons, his own stepfather. I prefer that it be left in silence that Eteocles and Polynices labored in mutual onslaughts, lest either of them should fail to be a parricide. I do not wish to recall Medea, wounded by savage love and rejoicing in the slaughter of her little pledges, and whatever was perpetrated in those times: it is given to conjecture how men endured what even the stars are said to have fled.

In the year 560 before the founding of the City, there was a most atrocious conflict between the Cretans and the Athenians, where, with the peoples on both sides unhappily prostrated, the Cretans exercised the more bloody victory; they cruelly assigned the sons of noble Athenians to be devoured by the Minotaur — which I know not whether to call more aptly a wild man or a human beast — and fattened that misshapen monster with the gouged-out lights of Greece. In those same days the Lapiths and Thessalians strove in all-too-famous clashes. But Palaephatus, in the first book of his Incredible Tales, reports that the Thessalians themselves were believed and called Centaurs by the Lapiths, because, as horsemen ranging about in war, they seemed to be one single body of horses and men.

In the year 480 before the founding of the City, Vesozes, king of Egypt, eager either to mingle in war or to join to his kingdom the regions of south and north — divided as they are by well-nigh the whole sky and sea — was the first to declare war upon the Scythians, having first sent envoys who should dictate to the enemy the laws of submission. To which the Scythians reply to the envoys that a most opulent king had foolishly taken up war against the poor; that it ought rather, by the reverse turn, to be feared by himself, because of the uncertain outcomes of war there were no rewards and manifest losses. Moreover, that they would not wait until they were come against, but would go of their own accord to meet the plunder. Nor was there delay, for they followed their words with deeds.

First they compel Vesozes himself, terrified, to flee back into his kingdom; but the army he had abandoned they invade, and they seize all the apparatus of war; they would have laid waste the whole of Egypt too, had they not been impeded by marshes and driven back. Thence, returning at once, they made Asia, subdued by countless slaughters, tributary; where, having tarried for fifteen years without peace, they were at last recalled by the entreaty of their wives, who declared that, unless they returned, they would seek offspring from their neighbors. Meanwhile among the Scythians two royal youths, Plynos and Scolopetius, driven from home by the faction of the nobles, drew with them a great multitude of young men and settled on the coast of Pontic Cappadocia near the river Thermodon, the Themiscyrian plains being subjected to them;

where, having for a long time plundered all the nearby places, they are butchered by treachery through a conspiracy of their neighbors. Their wives, stirred by exile and widowhood, take up arms, and, that an equal spirit might arise in all from a like condition, they kill the men who had survived, and, inflamed against the enemy, by their own blood they obtain vengeance for their slain husbands through the destruction of their neighbors. Then, peace having been sought by arms, they enter upon unions with outsiders; the males born they soon kill, the females they zealously nourish, the right breasts of the infants being seared, lest the casting of arrows be impeded; whence they were called Amazons. Of these there were two queens, Marpesia and Lampeto, who, dividing their host into two parts, took by turns the charge of war and the guardianship of home.

Therefore, when they had subdued Europe for the greatest part, and had taken some cities of Asia, and had themselves founded Ephesus and other cities, they recalled home the chief part of their army, laden with most opulent plunder, while the rest, left behind to guard the empire of Asia, were butchered along with Queen Marpesia in an onset of the enemy. Her place her daughter Sinope took up, who crowned the singular glory of her valor with perpetual virginity.

By this report such great admiration and dread had invaded the peoples that even Hercules, when he had been ordered by his master to produce the arms of the queen, as though destined to an unavoidable peril, gathered together the chosen and noble youth of all Greece, prepared nine long ships, and yet, not content with so great a swarm of forces, preferred to attack unexpectedly and to surround them unforeseen. Two sisters then ruled the kingdom, Antiope and Orithyia. Hercules, conveyed by sea, overwhelmed them off their guard, unarmed, and slothful through their unconcern for peace. Among the very many slain and captured, two sisters of Antiope: Melanippe was retained by Hercules, Hippolyte by Theseus.

But Theseus took Hippolyte into marriage, while Hercules gave Melanippe back to her sister and received the queen's arms as the price of ransom. After Orithyia, Penthesilea gained the kingdom, of whose valor we have received most illustrious proofs among men in the Trojan war. O the grief! It shames me of human error. Women, fugitives from their fatherland, entered, ranged over, and destroyed Europe and Asia — that is, the most numerous and mightiest parts of the world — and for almost a hundred years held them, overthrowing very many cities and establishing others: and yet the misery of men was not imputed to the pressure of the times.

But now those Getae, who are even now the Goths — whom Alexander pronounced should be avoided, Pyrrhus shuddered at, and Caesar even shrank from — having left and emptied their own seats and having entered with all their forces all the Roman provinces, and having long displayed themselves for terror's sake, hope by entreaties for the fellowship of the Roman alliance, which they could have claimed by arms; they ask for a seat of scanty habitation, not by their own choosing but by our decision, men to whom, with the whole earth subjected and lying open, it was free to presume whatever they pleased; they offer themselves for the defense of the Roman realm, they whom alone the unconquered kingdoms feared.

And yet blind paganism, though it does not see that these things were accomplished by Roman valor, does not believe — when the good faith of the Romans is obtained — nor acquiesce, though it understands; it will not confess that, by the benefit of the Christian religion — which joins a kindred faith among all peoples — the men of those women were made subject to them without battle, whose women had destroyed the greater part of the lands by immense slaughters. But indeed in the year 430 before the founding of the City, the rape of Helen, the conspiracy of the Greeks and the gathering of a thousand ships, then the ten-year siege, and at last the famous destruction of Troy are proclaimed.

In that war, waged most bloodily through ten years, the poet Homer, illustrious among the foremost, has openly shown in a most brilliant poem what nations and how great peoples that same whirlwind enveloped and crushed; and it is not for me now to recount it in order, since the work would be too long and the matter seems known to all. Nevertheless, let those who have learned of the long duration of that siege, the ferocity of its overthrow, the slaughter and the captivity, consider whether they are rightly offended by this present condition of the times, whatever it may be, when their enemies—by a hidden mercy of God—though they could pursue them in war through all lands with marshalled forces, yet for the sake of peace, with hostages offered beforehand, follow after them across every sea;

And lest perchance these things be thought to be done out of love of quiet, they offer themselves and their own perils on behalf of the peace of the Romans against other nations. Furthermore, after a few intervening years, what wars the coming of Aeneas, the fugitive from Troy, into Italy stirred up, what wars he aroused over three years, how many peoples he entangled, how many he afflicted with hatred and destruction—this too is branded into our memory by the teaching of the schools of letters. Besides, in the middle of these times lie the exiles and shipwrecks of the Greeks, the disasters of the Peloponnesians broken by the death of Codrus, the obscure Thracians rising up into new wars, and a general upheaval then throughout the whole of Asia and Greece.

Sixty-four years before the founding of the City, Sardanapalus reigned last among the Assyrians, a man more corrupt than a woman: who, amid herds of harlots, in a woman's dress and spinning purple wool on a distaff, was seen by his prefect Arbatus, who then ruled the Medes, and was held in execration; soon, the Median peoples being roused, he was challenged to war and, being conquered, threw himself onto a blazing pyre. Thereupon the kingdom of the Assyrians passed to the Medes. Then, with many battles welling up everywhere—which it seems by no means fitting to relate in order—through various outcomes the kingdom returned by a like path to the Scythians and Chaldeans, and again to the Medes. And in this brevity it must be weighed:

how great were the ruins and disasters of the nations, how great the wars that flowed forth, where so often so many and such kingdoms were changed. After this Phraortes ruled over the Medes, who consumed the twenty-two years of his reign in most frequent wars with the Assyrians and Persians. After him reigned Diocles, a man most experienced in arms and ever engaged in wars; who, dying, handed over to Astyages the empire that he had widely enlarged. Astyages, lacking male offspring, had a grandson Cyrus, born among the Persians. But Cyrus, as soon as he came of age, gathered a band of Persians and declared war upon his grandfather.