JORDANES

DE SUMMA TEMPORUM VEL ORIGINE

ACTIBUSQUE GENTIS ROMANORUM
And an American English translation by Brian T. Regan, Ph.D.
Adjusted to classical-ecclesiastical spelling, with occasional
modications of the early medieval, misconstructed case
endings
to accord with classical Latin norms and better reveal the
underlying meaning. (For the diplomatic text, see Theodorus
Mommsen, 1882.)
(This may be the rst Latin-to-modern-language translation
of the Romana since the 1842 French publication of August
Savagners Jornandes: De la succession des Royaumes et des
Temps [Paris: C.L.F. Panckoucke, 1842].), to which this
version owes much.
As Mommsen points out, Jordanes used (and largely plagiarized
from) a number of sources, among which are the following:
- The Chronological Tables for Olympiads 111 to 169 (= 336101 B.C.) of Eusebius, as translated into Latin by St. Jerome.
In the margins of his edition, Mommsen lists the year numbers
(counting from Adam) corresponding to each chapter.
- Florus: The Epitome of Roman History (Epitome de T. Livio
Bellorum omnium annorum DCC Libri duo), by the secondcentury A.D. author, Lucius Annus Florus.
Jordanes
plagiarized Florus for much of chapters 87-210, 224, 236-237,
241-249, 251 (part)-254 of the Romana.
- Rufus Festus The Accomplishments of the Roman People (Ru
Festi Breviarum rerum gestarum Populi Romani), addressed in
370 to Emperor Flavius Valens (A.D. 363378). (Rufus Festus
was magister memori under Valens, whose most memorable
accomplishment was being burnt to death by Goths in the battle
of Adrianople, A.D. 378 August 9.)
- Orosius Historiae adversum Paganos

- Eutropius Abridgement of Roman History

- Marcellinus Comes, the Chronicon
- Sextus Aurelius Victor, the Epitome Victoris
The ancient Germanic names found in the Romana are here
regularized according to the spellings given in M. Schnfeld,
Wrterbuch der altgermanischen Personen- und Vlkernamen,
nach der berlieferung des klassischen Altertums bearbeitet,
zweite, unvernderte Auflage (Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche
Buchgesellschaft, 1965). In the English translation, the Old
Germanic, mostly Visigothic, form is spelled out, often with the
names meaning. Thus, the name of the warlord who deposed
Romulus Augustulus, the last Western emperor, is usually written
as Odoacer, but is here presented as Odowacar in the
Latin text, and in the English as Aua-wakr {Blest-awake,
"Fortunate (in) alertness, Auspiciously conscious}.
1
Thank you for your vigilance, most noble Brother Vigilius, for
having nally awakened me with your questions from a long
sleep. Thanks to God Almighty for having made you concerned
so that not only you but others likewise should be vigilant.
Congratulations on your merits!
2
For you want to be taught to understand the trials of the present
world or when it began or what has been endured up to our time.
You further add that from the stories of our predecessors I
should pluck some little flowers and briefly relate to you how
the Roman state began and endured, subjugated practically the
whole world, and should endure up to now in the imagination;
or even how the series of kings should have proceeded from
Romulus and, in succession, from Augustus Octavian to
Augustus Justinian that this, however simply, I should
nevertheless explain to you in my own words.
3

Granted that what you are urging can suit neither my linguistic
talent nor my expertise, nonetheless, in order not to disregard the
requests of a friend, I have collected widely strewn data in
whatever way I could. And starting rst from the authority of
the divine Scriptures, which it is tting to uphold, and running
through the heads of families all the way to the Deluge of the
earth, I have come down to the empire of Ninus who, reigning
over the Assyrian people, conquered almost all of Asia, and all
the way to Arbaces the Mede who, destroying the Assyrian
empire, turned it into a Median one and held it up to Cyrus the
Persian, who in like manner overturned the Median empire and
changed it into a Parthian one, and thence all the way to
Alexander the Great of Macedon who, having conquered the
Parthians, transferred the empire into the control of the Greeks.
4
After that, the way in which Octavian Augustus Csar,
overturning the Greek empire, placed it under the law and
control of the Romans. And that before Augustus, through seven
centuries the Roman Republic had subjected a number of states
through the skill of its citizens, taking its origin from its founder
Romulus this I have, however briefly, nonetheless completed
in the twenty-fourth year of Emperor Justinian, in this one tiny
book dedicated to you. I have added to it another volume on the
origin and deeds of the Getic people, which I published some
time ago for our common friend, Castalia, so that, learning of the
disaster of various peoples, you might desire to become free of
all trouble and turn to God, who is true freedom.
5
So in reading both books, realize that compulsion constantly
overhangs him who loves the world. You, on the other hand,
listen to the Apostle John who says, Dearly beloved, love
neither the world nor the things in it. Because the world passes
away, together with its desires. But he who does the will of God
endures forever. {1 John 2, 15-17} And with your whole heart
be someone who loves God and his neighbor, so that you fulll
the law and pray for me, most noble and wonderful brother.

6
As Jamblichus {(Chalcidensis, A.D. 245 325, Assyrian
Neoplatonist philosopher)} says, the Romans made the world
their own through arms and laws: they established this, it is
true, by arms, but they kept it by means of laws. Which I too,
following that most erudite man, have considered necessary to
prestablish as a kind of extraordinary decoration for my little
work as I consider writing a few things about the passage of
time. For in response to the inquiries of my most faithful friend,
after sampling things from the various volumes of our
predecessors, I desire, as far as it is within my ability, to
condense a few little flowers into a single one and to collect
cursorily and briefly in a kind of historical summary both the
sequence of years and also the exploits of those men who with
great effort labored for the empire.
7
For however simple I believe these facts may seem to the highly
educated, I think it will be welcome to ordinary people if they
can read them in abbreviated form and, without boredom or any
ornate language, can understand what they may be reading. For
from the beginning of the world and the rst creation both of
man and of the elements until the world Deluge, I have,
following the statements of that truthful lawgiver Moses,
summarized two thousand four hundred and two years. During
these years, while human nature was still primitive and simple, it
was not kings but the heads of families that were over their
tribes. Their sequence was as follows {cf. Genesis 5}:
8
Adam, the original man and rst of mortals lived 230 years and
begat Seth.
Seth lived 205 years and begat Eno.
Enos autem lived 190 years and begat Kenan.
Cainan item lived 170 years and begat Mahalalel.

Malelehel lived 165 years and begat Jared.

Jareth vero lived 162 years and begat Enoch.
Enoch vero lived 165 years and begat Mathuselah.
Mathusala lived 167 years and begat Lamech.
Lamech quoque lived 188 years and begat Noah.
9
Noah, however, was six hundred years old when the Deluge
expiated the worlds horrible crimes. From his reign, or from
the Deluge itself, until the confusion of tongues which was
likewise caused by the sins of those who were building the
Tower {[of Babel]} on the plain of inar, and up to Eber, in
whom the Hebrew nation and original language continued
because he was not part of that conspiracy, there are 525 years
through the families in the following way {cf. Genesis 11, 1026}:
10
Arpachad, the son of em, grandson of Noah, who was born the
second year after the Deluge, lived 135 years and begat Kenan.
Kenan, however, lived 130 years and begat elah.
elah in turn lived 130 years and begat Eber.
Eber also lived 130 years and begat Peleg.
So from the confusion of tongues and the primacy of Eber
(whence the Hebrews) and up to the birth of Abraham, when
also Ninus, the rst king in the world, ruled over the nation of
the Assyrians, in the year 42 of his reign, if we run through the
above-said sequence of families, the years amount to 541 thus:
Peleg lived 130 years and begat Reu.
Reu lived 132 years and begat Serug.

Serug on the other hand lived 130 years and begat Nahor.
Nahor in turn lived 79 years and begat Terah.
Terah also lived 70 years and begat Abram.
11
In all, thus, from Adam and up to the birth of Abram that is,
from the beginning of the world until the forty-second year of
Ninus, the rst king of the Assyrians, as we said above
through the families and their heads, it amounted to twenty
generations, but 3,308 years; at this point now dropping
families, let us pursue the sequence of kings and, like Eusebius
or Jerome, running rst through the monarchy of the Assyrians,
then the of Medes and Persians and the Greeks, continue at
greater length as to how power devolved upon the Roman
empire, or under what sort of times, if the Lord allows.
12
We must begin with the ancient Assyria of kings and kingdoms,
in which the rst was Ninus, the son of {the god} Bel, who
founded the city of Niniveh named after himself and reigned for
42 years, whereby starting from the rst year of Ninus himself
and until the nal year of Tonos Concoleros (whom the Greeks
call Sardanapal), whom Arbaces, satrap of the Medes, killed
{888 B.C.}, transferring his kingdom to the Medes, the reign of
thirty-six kings lasted for a thousand two hundred and forty
years, thus:
13
Following the birth of Abram, Ninus, king of the Assyrians,
reigned for 10 years.
14
Semiramis, Ninuss wife, for 42 years: They say she is a kind of
founder of Babylonia, even though it may not be recorded that

she founded it, but repaired it.

manhood in Chaldea.

Under her Abram grew to

15
Zameis, also called Ninias, the son of Ninus and Semiramis, for
38 years: in his thirty-third year the Promise was made to
Abram when he was 75 years old.
16
Arius, for 30 years: in his tenth year the centenarian Abraham
begat his son Isaac.
17
Aralius for 40 years: in the last year of this mans reign Isaacs
twins were born, that is, Jacob and Esau.
18
Xerxes, also called Balus, for 30 years: in the reign of this
man, in the time of Jacob, Esau, fleeing from his brother, went
down alone to Egypt and came back up enriched with a throng.
19
Armamitres for 38 years: Jacob, leaving his service to his
father-in-law Laban, returns to his father
20
Belochus, for 35 years: during this mans reign Joseph as a
young man tells his father and brothers about his dreams.
21
Balus, for 52 years: in this mans thirtieth year Jacob,
impoverished by hunger, goes down to Egypt and there nds his
son placed over the land of all Egypt.
22

Altadas for 32 years: during his reign Jacob died in Egypt;

Joseph transported his body to the land of Canaan in great honor.
23
Maminthus for 30 years: Under the time of this mans reign
Joseph dies and the Egyptians oppress the Hebrews with
harshest servitude.
24
Macchaleus for 30 years: during his reign too the servitude of
the Hebrews continues in Egypt.
25
Sphrus for 30 years: in the nal times of this mans reign
Amram of the tribe of Levi begat Moses.
26
Mamylus for 30 years: during his reign the maturing Moses
learned all the wisdom of the Egyptians.
27
Sparthus for 40 years: at which time Moses, having killed an
Egyptian, flees to the land of Midian.
28
Ascatades for 40 years: in the eighth year of this mans reign,
Moses, in the 430th year of the Promise leads the Hebrew
people with signs and wonders from Egypt and during forty
years in the desert explains the Law to them.
29
Amyntes for 45 years: in this mans ninth year Moses dies and
presents Joshua {Vg. Josue: Book of Joue} the son of Naun
{Vg. Nun: Jos 2} to the people for their leadership.

30
Belochus for 25 years: under whom Gothoniel {Vg. Othoniel:
Jdg 3} is a judge of the Hebrews and Phinehas {Vg. Phinees:
Nbr 25} holds the priesthood.
31
Bellepares for 30 years: in which time Ehud {Vg. Aod: Jdg 3}
and the aliens were extremely hostile.
32
Lamprides for 37 years: and in this mans reign too, Ehud
continues as a judge to the Hebrews.
33
Sosarmos for 20 years: and in this mans times Ehud, even
though old, nonetheless still stood rm and fought with the
aliens and conquered, aided by God.
34
Lamperes for 30 years: during his reign Deborah headed the
Jews, and Barak {Vg. Debbora, Barac: Jdg 4; 5}.
35
Panyas for 45 years: in whose time the Jews were led by Gideon
{Vg. Gedeon: Jdg 6; 7; 8}, also called Jerubbaal.
36
Sosarmus for 19 years: in whose time Tola and Abimelech {Vg.
Thola, Abimelech: Jdg 9; 10} were the judges of the Hebrews.
37
Mithrus for 29 years: under whom Jair headed the Jews.

38
Teutamus for 22 years: under whose reign Ibzan and Abdon
{Vg. Abesan, Abdon: Jdg 12} were the judges of the Hebrews.
Indeed at that very same time the Greeks devastated Troy;
fleeing thence, neas came to Italy, joining with Latinus, the
son of Faunus, grandson of Picus and great-grandson of Saturn,
through relationship by marriage, having taken his daughter
Lavinia as wife. The united Trojans and Italics they called
Latins.
39
And thus now from that time and continuing on after Latinus,
even though in a very poor kingdom and narrow territory (which
was called the eld of Laurentum), the rulers were neas and
his successors, who were called Silvii and Albani after the city
Albanum and after the posthumous son of neas, likewise
named neas, who was surnamed Silvius because after the
death of neas, Lavinia, fearing the hatred of Ascanius,
secretely gave birth to him in a forest {silva} and called him
neas Silvius. Before him, as we said above, Italy was ruled
by Janus, Saturn, Picus, Faunus and Latinus for about 180 years.
40
Teutus for 40 years: under whom the famous, superstrong
Samson {Vg. Samson: Jdg 13; 15} was the strongest judge of
the Hebrews.
41
Thinus for 30 years: during the eighteenth year of his reign,
the priest Eli {Vg. Heli: 1 Sam (Vg. 1 Kgs) 1-4}, hearing the
news of his sons, the Ark of the Covenant snatched away, fell
and died.
42
Dercylus for 40 years: under whom for a certain while Saul
{Vg. Saul: 1 Sam (Vg. 1 Kgs) 9-31} was king of the Hebrews,
for another while, however, David {Vg. Saul: 2 Sam (Vg. 2

Kgs), 1 Kgs (Vg. 3 Kgs) 1-2} of the tribe of Juda ruled,

established as king.
43
Eupalis for 38 years: in the thirty-second year of his reign,
Solomon {Vg. Salomon: 1 Kgs (Vg. 3 Kgs) 2-11} started the
temple of the Lord and completed it uniquely in the world in
seven years.
44
Laosthenes for 45 years: and during his reign over the
Assyrians, Solomon was king over the Hebrews, but Zadok {Vg.
Sadoc: 2 Sam (Vg. 2 Kgs); 1 Kgs (Vg. 3 Kgs); 1 Chr (Vg. 1
Par) 24} and Ahijah of Shiloh {Vg. Ahias Silonites: 1 Kgs (Vg.
3 Kgs) 11; 2 Chr (Vg. 2 Par) 9-10} were prophesying.
45
Pertiades for 30 years: under whom, with the death of Solomon,
the kingdom of the Hebrews was divided between Rehoboam
{Vg. Roboam: 1 Kgs (Vg. 3 Kgs) 12, 14; 2 Chr (Vg. 2 Par) 1113; Ecclcus 46} and Jeroboam {Vg. Jeroboam: 1 Kgs (Vg. 3
Kgs) 11-16; 2 Kgs (Vg. 4 Kgs) 23; 2 Chr (Vg. 2 Par) 9-13;
Ecclcus 47}, and the ones were called Jews, the others
Israelites.
46
Ophratus for 20 years: under that man, on the side of the Jews,
Jehoshaphat {Vg. Josaphat: 1 Kgs (Vg. 3 Kgs) 22} reigned, but
on that of the Israelites, following the swift deaths of Nadab and
Basha, with Elah and Omri dying, Ahab {Vg. Achab: 1 & 2 Kgs
(Vg. 3 & 4 Kgs), passim; 2 Chr (Vg. 2 Par) 18-22; Mic 6} held
power with Jezebel{Vg. Jezabel: 1 Kgs (Vg. 3 Kgs) 16, 18, 19,
21; 2 Kgs (Vg. 4 Kgs) 9}.
47
Ophratanes for 50 years: under whom Jehoram, Ahaziah and
Athaliah and Joash held the kingship on the side of Judah; but

on the Iraelite side, Ahaziah, Jehoram and Jehu succeeded to the

principate one after the other.
48
Acraganes for 42 years: under whom Amaziah, called to the
kingship in Judah, held the principate; But Jehoahaz and Joash
reigned over Israel, one after the other.
49
Tonos Concoleros (whom the Greeks call Sardanapal) for 20
years: under whom, of the Jews were Azariah, also called
Hoshaiah, and for the Israelites, Jeroboam. Thus after a
thousand two hundred and forty years the empire of the
Assyrians came to the end of that great length, and was
transferred to the Medes. For Arbaces, the satrap of the Medes,
after Sardanapal had been killed, invaded his empire and turned
it over to the Medes.
50
Arbaces, king of the Medes, for 28 years: under whom reigned
Azariah, also called Hoshaiah, on the side of Judah. In Israel,
however, after Jeroboam, there was Zechariah for a few days,
and in his turn Shallum, both of whom Menahem succeeded.
51
Sosarmus for 30 years: in the region of Judah Jotham reigned;
for the Israelites, Pekiah, when in his fteenth year {736 B.C.}
the rst Olympiad also began to be called {(actually the rst one
was in 776 B.C.)}. Then after what I might call innumerable
Silvian and Albanan kings of the Laurentum area and in Latium,
who for three hundred years reigned, however impoverishedly,
in a section of Italy, King Amulius had made Rea, the daughter
of his own brother Numitor (she was also called Ilia), a Vestal
virgin. Being then discovered pregnant, when she strove to
excuse her sin, she lied that she had been raped by Mars. When
two twins were born of her, the king ordered them exposed.
After some prostitute named Lupa {She-wolf} heard them
crying, she immediately picked them up and took them to

Faustulus, a shepherd. His wife, Acca, nourishing them, taught

them how to live among other shepherds.
52
Mamythos {(/ Mamythus / Manithus / Mamicus / Madichus /
Medidus / Medydus)} for 40 years: during his reign over the
Medes, Ahaz reigned over the Jews, over the Israelites a second
Pekah. In the ninth year of Mamythos, the seventh Olympiad,
Romulus and his brother (whom we said had been raised among
shepherds), gathering a multitude of shepherds, began the
building of the Roman city; and the younger one, who had
killed his brother, ordered the city to be called Rome after his
own name. Passing over this mans actions and the line of his
successors in a kind of leap I will, as I began, hurry through the
foreign empires, and when the opportunity offers itself, return to
that sequence. Only you who are reading this, note that from the
beginning of the world and up to the birth of this great city there
were 4,650 years.
53
Cardyceas for 13 years: under whom Hezekiah, the son of Ahaz,
succeeded to the throne of the Jews. For in the fteenth year of
the above-mentioned Mamythos, the Israelite people were led
captive in the mountains by Shalmaneser, king of the Medes,
after they had reigned in Samaria for 250 years.
54
Deioces for 54 years: early in this mans time, Manasseh is
reported to have been led captive from the Judah of the Hebrews
and, bound in iron chains, done penance. His canticle of
repentance is also read. Afterwards, however, having returned to
his kingdom, he left his son Amon as his successor.
55
Phraortes for 22 years: under whom Josiah was the Jews king,
who cut down the groves and cast the idols of the pagans out of
his kingdom and uprightly worshipped the God of heaven.

56
Cyaxares for 32 years:
under whom Jehoahaz reigned,
succeeded by Eliakim, also named Jehoiakim, then another
Jehoiachin acceded to the throne while the rst Cyaxares was
still living, under whom the end of the kingdom occurred {587
B.C.}.
57
Astyages for 38 years: in this mans eighth year the Jews are
captured from Jerusalem by Nebuchadnezzar, king of the
Babylonians. Thus the empire of the Medes, which ruled for
248 years, was destroyed and delivered to the Persians, because
Cyrus, the king of the Persians, and Darius of the Medes, the son
of the above-said Astyages, connected by relationship, were
nephew and maternal uncle. And falling upon Belshazzar, the
grandson of Nebuchadnezzar the king of Babylonia (that is, of
the Chaldeans), they overran his empire. And after the death of
Darius, Cyrus also achieved his own empire i.e., of the
Persians as well as of his relative through marriage, Darius
that is, of the Medes , together with the third empire that he
had captured. That people reigned through about 230 years from
the aforesaid Cyrus and until Darius {III}, the son of Arsames,
and thus from the Persian people fell into the hands of the
Greeks after ten kings {331 B.C.}.
{From Flavius Josephus, Antiquities of the Jews, 10, 11, 4
(Whistons translation):}
And falling upon Belshazzar
(irruentesque super Baltasar): Now after a little while, both he
himself [i.e., Baltasar (Belshazzar)] and the city were taken by
Cyrus, the king of Persia, who fought against him; for it was
Balthasar under whom Babylon was taken, when he had reigned
seventeen years. And this is the end of the posterity of king
Nebuchadnezzar, as history informs us; but when Babylon was
taken by Darius, and when he, with his kinsman Cyrus, had put
an end to the dominion of the Babylonians, he was sixty-two
years old. He was the son of Astyages, and had another name
among the Greeks.
58

Cyrus the Persian for 32 years: ending their captivity, this man
had almost fty thousand Jews return to Judea. Having built an
altar, they laid the foundations of a temple. And since they were
hindered by neighboring peoples, the work remained incomplete
until Darius.
59
Cambyses for 8 years: and under that man the work, blocked by
neighboring peoples, came to a halt and ceased being built.
60
Two brothers, Persian priests, reign for 8 months.
61
Darius {I} for 36 years: in whose second year {519 B.C.} the
temple was rebuilt by Zerubbabel and Jeshua the son of Jozadak
in the ve hundred twelfth year after the rst construction under
Solomon, from Adam, however, more or less 4,930.
62
Next Xerxes, the son of Darius, for 20 years: he reigned over
the Persians, Medes and Chaldeans.
63
Artabanus for 7 months.
64
Artaxerxes, who was called Longhand, for 40 years.
65
Xerxes {II} for two months.
66
Sogdianus for 7 months.

67
Darius {II} surnamed the Bastard, for 19 years.
68
Artaxerxes {II}, also called Mnemon, the son of Darius {II} and
Parysatis, for 40 years: he is the very same one called
Ahasuerus by the Hebrews, under whom the book of Esther was
made.
69
Artaxerxes {III}, also called Ochus, for 26 years: this man,
namely, destroyed Sidon and subjected Egypt to his own rule
and invaded the whole of Syria.
70
Arses, the son of Ochus, for 4 years: under whom was Jaddua,
the greatest and magnicent high priest of the Jews.
71
Darius, the son of Asarmus {[a Persian satrap in Egypt]}, for 6
years: the Macedonian, Alexander the Great, who founded
Alexandria in his own name, killed him and changed his empire
into his own domain, which was ruled by Greek kings for 296
years.
72
Alexander the Great, after the death of Darius, for 5 years.
73
Ptolemy, the son of Lagos, for 40 years: this man again led the
Hebrew people captive into Egypt.
74

Ptolemy Philadelphus for 28 years: this man having ended the

captivity of the Jews and placated the Jewish high priest Eleazar
with gifts, through seventy translators translated the divine
Scriptures from the Hebrew language into Greek.
75
Ptolemy {III} Euergetes {I} for 26 years: in the times of this
man, Jesus son of Sira wrote a book of wisdom {now often
known as the Wisdom of Sirach or Ecclesiasticus. Actually
it was written during the reign of Ptolemy VIII Euergetes II,
Physcon}.
76
Ptolemy {IV} Philopator for 17 years: under this man the Jews
were again conquered and sixty thousand of them killed by
Antiochus {III}, the king of Syria, when Onias was also the
great high priest.
77
Ptolemy {V} Epiphanes for 24 years: this man, through his
legate Scopas, head of the military, captures Judea; after Scopas
is in turn overcome by Antiochus, Antiochus allies Judea to
himself in friendship.
78
Ptolemy {VI} Philometor for 35 years: under this king the Jew
Aristobulus, a Peripatetic philosopher, wrote commentaries on
the books of Moses and offered them to King Ptolemy.
Antiochus, however, working against the law of the Jews, killed
many of them. Against him Judas, also called Maccabee
{(Hammer)}, revolted.
79
Ptolemy {VIII} Euergetes {II, Physcon (Sausage-belly)} for
28 years: during his reign there is Jonathan, an eminent leader
of the Jews, who enters into alliance with the Romans and the
Spartans.

80
Ptolemy {VIII Euergetes II} Physcon, also called Soter {II
(Savior)}, for 17 years: under him, Aristobulus, Jonathans
son, is made both king and high priest of the Jews.
81
Ptolemy {X}, also called Alexander, for 10 years: during his
reign the Jewish people endured a great deal from the forces of
both Alexander as well as of Antiochus.
82
Ptolemy {IX} Lathyros, who had been thrown out by his mother,
for 8 years: Jannus, also called Alexander, reigned over the
Jews at that time.
83
Ptolemy {XII} Dionysus for 30 years: under whose reign
Alexandra, also named Salina, the wife of Alexander {Jannus}
king of the Hebrews, rules over Jerusalem, from which time
confusion and various disasters plague the Jews.
84
Cleopatra, for 22 years: with her reign the Jews, entering into
friendship with the Romans, now live according to their laws,
because Pompey, having removed Aristobulus, had placed his
brother Hyrcanus in charge. Indeed, the Roman general
Antonius, accepting Cleopatra and taking her to his own side,
fought with his own citizens. Octavian Augustus, overcoming
him on the Actian coast, forced both of the mated pair to kill
themselves, and their kingdom became part of the empire of the
Romans, where even up to now, and until the end of the world,
according to the prophecy of Daniel, the succession of rule must
be. And it must be kept in mind that Imperial power arises from
that point.
85

Emperor Augustus, also called Octavian, after whom subsequent

leaders were called Augusti, by both conquering domestic
citizens and overcoming foreign peoples, acquired the sole
principate, reigning for 55 years; in the forty-second year of his
command, our Lord Jesus Christ, born of a holy virgin as true
God thus and true man, shone forth in wondrous signs and
powers in the year 5,500 from the beginning of the world, but
755 from the creation of the city of Rome.
86
And because you decided to inquire about the sequence and
actions of Roman affairs, and we have promised to respond
briefly to your inquiries, for the time being we therefore need to
hold off on the things which are narrated about the times of
Augustus and go back again to the beginnings of the Roman city,
and to explain the origin of Romulus its founder, and
simultaneously to explain clearly the years and actions of his
successors, kings and consuls, which are as follows:
87
From the origin of the city of Rome and up to King Tarquinius,
surnamed the Arrogant who was also expelled , the count
of years is 753. For that famous rst founder of the city and
empire, Romulus, was conceived by Mars (to tell it in their own
words) and Rea Silvia. The priestess confessed this about her
pregnant self. Nor is the narrative then uncertain that when,
thrown into the current with his brother Remus due to the
command of King Amulius, he could not be killed, considering
that {(the river-god)} Tiberinus even held the river in check and
a she-wolf, abandoning her whelps and following the cries, gave
her breasts to the infants and performed the function of a mother.
88
So Faustulus, a shepherd of the royal flock, took the infants,
found near a tree, into his house and raised them. At that time
the head of Latium was Alba {Longa}, the work of Julus
{(Ascanius)}, for he had held in contempt the Lavinium of
father neas. Amulius reigned now in the seventh generation

after these men, having dethroned his brother Numitor, whose

daughters son was Romulus. So right from the initial
appearance of his youth he expelled his paternal uncle from the
citadel and deposed his grandfather. He himself, a lover of the
river and the mountains among which he had been raised,
developed the walls of the new city.
89
They were twins. It was decided to have the gods choose which
of the two should start and reign. Remus took Mount Aventine,
the other the Palatine. At rst, the former saw six vultures, but
the latter subsequently twelve. Thus the victor in the augury
initiated the city, full of hope it would be a warlike one. The
birds, adapted to blood and spoil, were promising that. It
appeared that for the protection of the new city a wall would
sufce. Remus, then ridiculing its narrow connes, jumped over
it. He was murdered, it being uncertain whether it was at the
order of his brother. Certainly he was the rst sacricial victim,
and consecratred the defenses of the new city with his own
blood.
90
He had made a picture of a city rather than a city: it lacked
inhabitants. There was a grove nearby; he made this an asylum,
and immediately there was an amazing number of men, Latin
and Tuscan shepherds, even, from across the sea, Phrygians who
were under nas, Arcadians under the leader Euander, had
flowed in. Thus out of various as it were elements he assembled
a single body, and himself created the Roman people. The
situation was of a single age, a population of men. And hence,
because they were not getting them after having sought marriage
from the neighboring tribes, it was taken by force of arm.
During pretended equestrian games, the young women who had
come to the spectacle became the spoils.
91
These events were immediately the cause of war. The Veientines
were repulsed and put to flight. The town of the Cnines was
captured and pillaged. In addition the king brought back by

hand the rich spoils from King Acron to the Feretrian Jove. The
gates were betrayed to the Sabines by a virgin, Tarpeia, not by
trickery, but the girl sought as a reward of her deed what they
bore on their left arms it being uncertain whether their shields
or their bracelets. The Sabines, in order to keep their word as
well as get revenge, buried her under their shields. With the
enemy having thus been admitted inside the walls, there was a
ferocious battle in the forum itself, to the point that Romulus
prayed to Jove to stop the disgraceful flight of his own men.
Hence the temple and Jupiter the Stayer.
92
Finally, the kidnapped women, their hair disheveled, intervened
in the deadly matter; thus peace was made with Tatius, and a
treaty was struck. And the following is sad to relate: that,
having left their homes, the enemy emigrated into the new city
and shared their ancestral wealth as dowry with their sons-inlaw.
93
With his forces increased in a short time, the highly intelligent
king imposed this arrangement on the republic: the youth was
divided by tribes in order to stand guard in horses and arms
against sudden wars; planning for the republic was to be in the
charge of the elders, who were called fathers because of their
authority and the Senate {literally, eldership} because of
their age.
94
With these things arranged, suddenly, while he was holding a
speech in front of the city at the Goats Swamp, he disappeared
from sight. Some thought he had been torn to pieces by the
Senate because of his harsh personality; but a sudden storm and
an eclipse of the sun gave the impression of a consecration.
Julius Proculus gave credence to this, asserting that he had seen
Romulus in a more awe-inspiring form than he had been, and
that besides he had ordered that they should accept him as a god;
he was called Quirinus in heaven; it had been decreed by the
gods that Rome should become master of peoples.

95
Romulus was succeeded by Numa Pompilius whom they
spontaneously summoned from his life in the Sabine town of
Cures because of the mans renowned religious abilities; he
gave instructions on sacred rites and ceremonies and the entire
cult of the immortal gods; he established the pontiffs, the
augurs, the Salii and other priesthoods; and he sorted the year
into 12 months, the days on which courts are allowed and not
allowed. That man presented the heaven-sent shields and image
of Pallas, the particular secret pledges of empire, and the twofaced Janus, the god of Faith of peace and war, above all the
hearth of Vesta to be cared for by virgins so that following the
example of the astronomical bodies, its flame might stand watch
as the guardian of empire. All these things were as it were as the
instruction of the distinguished goddess so that the primitives
would more readily accept it. In the end he brought a erce
people to the point that the empire they had seized by force and
injustice, they would govern through religion and justice.
96
Pompilius Numa was followed by Tullus Hostilius, to whom, in
honor of his courage, the kingdom was freely given. This man
introduced military discipline and the art of war-ghting. And
thus, in an unexpected way, with his disciplined youth he dared
to provoke the Albanans, a powerful people long holding the
leadership. But when, because of equally matched strength and
frequent battles, both sides were becoming weaker, by way of
allowing the war to be shortened, the futures of both peoples
were consigned to the Horatii and the Curiatii, triplets on the one
side and brothers on the other. The battle was uncertain and
beautiful, and striking in the outcome itself. On the one side,
indeed, were three wounded men, on the other two killed; the
Horatius who had survived, by adding trickery to his courage in
order to break up the enemy, faked flight, and attacked and
conquered them singly as they were able to follow him. Thus
victory was granted by the hand of a single man (an honor
elsewhere rare). Next, he disgraced this by the murder of a
family member. For he had seen his sister crying at seeing him
with the spoils of her betrothed, although an enemy. He avenged

this so untimely love of the virgin with his sword, so that he

transgressed the laws, a crime. But his valor absolved his
murder and his crime was less than his glory.
97
The Albanan did not stay in the alliance for long; for the
citizens of Fiden were sent to war as assistance in accordance
with the treaty. They waited between the two sides for the
outcome. But the cunning king {Tullus Hostilius}, when he saw
his allies trend toward the enemy, lifted his mens spirits, as
though he had ordered it. The result of that was hope for the
Romans, fear for the enemy. Thus the deception of the betrayers
came to naught. And so, with the enemy conquered, Mettius
Fufetius, the breaker of the treaty, was tied between two chariots
and torn in half by fast horses, and Alba {Longa} itself, even
though the parent, was nonetheless wiped out as a competitor,
when he had rst transferred the entire wealth of the city and the
populace itself to Rome in short, so that a blood-related
citizenry might not be seen to have perished but to have come
back to its own body.
98
Next was Ancus Marcius, the grandson of Pompilius through his
daughter, with an intelligence equal to his. Thus he both
surrounded the walls with a[nother] wall and spanned the Tiber
river, flowing into the city, with a bridge, and set up the colony
of Ostia at the joint boundary of the sea and the river,
presciently, that is, seeing in his mind even then the future
that the wealth and commerce of the entire world would be
brought into that, as it were, maritime hotel of the city.
99
Later, Tarquinius Priscus, even though of overseas origin, on his
own sought and achieved the kingship due to his hard work and
elegance, since as a native of Corinth he blended Greek
intelligence with Italian skills. He both amplied the majesty of
the Senate in quantity and increased it by three centuries, to
which level Attus Navius, a man highly skilled in augury,
forbade increasing the number. As a test the king asked him

whether it were possible to do what he himself had undertaken

in his mind to do. The man experienced in augury answered that
it was possible. But in fact, he said, I had been thinking that
this whetstone could be cut with a razor. And the augur
responded, You can. And he did cut it. Hence the augurship
is holy to the Romans.
100
Nor was Tarquinius more ready for peace than for war: for he
subjugated twelve peoples of Etruria in frequent conflicts.
Hence the fasces, the white, purple-striped curule shawls, the
rings, the medals for men and horses, the generals cloaks, the
purple-bordered togas; hence the fact that triumphs are done in
a golden chariot with four horses, the painted togas and palmembroidered tunics;
everything, nally, decorative and
distinguished with which the dignity of command stands out,
was introduced.
101
Servius Tullius next took over the reins of government, and his
obscure origins did not stop him, even though born of a slave
mother.
For Tarquiniuss wife Tanaquil had raised the
extraordinarily talented boy in a freeborn way, and a flame seen
around his head had promised that he would be famous. Thus at
the death of Tarquinius, Servius, through the efforts of the
queen, was substituted in the place of the king as though for the
time being, she engineered it so diligently that the kingship was
conferred so through fraud, that it looked like it had been
acquired legally.
102
By him the Roman people were listed in a census, sorted into
classes, distributed to groups and colleagueships, and with the
kings utmost care the Republic was ordered in such a way that
all the differences of inheritance, dignity, age, skills and
functions were entered into tables, and thus an enormous
citizenry was organized with the economy of a very small
household.

103
Last of all the kings was Tarquinius {II, son of Tarquinius
Priscus}, to whom the surname the Arrogant was given on
account of his behavior. He preferred to seize his paternal
throne, which was being held by Servius, rather than wait for it
and, having sent assassins against him, exercized the power
conferred by the crime no better than he had acquired it. Neither
did Tullia {Serviuss daughter and wife of Tarquinius II} shrink
from such behavior; riding in a wagon to salute her husband as
king, she drove her startled horses over her bleeding father.
104
But he himself went on the prowl against the Senate with
killings, among the people with beatings, against everyone with
arrogance (which to good men is worse than cruelty); when he
had tired of brutality at home, he nally turned against the
enemies. Thus powerful towns in Latium were captured: Ardea,
Ocriculum, Gabii, Suessa Pometia.
Then he was also
bloodthirsty against his own relatives. For he did not even
hesitate to beat his son so that as a result there would be trust
among the enemy towards him when he pretended to be a
deserter.
105
After, as he had wanted, the son had been welcomed by the
Gabii and was asking through messengers what he wanted done,
by striking off the fortuitously tall heads of poppies with a stick,
when he wanted it understood by this that the leaders were to be
killed, he answered in such a way (with what arrogance!) that
they had nonetheless sensed it.
106
With the spoils of the captured cities he erected a temple. When
he was consecrating it, while the other gods yielded, an amazing
thing is said to have come up: the gods Youth and Terminus
stood fast. The soothsayers were pleased by obstinacy of the
supernaturals, since they promised everything would be rm and
eternal. But the thing that was more alarming was that a human

head was found by the men building the temple. No one

doubted that that awe-inspiring prodigy was promising the
headquarters of empire and the capital of the earth.
107
The Roman people endured the arrogance of the king as long as
there was no lust; it could not tolerate this outrage from his
children. When one of them committed the rape of Lucretia, a
woman of the highest dignity, the matron expunged her disgrace
by suicide with a knife, the rule of kings was terminated.
108
This is the rst stage of the Roman people and, as it were, the
infancy which it had under seven kings over, as we said, 243
years through certain workings of the fates as well as the
talent of various people, according as the condition and need of
the Republic demanded it.
109
For what could have been more ery than Romulus? It took
such a man to usurp the kingship. What could have been more
pious than Numa? The times demanded it so that a barbarous
people might be tamed by fear of the gods. What about that
creator of the military, Tullus, so necessary to sharpen the valor
of ghting men with discipline? What about that builder, Ancus,
to extend the city with a colony, unite it with a bridge, protect it
with a wall?
110
Then indeed, how much dignity did the ornaments and insignia
of Tarquinius add to a royal people in its very dress? What did
the census carried out by Servio accomplish other than that the
very Roman Republic came to know itself? Finally, the
intolerable tyranny of the notorious Arrogant helped somewhat
or rather, a great deal. For what was thereby achieved was
that the people, harried by injustices, were red with a desire for
freedom.

111
Having changed from the royal tyranny, the people resorted to
the headbands of consuls. There were two consuls each year
governing the Republic, succeeded in the following year by
others coming up. And knowing that they would be ruling over
the people only for a single year, they acted toward others in the
same way that they wanted those to act later toward themselves.
112
This arrangement maintained its validity until Csar Augustus,
through 916 men over 458 years. For nine years, that is, it was
without consuls but only under the tribunes, four without judges.
113
For after the expulsion of the kings, for one year individual
senators governed the Republic for ve days each; and then,
having created two consuls, Brutus and Collatinus, they
afterwards kept the arrangement up until Pansa and Sergius
{actually Hirtius}, over the aforementioned years.
114
And because I have been on my guard about the fact that writing
the names and actions of all the consuls would be wearisome for
me and distasteful for you, reader, in sampling a few things from
it all, I have passed over a great deal, because I realize that it is
material now used and condensed by only a few.
115
So the rst of the consuls < were > Brutus and Collatinus, to
whom the dying matron had entrusted her avengement. The
Roman people, to claim their liberty and the dignity of chastity,
driven by a kind of divine impulse, suddenly deposed the king,
pillaged his possessions, consecrated the eld to their own god
Mars, and transferred power to those same champions of their
liberty, changing, nonetheless, as we said, both the law and the
title.

116
Indeed, from a perpetual it was decided it should be an annual
ofce, from a one-man to a two-man one, lest power be
corrupted by a single mans dominance or by length of time;
and the people called them consuls instead of kings, so that they
would remember they had to consult the interests of their
citizens; and such joy over the new freedom took hold that they
could hardly believe in the changed status, and they divested one
of the consuls the husband of Lucretia of the fasces and
expelled him from the city just because of his royal name and
clan.
117
So Horatius Publicola, replacing him, strove quite zealously to
amplify the majesty of this free people. For he lowered the
fasces before it in public assembly and gave it the right of
challenge against them {i.e., the consuls} themselves. And to
avoid causing offense by the sight of his palace, he located his
own tall house down in the flatland.
118
Brutus, on the other hand, set his course toward the favor of the
citizenry even at the expense of the destruction of his own house
and the killing of his own family members. Indeed, when he
had discovered that his own sons were intent on calling the kings
back into the city, he dragged them out into the forum and, in the
midst of the assembly, beat them with rods and beheaded them
with an ax, so that as a public parent he would be clearly seen to
have adopted the people in the place of his children.
119
From here the now free Roman people took up their rst arms
against foreigners for the sake of liberty, following that for
boundaries, next for their allies, then for glory and power, with
neighbors provoking them on all sides. The reason was that,
when there was no clod of national soil but only enemy
boundary-land immediately adjacent and, situated in the middle
between Latium and the Etruscans as though in a kind of

crossroads, they would run into enemies from every gate until
as in a kind of contagion things went on and, seizing whatever
was nearby, they reduced the whole of Italy to themselves.
120
For Porsenna, the king of the Etruscans, had arrived with vast
forces and was trying to reinstall the Tarquinians by force of
arms. But no matter how he laid on pressure with weapons and
starvation and, by occupying Janiculum hill, had a grip on the
throat of the city, they held him off, pushed him back, and nally
even struck him with such admiration that of his own accord the
superior leader struck a treaty of friendship with those who were
almost conquered.
121
For Mucius Scvola, the bravest of the Romans, in ambush
attacked the king in his own camp. But when, after striking
instead a courtier in purple by mistake, he was taken captive, he
thrust his hand into a burning brazier and doubled the fear by a
ruse. Behold, he said, the kind of a man you are fleeing
from: three hundred of us have sworn the same thing. Since
during this incredible to say! the latter was unflinching,
the king trembled, as though the latters own hand were burning.
122
Thus, indeed, the men. But neither did the other sex lack praise.
Consider the valor of virgins as well: Cllia, one of the
hostages given to the king, escaping custody, rode on horseback
through her countrys river. The king, alarmed indeed by so
many and such great prodigies of valor, bade them be free and
farewell.
123
The Tarquinians, however, fought for a long time until Brutus
killed Arruns, the kings son, with his own hand and died atop
him due to a wound from him clearly as though he were
pursuing the rapist all the way to the underworld.

124
In the same way the Latins were overcome, conquered and
subjugated: Satricum and Corniculum, Sora and Alsium their
cities captured and a province created. It is embarrassing about
Verul and Bovill, but the Romans celebrated a triumph over
them. Tibur, now a suburb, and Prneste, a summer resort, were
attacked after making vows on the Capitol.
125
In those days Fsul was viewed the same as Carrh recently;
the Arician grove as the Hercynian forest {the forested mountain
ranges of Europe}; Fregell, as Gesoriacum {today Boulogne};
the Tiber as the Euphrates. And the conquest of Corioli too
(what a shame!) was taken as so glorious that Gnus Marcius
Coriolanus put the captured city onto his name as though it
were Numantia or Africa.
126
There still exist spoils won from Antium which Mnius attached
to a platform of the forum after having captured an enemy fleet
if, that is, it really was a fleet, for there were six beaked
ships. But that number made a naval war in those early days.
Yet the most stubborn of the Latins were the qui and the
Volsci, and they were, if I may say so, Romes everyday
enemies.
127
But these were subdued mainly by Titus Quintius, the famous
dictator from the plow, who saved the besieged and almost
already captured camp of Manlius with a spectacular victory. It
happened to be in the middle of sowing time when the lictor
reached the patrician gentleman laboring with his plow in the
midst of his work.
128
Leaving from there to the battle line, in order not to deviate from
the pattern of his farm work, he sent the vanquished under the

yoke like farm beasts and, with the end of the campaign and
having gained a triumph, the farmer returned to his cattle. Good
heavens, with what speed! Within fteen days the war had
been begun and ended, so that it totally seemed the dictator had
rushed to get to the work left undone.
129
In the same way the Vejentes, Falisci and Fidenates were then
conquered with great effort. How and if they ever were, is not to
be seen. What remains are there? What trace? For mere trust in
the annals has a hard time making us believe that the Veji,
Falisci and Fidenates ever existed.
130
But the Gallic Senones, a people erce by nature, undisciplined
in their ways, plus given the size of their bodies and
correspondingly enormous weapons, were so fearsome in every
way that they seemed to be born for the extermination of human
beings and the destruction of cities. Having once started out
from the farthest shores of earth and the all-encompassying
ocean in an enormous train, after they had already devastated the
intermediate reaches, they took up residence between the Alps
and the Po river; but not content with this either, they raged
thoughout Italy.
131
Then they besieged Clusium, a city of Etruria, where the
Romans intervened for their allies and federates, as usual
sending out ambassadors. But what law is there among
barbarians? They reacted all the more savagely, and from that
came battle. The Gauls turned from Clusio to Rome. The
consul Fabius met them at the river Alliam with his army. It is
hard to nd a more disgraceful disaster. And so Rome has
condemned that day for ofcial business.
132
With our army routed, the Gauls the approached the walls of the
city, where there was almost no protection. It was therefore then

that the true Roman valor appeared in a way as never anywhere

else. First of all the elders, who had held the highest ofces,
gathered in the forum and there, with the high priest there
reciting the prayers, consecrated themselves to the divine dead,
and all immediately returned to their homes just as they were in
white robes, and in nest attire sat down in curule chairs, so that
when the enemy came, each would die in his own dignity.
133
But the pontiffs and priests took whatever was most sacred in
the temples and in part hid it in jars buried in holes dug in the
earth, in part putting it on wagons and taking it with them to the
town of Veji. At the same time the virgins of the priesthood of
Vesta accompanied the fleeing sacred objects barefoot. Still, it is
recorded that the refugees were picked up by a man of the
people, Albinius, who, making his wife and children get out,
took the virgins into his wagon. It was to such an extent that
even in extremity public religion was given precedence over
private affection.
134
But the youth, which is known with certainty to have been
hardly a thousand men, took over the citadel of Capitoline hill
under the leadership of Manlius, having invoked Jove himself as
though he were present, so that just as they had run to defend his
temple, he would see to their valor with his divine guidance.
135
Meanwhile the Gauls were present and they were coming into an
open city. There they venerated the elders in their ofcial dress
as gods and spirits as they sat in the curule chairs; then, after it
was clear that they were human beings, otherwise deigning to
respond nothing, they slaughtered them with equal madness and
threw torches into the houses and leveled the entire city with
re, sword and by hand.
136

For six months the barbarians (who would have believed it?)
hung around that one mountain, not just days but also nights,
trying everything, while Manlius, awakened by the cackling of a
goose, nonetheless threw down off of the high cliff those
climbing up by night; and in order to deprive the enemy of
hope, even though starving, he nonetheless, to give the
impression of condence, threw bread down from the citadel.
137
And on a certain appointed day he sent the pontiff Fabius from
the citadel through the midst of the enemys guards to offer a
solemn sacrice on the Quirinal mountain. And with the help of
religion he returned safe through the midst of the enemys
weapons and announced that the gods were propitious. In the
end, after he had made the barbarians tired of their siege, they
sold their retreat at the price of a thousand pounds of gold, <
doing so with insolence as, to the unfair weights, adding a sword
in addition, they barked arrogantly, Woe to the conquered.
Suddenly attacking from behind, Camillus fell on them so hard >
that he erased all of the traces of the conflagration with a flood
of Gallic blood.
The section in angular brackets, <idque ipsum adeo cecidit>,
(<doing so fell on them so hard>) is actually a lacuna in
Jordanes text, and has been supplied from Book 1, chapter 13,
sentence 17 of Epitome de T. Livio Bellorum omnium annorum
DCC Libri duo by Lucius Annus Florus.
138
As a result, a city shone forth from what had once been a
shepherds hut: after its outward shape had been reclaimed by
Manlius and restored by Camillo, it rose again vigorously and
even more forcefully against the neighboring peoples.
139
But the Romans were not content with just having driven them
from their walls. Since they were dragging their shattered
remains all over Italy, under Camillos leadership they pursued
them so that today no traces of the Senones survive. Once, in

single combat Manlius took, among the spoils, a gold torque off
of a barbarian, whence he is also called Torquatus.
140
Another time in the Pomptine region, when Valerius, helped by a
sacred bird sitting on his helmet, carried off spoils, he himself
was also called Crowman {(Corvinus)}. Nonetheless, in
addition to this, a few years later Dolabella wiped out all the rest
of them at Lake Vadimonis in Etruria so that no one might be
left of that people which might boast of having burnt the Roman
city.
141
After Manlius Torquatus turned from the Gauls, the Latins were
taken on and conquered.
142
Next the Sabines, who had become their allies in war under the
leadership of Tatius, were subjugated by the consul Curius
Dentatus, and with re and sword their territories were laid
waste from the source of the Varanius {(confusion of the Nar,
the Anio and the Veline sources [Nar, Anio, fontes Velini] in
Florus)} all the way to the Adriatic Sea, and so greatly added
wealth to the Roman people that not even he himself who had
conquered could estimate it.
143
Moved by the entreaties of Campania, not for itself but for its
allies, Rome attacked the Samnites. And because the region of
Campania is the most beautiful not only of Italy but of almost
the entire world. Nothing is more mild than its climate; indeed,
it has spring with flowers twice a year. Nothing is richer than its
soil because of which it is said to be a source of contention
between Bacchus and Ceres. Nothing is more hospitable than its
sea: here are those noble ports of Cajeta, Misenus, and Bajae
with its warm springs, the Lucrinus and Avernus lagoons so
to speak outflows of the sea. Here are the friendly, vine-clad
montains Gaurus, Falernus, Massicus and that most beautiful of

all, Vesuvius, imitator of tnas re. The seaside cities are

Formi, Cum, Puteoli, Herculaneum, Pompey and Capua,
itself chief of the cities, once to be counted with Rome and
Carthage as among the three greatest.
144
For this city, these regions, the Roman people invaded the
Samnites a people, if you are looking for opulence, armed
with gold and silver, weapons and multicolored vestments to the
point of pretentiousness; if deception, usually on the prowl in
forest deles and mountain blinds; if madness and furor,
whipped up through religious laws and human victims to destroy
our City; if obstinacy, more antagonistic through a treaty broken
six times and through their very disasters. Nonetheless, over
fty years, through the Fabian and the Papirian fathers and sons,
Rome subjugated and subdued them, obliterated even the ruins
of their cities, to the point that today Samnium is missing in
Samnium itself, and the material basis of twenty-four triumphs
does not readily appear.
145
Yet the most noteworthy and famous defeat by this people was
suffered at the Caudine Forks, during the consulship of Veturius
and Postumius. With the Roman army, as a result of an ambush,
within that canyon where it could not get out, Pontius, the
enemy leader, dumbfounded at such an opportunity, consulted
his father Herennius. The latter, as the more mature man, wisely
advised him either to let them all go or kill them all. The former
preferred to send them, divested of their arms, under the yoke,
so that they did not become friends through the benece, and
after the humiliation were bitterer enemies.
146
And so the consuls immediately also graciously removed the
shame of the treaty with their voluntary surrender. And under
their leader Papirius, the soldiery, demanding vengeance
horrible to narrate! , before the battle raged with drawn
swords through the path itself, and the enemy was witness to the
fact that in the clash the eyes of them all were burning. Nor was

an end put to the slaughter before the Romans imposed the yoke
promised to themselves on the leader of the Samnites and the
enemy.
147
Up to this point dealings were with single tribes, thereafter
groupwise. Even so, Rome was also a match for them all. The
twelve tribes of the Etruscans, the Umbrians unscathed up to that
time, the most ancient people of Italy, the remnants of the
Samnites suddenly conspired for the extinction of the Roman
name. There was enormous fear of so many and such great
peoples all at once. The hostile standards of four armies flew
widely throughout Etruria.
148
Meanwhile the Ciminian forest was in the way, formerly
completely pathless like the Caledonian or Hercynian one so
terrifying that the Senate warned the consul not to try going into
such a danger. But none of that scared the general from sending
his brother to explore for access. The latter, in shepherds dress
reconnoitering everything by night, reported that the way was
safe.
149
Thus Fabius Maximus completed a very dangerous way without
danger. For he attacked disordered and straggling men and,
having captured the mountain heights, thundered down on the
men below at his pleasure. For the appearance of that war was
as if weapons were being hurled down on earthlings from the
sky and clouds. But that victory was still not bloodless. For the
other consul, Decius, surprised in the hollow bottom of a valley,
patriotically offered his head, devoting it to the gods of the
underworld, and turned a consecration traditional in his family
into the price of victory.
150
The Etruscan war was not yet out of the way, when next the
Tarentine war followed, one in name, but multiple in victories.

For this one involved the Campanians, the Apulians and the
Lucanians, and the chief of the war, the Tarentines, that is,
almost all of Italy, and with all of these Pyrrhus, the famous king
of the Epirians of Greece, together in a single as it were collapse,
which at the same time nished off Italy and foretokened
overseas triumphs.
151
Tarentus, a work of the Lacedmonians, once the capital of
Calabria, Apulia and all Lucania, famous both for its size and
walls and port as well as its marvelous site, since, placed at the
entrance to the Adriatic Sea, it sends ships to all countries:
Histria, Illyricum, Epirus, Achaia, Africa, Sicily.
152
A theater projects out over the harbor, placed looking toward the
sea, which indeed was the cause of all the disasters to the
unfortunate city. By chance they were celebrating their games
when they saw a Roman fleet rowing up to the shore and,
thinking it an enemy, rushed out indiscriminately and began
hurling insults. After all, who or whence were the Romans? But
that was not enough. An embassy was on the spot bearing a
complaint: this too they vulgarized indecently with obscene
insults disgusting to mention. And from this came war.
153
But the preparations were horrible, since so many peoples rose
up simultaneously for the Tarentines and, ercer than all,
Pyrrhus, who came to defend the half-Greek city founded by
Lacedmonians with all the forces of Epirus, Thessaly,
Macedonia and what were unknown at that time elephants,
by sea, land, with men, horses, weapons, and the additional
terror of wild beasts.
154
It was near Heraclea of Campania and the river Siris, in the
consulate of Lvinus, that they fought the rst battle, which was
so erce that Obsidius, the head of the Ferentan squadron,

attacking the king, threw him into disorder and forced him to
leave the battle, throwing away his standards. It would have
been all over if the elephants, turning the war into a show, had
not charged. Our horses, startled by both their size and
hideousness and new smell and sound, when they thought the
beasts, unfamiliar to them, to be something more than they were,
caused flight and slaughter all over.
155
After that in Apulia near Asculum the ghting was more
successful, in the consulship of Curius and Fabricius. For now
the terror of the beasts had worn off, and Gajus Numicius, a
frontline spearman of the Fourth Legion, had shown that when
the trunk of one of them was cut off the beasts could die. So
javelins were showered on them and torches, slung at the towers,
covered the entire formation with ery ruination. And there was
no end to the slaughter until night interrupted it and the king
himself, the last of the fleeing men, wounded in the shoulder,
was carried back on his own shield by his bodyguards.
156
The last battle was the one of Lucania, close to what they call
the Arusine prairie, with the same leaders as before, but this time
a total victory. The result that valor would have given was given
by chance. For after the elephants had again moved forward
into the front line, the blow of a heavy weapon in its head turned
away one of their calves which, while running back through the
carnage of its own side, was trumpeting in pain, its mother
recognized it and, as though to rescue it, sprang out of
formation, then with her heavy bulk threw everything around her
into chaos as though it were enemy. And so the same beasts that
took from us the rst victory and made the second one a draw,
handed over the third one without controversy.
157
But indeed not only with arms and in the eld, but with
craftiness and also domestically within the City that the struggle
with King Pyrrhus was carried on. Indeed, after the rst victory,
recognizing Roman ghting strengh, he immediately despaired

of arms and resorted to ruses. For he cremated the slain and

treated captives indulgently and returned them without ransom
and, sending ambassadors to the City, made every effort to be
taken into our friendship by concluding a treaty.
158
But in war and peace, domestically and abroad, by then Roman
grandeur manifested itself in every way, and nothing showed the
strength of the Roman people, the wisdom of the Senate, the
heroism of the generals more than a Tarentine victory
159
And no more beautiful or spectacular triumph ever entered the
City. Before that day it would have seen nothing but the cattle
of the Volsci, the flocks of the Sabines, the wagons of the Gauls,
the broken weapons of the Samnites. But now, if you were
looking at captives, there were Molossi, Thessalians,
Macedonians, the Bruttian, the Apulan and the Lucan; if at the
parade, gold, crimson robes, statues, pictures and Tarentine
luxuries. But the Roman people viewed nothing with more
pleasure than the beasts which they had feared with their towers,
which, not without a sense of captivity, followed the victorious
horses with bowed necks.
160
After the Tarentine downfall, the Picentes and their tribes
capital, Asculum, were conquered by General Sempronius who,
upon the grounds quaking in the middle of the battle, appeased
the goddess Earth by promising a temple.
161
To the Picentes were added the Salentines and the capital of
these regions, Brundisium, given its famous port, under the
generalship of Atilius, and in this struggle the shepherds
goddess, Pales, demanded a temple on her own.
162

The last of the Italics joining the alliance were the Volsini, the
richest of the Etruscans, imploring help against their own former
slaves who had turned the freedom given them by their masters
against them and, transferring governmental power to
themselves, were lording it over them. But under the general
Fabius Gurges they too paid the penalty for it.
163
Having subdued and subjugated Italy, the Roman people under
the consul Appius Claudius rst crossed the strait notorious for
its mythical monstrosities and violent in its tides. But it was so
little afraid that it even embraced that very tidal violence as a
godsend, because the speed of the ships was helped by the sea.
And immediately and without delay they conquered the Hiero of
Syracuse with such speed that he himself confessed he had been
defeated before seeing the enemy,
164
In the consulship of Duilius and Cornelius the nation dared to
ght even at sea. Indeed, that time the very speed of the fleets
construction was an omen of victory. For within sixty days of
when the forest had been cut, a fleet of one hundred sixty ships
rode at anchor, in a way that they seemed not handmade, but
trees converted and changed into ships by a kind of gift of the
gods. The shape of the battle was amazing, since our heavy and
slow ships entangled the swift and rapid ones of the enemy.
Their nautical skills of brushing up against and twisting off the
oars, and of outmaneuvering shipbeaks were of no avail to them.
For iron grappling-hooks and strong devices, much derided by
the enemy before the battle, were thrown onto them and the
enemy was forced to ght as on solid ground.
165
Thus the victor at the Lipara islands, having sunk or put to flight
the enemy fleet, celebrated the rst maritime triumph. What joy
of it there was!: since Duilius, the commander, non content with
the triumph of one day, throughout his whole life, whenever
returning from the banquet, ordered torches lit and flutes played
to him, as though he were triumphing every day. In comparison

with such a great victory, the loss incurred in this battle was
light: the other consul, Asina Cornelius, was ambushed; invited
to a pretended conference and so killed, he was an example of
Punic treachery.
166
When Calatinus was dictator, he dislodged almost all of the
garrisons of the Carthaginians from Agrigentum, Drepana,
Panhormus, Eryx and Lilybum. There was a great deal of fear
in the area of the Camerine forest. but through the extraordinary
valor of Calpurnius Flamma, a military tribune, we escaped.
Choosing a band of three hundred men, he seized a hillock
occupied by the enemy and delayed the enemy long enough so
that the entire army escaped. And in that way he equalled the
spectacular success of Thermopyl and the fame of Leonidas;
but our man was more illustrious than the latter, because he
survived such a great exploit, though he penned nothing in his
blood.
167
In the consulship of Lucius Cornelius Scipio, when Sicily was
already a suburban province of the Roman people, with the
spreading war they crossed over to Sardinia and adjoining
Corsica. With the destruction of the cities of Olbia on this island
and Aleria on that one they terried the natives and cleansed the
Carthaginians from all the land and sea to the point that for
victory nothing remained except Africa itself.
168
Under the leadership Marcus Atilius Regulus the war sailed to
Africa. There had been no lack of those who quailed at the very
name of the Carthaginian sea and its terror. Moreover the
tribune Natius {? Nautius? Mannius?} increased the fear:
drawing his ax at whomever unless he obeyed, with the fear of
death the commander inspired the courage to sail. Given wind
and oars, everything then went fast, and such terror of the
enemys arrival seized the Carthaginians that Carthage was
captured almost with open gates.

169
The rst introduction to the war was the city of Clupea. For it
jets out from the Carthaginian shore like its rst citadel and
watchtower. Both this and three hundred other fortresses were
laid waste. Fighting was done not just with men but with
monsters as well, since a serpent of amazing size, found along
the Bagrada, seemingly born to avenge Africa, harrassed the
camp.
170
But Regulus, the conqueror of all, having spread the fear of his
name far and wide and either having captured or holding in
chains a great deal of the soldiery and the generals themselves,
and having sent on ahead to the City a fleet loaded with
immense booty and heavy with triumph material, he now beset
Carthage itself, the head of the war, with a siege and xed on the
gates themselves.
171
Here fortune reversed a bit, only so that there might be more
displays of Roman valor, whose greatness is normally proven by
misfortunes. For when, after the enemy had turned to foreign
assistance, Lacedmon had sent them the general Xanthippus,
Regulus was defeated by a man highly versed in warfare, and
a disgraceful disaster and in experience one unknown to
Romans. For that enormously brave commander fell alive into
the hands of the enemy.
172
But the great man was indeed equal to such a calamity, for he
was broken neither by the Carthaginian prison nor the mission
he undertook. On the contrary, he advised the opposite of what
the enemy had ordered: that there should be neither peace nor
an exchange of captives. But his majesty was disgured neither
by his voluntary return to his enemies nor his nal imprisonment
or execution. In fact what else was more admirable that all of
these things than that he triumphed as conqueror over his
conquerors and even because he did not leave Carthage

over fortune? On the other hand, the Roman people were all the
more bitter and more focussed on revenge for Regulus than on
victory.
173
Thus in the consulship of Metellus when the Carthaginians were
conspiring in a more concentrated way and the war had shifted
back to Sicily, the Roman army defeated the enemy so badly that
they never again thought about attacking that island. The main
result of that huge victory was the capture of about a hundred
elephants. Hence it also achieved considerable booty if it had
captured that herd not in war but in hunting.
174
When Appius Claudius was consul, he was defeated not by
enemies but by the gods themselves whose auspices he had
scorned, with the fleet being immediately sunk there where he
had ordered the chickens thrown overboard because he was
being forbidden by them to ght.
175
Marcus Fabius Buteo defeated an enemy fleet already in the
African sea off gimurus sailing freely to Italy. And then what
a triumph was lost as a result of a storm when the rich spoils of
the fleet, driven by contrary winds, lled Africa and the Syrtes,
the nations of all peoples, the shores of islands, with its
shipwreck! It was a massive disaster, but not without some
merit to the royal people that the tempest-intercepted victory and
triumph had been lost by shipwreck. And still, since the
Carthaginian spoils were floating around all the promontories
and islands, the Roman people triumphed even so.
176
Under the consul Lutatius Catulus an end was nally put to the
war off the islands called the gat. At no other time was there
ever any greater battle at in the sea: for the fleet was there
heavy with provisions, an army, turrets, weapons and in it, so to
say, the whole of Carthage which very thing was its downfall.

The Roman fleet was nimble, light, unencumbered and was

maneuvered as in a kind of campground exercise, using oars just
as a sort of reins after the fashion of a cavalry battle, and the
shipbeaks, moving into these or those ramstrikes, gave the
appearance of living creatures. Thus in a moment the enemys
shredded barges covered the entire sea between Sicily and
Sardinia with its wreckage. In the end, that victory was so great
that there was no question of destroying the enemys walls. It
seemed idle to vent fury against a citadel and walls when
Carthage had already been deleted at sea.
177
If indeed the Punic War was nished and our breath not yet
caught for a short while, the Ligurian followed. For these
Ligures, sticking to the low ranges of the Alps between the Varus
and Macra rivers, subsisted hidden in forested thickets, a people
whom it was almost a greater task to nd than to conquer.
Indeed, safe through their locations and by flight, a rugged and
fleet-footed type, they engaged in opportunistic robbery rather
than wars. So while for a long time and to a great degree the
Salluvii, Deciates, Oxubii, Euburiates, and the Ingauni had
eluded us, Fulvius nally surrounded their hideouts with re,
while Bbius drew them down to the plains, Postumius
disarmed so them that he hardly left them the iron for the earth
to be cultivated with.
178
Soon after them, the Gauls. The Insubres and these inhabitants
of the Alps have the minds of wild animals, bodies larger than
human, but it has been learned by experience indeed, just
as their strength is, on the rst attack, greater than that of men,
so the following one is less than that of women. Alpine bodies
raised in a wet climate have something similar to their snows: as
soon as the ght has warmed up, they immediately break out in
sweat and are dissolved by light exertion as though by the sun.
179
These men had often sworn both at other times and also under
their leader Brittomarus {(= Viridomarus)} not to doff their

swordbelts before they had climbed the Capitol. Moreover this

happened, and milius unbelted them, defeated, on the Capitol.
And because their leader had vowed a gold torque made out of
the spoils taken from Roman soldiery to his god Mars, Jupiter
intercepted the vow, and Flaminius erected a gold trophy to
Jupiter from the torques of Ariovisto himself and the rest of the
Gauls. Their king Viridomarus, too, had promised Roman
weapons to Vulcan: the vows turned out otherwise. For after he
was killed, Marcellus hung the third set of leaders spoils after
father Romulus up to Feretrius Jupiter.
180
But the Illyrians, that is, the Veneti, or Liburni, dwell in the
extreme ends of the Alps between the Arsia and Titus rivers,
strewn far and wide along the whole coastline of the Adriatic
Sea. These people, with a woman, Teutana, as ruler, not content
with depredations, added crime to their lawlessness. For Roman
ambassadors bringing legal action for wrongs they had
committed were slain by them not, indeed, with a sword, but
like sacricial victims, with an ax; they burned the captains of
the ships to death; and what was even more insulting, it was a
woman who ordered it. So under the leadership of Gnus
Fulvius Centumalus the were subdued far and wide. And axes
wielded on the necks of their leaders offered sacrice to the
ghosts of the ambassadors.
181
After the rst Punic war there was a respite of barely four years:
behold, there was a second war, admittedly less in duration
since spanning no more than 18 years but so terrible in the
hideousness of its disasters that, if anyone were to compare the
losses of both peoples, the people that conquered would be more
like the one conquered. It galled the noble people that the sea
had been taken from them, the islands seized, the nation used to
ordering tribute was paying it. It was for this that the boy
Hannibal had sworn vengeance at the altar of his father, and he
did not take his time.
182

So Saguntus was chosen for the cause of war, an old Spanish

city and a rich one, an indeed great but sad example of loyalty to
the Romans. This city, granted freedom by a common treaty,
was overthrown by Hannibal, who was seeking opportunities for
revolution, through his own and their hands so that, having
broken the treaty, it would open Italy up to him. To the Romans,
the essence of treaties is religious. And thus on hearing of the
siege of the allied city, mindful of the treaty struck with the
Carthaginians, they did not run immediately to arms, while they
preferred rstly to complain legally. In the meanwhile the
Saguntines, already exhausted for nine months by hunger, war
machines and the sword, nally turning their loyalty into
madness, piled up an immense pyre in the forum and then with
sword and re destroyed themselves and their family members
atop it with all of their wealth.
183
Hannibal, the engineer of this great disaster, was demanded.
To the delaying Carthaginians, Fabius, the leader of the embassy,
said What is the delay? In the folds of this toga I carry war and
peace. Which do you choose?
When they cried out, War!, he said, So take war!
And, shaking out the lap of his toga in the middle of the Senate
House, to everyones horror he poured it out as though he were
really carrying war in its folds.
184
The sequel of the war was similar to its beginning. For as
though the last imprecations of the Saguntines in that public
slaughter of their families and that conflagration had
commanded these sacrices to the dead, atonement was made to
their ghosts with the devastation of Italy, the capture of Africa,
the death of the leaders and kings who waged that war. So when
once that dire and lamentable force and storm of the Punic War
had moved into Spain and through the Saguntine re had ignited
the thunderbolt now long destined for the Romans, immediately
tearing forth in a kind of blast, it broke through the midst of the

Alps and descended into Italy from those snows of mythical

height as though hurled from heaven.
185
And indeed the tornado of the rst charge thundered down
immediately with a powerful crash between the Padus and
Ticinus rivers. The army, then led by Scipio, was routed.
Wounded, even the commander himself would have fallen into
the enemys hands, had not his still teenage son, protecting him,
snatched his father from death itself. This was the Scipio who
grew into the downfall of Africa, to receive a name from its
misfortunes.
186
Trebia came after Ticinus. Here raged the second storm of the
Punic war, in the consulship of Sempronio. This time the
cunning enemy, choosing a frigid and snowy day, after they had
warmed themselves rst with re and also oil, horrible to say
men coming from the south and the sun, defeated our men by
means of our own winter.
187
Lake Trasumenus was the third lightening bolt of Hannibal, our
commander being Flaminius. It was a new strategem of Punic
deception: for his cavalry, covered by lake fog and swamp
reeds, suddenly attacked the rear of the ghters. Nor can we
complain about the gods: bee swarms settling on the standards
and the eagles reluctant to move ahead foretold imminent
disaster to the rash leader, as well as an earthquake following the
start of the battle unless it was the running around of horses
and men, and the erce movement of arms that caused that
shuddering of the ground.
188
The fourth that is, almost the nal wound for the Empire
was Cann, an unknown village of Apulia which came to light
through the magnitude of the disaster, its fame bestowed by the
slaughter of sixty thousand men. There the general, the earth,

the sky, the day, the whole of nature conspired for the
destruction of the unlucky army. Indeed, Hannibal was not
content with pretended deserters who had then fallen on the
backs of the ghters; the cunning commander, observing the
nature of the place in the open elds, that the sun was also
extremely erce there, and there was a great deal of dust, and a
wind from the east constant, as though prearranged , drew
up his battle line so that, with the Romans facing against all
these things, he, maintaining a favorable sky, would ght by
means of the wind, dust and soil. Thus two enormous armies
were cut down to the satiety of the enemy, until Hannibal told
his soldiery, Spare your swords.
189
One of the leaders fled, the other was killed. It is in question
which one was of greater courage: Paulus was ashamed of
living; Varro did not despair. Testimony to the catastrophe was
the Audus river, blood-red for some time. On the order of the
leader a bridge of corpses was made over the Vergellus torrent.
Two bushels of rings were sent to Carthage, the importance of
the cavalry estimated by measuring them.
190
Finally, there will be no doubt that Rome would have had that as
its nal day, and within ve days Hannibal could have dined on
the Capitol if as they say the Carthaginian, Maharbal, son of
Bomilcar, said Hannibal had known how to use his conquest
in the same way he knew how to conquer. But in fact at that
time, as is commonly said, either the fate of the city which was
to rule, or his own mistaken mind and the gods hostile to
Carthage took him off on a different path.
191
When he could have exploited his victory, he preferred to enjoy
it, and leaving Rome, he proceeded to Campania and Tarentum
where both he and the ardor of his army soon became slack to
the point that it has been truly said that Capua was Cann to
Hannibal. Because indeed, the man unconquered by the Alps
and undefeated by the weapons of the Campanian was who

would believe it? subjugated by the sun and Baj with its
warm springs.
192
Meanwhile the Romans were permitted to catch their breath and,
so to speak, to rise from the grave. There were no weapons;
they were taken down from the temples. Men were lacking;
slaves were freed to enlist. The treasury was empty; the Senate
gladly brought forth its riches into the community; nor, except
for what was in their medallions and individual rings, did they
leave any gold to themselves. The knights followed that
example, and the tribes imitated the knighthood. In the end,
under the consuls Lvinus and Marcellus, there were hardly
enough registers, hardly enough scribal hands, when the
resources of private individuals were signed over to the public
purse.
193
So what next? What wisdom the centuries showed in choosing
magistrates, when the younger ones sought the advice of the
elders in creating consuls! For against an enemy so often
victorious, so cunning, it was necessary to ght not with valor
alone, but also with his own strategies. The rst hope of the
returning and, if I might say, resuscitating nation was Fabius,
194
who decided that the new victory over Hannibal would be not to
ght. Hence his new and nation-saving name: Delayer.
Hence the call from the people that he should be called the
shield of the empire. So through the whole of Samnium,
through the forested Falernian and Gauranan uplands he vexed
Hannibal in such a way that, because he could not break him by
force, he weakened him by delay.
195
Next, through general Claudius Marcellus, he even dared to
meet him in battle; he proceeded to hand-to-hand combat and
pushed him hard in his own Campania, and drove him off from

the siege of the city of Nola. He also dared, with general

Sempronius Gracchus, to follow him through Lucania and to
press hard on his rearguard of the retreating man, even though
then (how humiliating!) he was ghting with a slave army for
so many evils had compelled him to this. But the slaves, having
been given freedom, made Romans out of slavery. What
stunning condence in so many adversities! What extraordinary
courage and spirit of the Roman people! In such pressing and
distressed conditions that there had to be doubt about their own
Italy, they still dared to look in diverse directions, and while the
enemy was at their throat, flying around through Campania and
Apulia and creating Africa out of the heart of Italy, at the same
time they both withstood him and sent forces, strewn all over the
earth, to Sicily, Sardinia and Spain.
196
Sicily was assigned to Marcellus. And it did not resist long: for
the entire island was conquered in a single city. That huge and
thitherto unconquered capital, Syracuse, even though defended
by the genius of Archimedes, eventually yielded. Of no use to it
were its triple wall and an equal number of citadels, the famous
marble port and the celebrated fountain of Arethusa other
than that they helped insofar as the beauties of the conquered
city were spared.
197
Gracchus seized Sardinia. That people was helped neither by its
savagery nor by its Mad Mountains (for that is how they are
called). Ruthlessness was employed on the cities and on the city
of cities, Caralis, so that a people obstinate and indifferent to
death would be subdued at least by their fondness for their
native soil.
198
Sent to Spain, Gnus and Publius Scipio seized practically the
entire province from the Carthaginians. But, surprised by an
ambush of Carthaginian deception, they had lost it again,
although in great battles when they had smashed the
Carthaginian forces. But ambushes of Carthaginian deception

surprised them, the one by the sword while he was striking

camp, the other, after he had escaped to a tower, by surrounding
him with torches. Thus, to avenge his father and paternal uncle,
Scipio, sent with an army, a man to whom the fates had already
decreed a great name from Africa, regained that warlike Spain,
well known for its men and weapons, that seedbed of the enemy
army now that nourisher of Hannibal (incredible to say) as a
whole from the Pyrenees Mountains to the Pillars of Hercules, to
the ocean. It is unknown whether it was faster or luckier: how
fast, four years are recorded; how easy, just one city proves: on
the same day, in fact, that it was besieged, on that same one it
was captured, and it was an omen of the African victory that
what was captured so easily was Spains Carthage.
199
It is a fact, still, that in beating the province the generals
integrity was especially helpful, since he would restore to the
barbarians captive boys and girls of extraordinary beauty, not
even allowing them to be brought into his sight, lest he should
seem even by looking to have subtracted anything from the
intactness of their virginity.
200
The Roman people took these operations into diverse regions of
the world. But for all that they could not dislodge Hannibal,
who stuck fast to the innards of Italy. A great many had defected
to the enemy, and the energetic general used Italian forces too
against the Romans. However the Romans then expelled him
from most towns and regions. They had already regained
Tarentum, then Capua too was in their possession, the
headquarters, home and second fatherland of Hannibal, the loss
of which caused such pain to the Carthaginian general that from
that point he turned all his forces on Rome.
201
O people worthy of ruling the world worthy of the favor and
admiration of all men and gods! Forced to the utmost in fear,
they did not desist from their project and, while concerned about
their own City, did not abandon Capua but, leaving a part of the

army under Appius, part of it following Flaccus to the City, they

fought simultaneously absent and present.
202
Why, therefore, do we wonder that the gods themselves again
resisted Hannibal advancing his camp from the third milestone?
For at every advance of his such a spate of rain poured down,
such a gale of wind arose, that it seemed by divine power to
force the enemy not from the heavens, but from the walls of the
City itself and from the Capitol. So he fled and left and retreated
into the farthest recess of Italy after having left the City only
unadored.
203
For Hasdrubal, Hannibals brother, was coming from Spain with
a new army, new troops, a new war machine. It would
undoubtedly have been all over, if that man had joined up with
his brother. But just as he had descended from the Alps and was
setting up camp near the Metaurus river, Claudius Nero, together
with Livius Salinator, defeated him too. Nero had warded off
Hannibal in the farthest tip of Italy; Livius had turned his
standards to the extreme opposite part, that is, to the outermost
entrance to Italy.
204
It is hard to say how, with such immense land intervening
that is, with everything where Italy is at its longest , by what
strategy, with what speed, the consuls combined their camps
and, with united forces, overwhelmed the unexpecting enemy
without Hannibal being aware of its happening. It is a fact that
Hannibal, learning of it after seeing his brothers head, which
had been thrown at his camp, said, I realize the ill fate of
Carthage. This was that famous mans rst admission, not
without a certain premonition, of impending fate.
205
Now it was clear that Hannibal, even according to his own
admission, could be conquered. But the Roman people, lled

with the condence of so many successes, viewed it as being

very difcult to defeat the extremely bitter enemy in his own
Africa. So, turning the entire war machine to Africa itself under
general Scipio, they began to imitate Hannibal and to take
revenge against Africa for their own Italys disasters. Good
gods! What of Hasdrubals forces did that famous Scipio rout!
What cavalry of Syphax, the Numidian king! What and how
much of the camp of both fleets did he destroy in a single night
by throwing in torches! Finally, with a siege he shook, not from
the third milestone, but the very gates, of Carthage.
206
So it came about that he managed to wring Hannibal, clinging to
and overhanging Italy, out of it. Under the Roman Empire there
was never any greater day than the one where the greatest
generals of before and after then, the one the victor of Italy, the
other of Spain, drew up their battle lines, going into hand-tohand combat. But there was also a conference between them on
conditions of peace. Long they stood, xed in mutual
admiration. When, however, there was no agreement on peace,
the trumpet-signals for battle were sounded.
207
From the admission of both it is known that the battle lines could
not have been drawn up better nor the ghting been ercer.
Scipio said this openly of Hannibals army, Hannibal of Scipios.
But nevertheless Hannibal yielded, and the reward of victory
was Africa. And immediately following Africa, the world.
208
After Africa, no one was ashamed of being conquered any more,
but in equal measure everywhere they were subjugated. In the
consulship of Lvinus the Roman people therefore rst entered
the Ionian Sea and traversed the whole coastline of Greece with
as it were a triumphing fleet. Indeed, it displayed the spoils of
Sicily, Sardinia and Africa, plus the manifest victory which a
laurel tree, sprouting on the rear of the prtors ship, promised.
Attalus, king of the Pergamenes, voluntarily assisted. The
Rhodians also helped, a seafaring people who made everything

shudder on the sea with their ships, the consul on the land with
his horses and men.
209
The king {Philip V} of the Macedonians was twice defeated,
twice routed, twice divested of his camp, since to the
Macedonians nothing was more terrible than the mere sight of
wounds which, caused not by darts or arrows or any little Greek
sword, but by enormous spears and swords no smaller, lay open
beyond lethality. Indeed, under general Flaminius the Roman
people crossed the thitherto pathless mountains of the
Chaonians, and the gorge-penetrating Save river even to the very
portals of Macedonia. Having entered it was victory. For
afterwards the king, never having dared to offer battle, was
defeated near the hills they call Cynoscephal {Dogheads} in
a single battle, and that not even a real one.
210
Numidia at that time was ruled by friends of the Roman people.
But Jugurtha generated a war of the Romans against himself on
account of his murder of Adherbal and Hiempsal, the sons of
Micipsa, and the country was conquered by the consul Metellus,
then subjugated by Marius. King Buccho watched over
Mauretania.
211
But when the subjugation of all the Mauri happened, King Juba
{I}, who had been the cause of the ghting, soon realized that he
had been defeated; he took his own life by drinking poison {46
B.C.}, and all of Mauretania became subject to the Romans. For
Tripoli and both Mauretanias Sitifensis and Csariensis
touched by the fear of the others, in like manner similarly
submitted voluntarily to Roman jursidiction.
212
Although the Saguntine disaster had, as we said above, separated
the Spains from friendship with the Romans, nonetheless Scipio
again joined them to the Romans both through his benecence

and his self-discipline, and Sulla {(actually M. Silanus, cf. Liv.

26,19)} pacied them when they once again rebelled. Scipio the
Younger quieted, restrained and almost annihilated the
Celtiberians who together with the Numantines were similarly
rising up against the Romans.
213
The Cantabrians and Asturians, trusting in the redoubt of their
mountains, while mounting an insurgency, were utterly
destroyed and reduced to a province. The Tarraconensians,
Lusitani, Gallci, Carthaginians, and the Bticans, all located
towards the promontory of Africa, were all overcome in almost a
single battle and assigned to Roman provinces.
214
The Epirotans who, although they had conspired with their king
Pyrrhus against Italy, had nonetheless been subdued with peace
in Illyricum the rst time, were rebelling a second and third
time, after having been thoroughly subjugated together with the
Achans and Thessalians, were forced to pass under the Roman
yoke.
215
For Macedonia had provoked Roman arms against itself rst
under Philip, then under Perses, thirdly under Pseudo-Philip;
and it was crusehd the rst time by the consul Flamininus, the
second time by Paulus; the third time, defeated by Metellus, it
lowered its necks and was made a Roman province.
216
Illyricum, under its king Gentius, helped by the Macedonians,
was conquered by Lucius, prtor of the Romans, and reduced to
a province. For the rst time Curio the proconsul subjugated the
Dardani and the Msi ; and being the rst of all Romans to
advance all the way to the Danube river, he laid waste to its
whole region. Likewise overcoming the king of the Pannonians
in battle, the same Lucius turned both Pannonias into a province.
Moreover, after their king had been killed, he made the

Amantini, who live between the Save and Drave rivers, into a
province in their turn.
217
Also, in that Valeria which lies between the Drave and the
Danube, the Marko-manns {Men of the march, Frontiersmen}
and Kwai {the Bad} were then crushed by the same leader,
and boundaries were set up between Romans and the barbarians
from Augusta Vindelicorum {(now Augsburg)} through
Noricum and Msia. Afterwards Trajan, now under his own
emperorship, reduced the Dacians to a province on lands beyond
the Danube which have a thousand-mile periphery, after
defeating their king Decebalus {A.D. 85106}. But Gallienus,
while he was ruling, lost them; and Emperor Aurelian, recalling
the legions thence {A.D. 271}, stationed them in Msia, and
there made part of it into Inland Dacia and Riverbank Dacia, and
attached Dardania.
218
But the whole of Illyria, conquered indeed by parts and
piecemeal, was nonetheless combined into a single body which
has within itself 18 provinces: and there are two Noricums, two
Pannonias, Valeria, Swevia, Dalmatia, Msia superior,
Dardania, two Dacias, Macedonia, Thessalia, Achaja, two
Epiruses, Prvales, Creta: altogether 18.
219
However, nothing other than the occasion of the Macedonian
war made the Empire attack the Thracian territories. The
Thracians are barbaric men and the ercest of all nations, whose
savagery is likewise found among the Scordisci and HmusMountaineers and Scythians, due to whose savagery Romans
have suffered many terrible things, and in many battles an army
was beaten. In the end even they were subjugated by Marcus
Didius and, with their territory reduced to a province, the tribe
succumbed to the Roman yoke.
220

For Marcus Drusus crushed them at home in their own

mountains, Minucius annihilated and conquered many of them
on the Hebrus river. The Rhodopeji were defeated through
Appius Claudius, and Marcus Lucullus made the coastal cities of
Europe which had long been Roman and later rebelled
submit to the Romans.
221
Indeed, as the rst one ghting the Bessi in Thrace, he defeated
those who were preminent in bravery and fame, and warring
down the Hmus-Mountaineers, he reduced {72 B.C.}
Pulpudeva {(a Thracian translation of Philippopolis [now
Plovdiv, Bulgaria], although originally named Eumolpias)}, now
called Philippopolis, and Uscudama, now called Hadrianopolis,
to the overlordship of the Romans. Also similarly capturing the
cities which cling to the Pontic coastline that is, Apollonia,
Callatis, Parthenopolis, Tomi, Histria and subjugating all of
the areas to the Danube, demonstrated Roman power to the
Scythians.
222
Enough for the western regions: now let us run through what
transpired in the eastern sphere. As it happened, Romans rst
found a position in Asia by the right of inheritance. For in his
will King Attalus, a very good friend to the Roman people,
exceeding human norms, established the Romans as heirs to his
kingdom of Asia, which the Roman people would previously
almost not have approached if he had not through his own
efforts taken over the neighboring region that is, Lydia, Caria,
the Hellespont and both Phrygias.
223
For the extremely fertile island of Rhodes, the capital of the
islands of all of Asia together with almost all of the Cyclades,
greatly fearing Roman arms, had long since allied itself as a
federate to that people and was contributing aid for the naval
war. With the Rhodians the proconsul Servilius, as though sent
for the pirate war, nevertheless obtained Pamphylia; he
conquered Lycia and Pisidia and made them into a province.

But through a statement in his will the dying King Nicomedes

left Bithynia to the Romans.
224
However Gallo-Greece, that is, Galatia, was enveloped in the
disaster of the Syriac war. For it too was among the auxiliaries
of King Antiochus; it is uncertain whether Manlius Vulso,
desirous of a triumph, had just pretended it was. So they were
routed and put to flight in two battles, even though, having left
their homes at the approach of the foe, they had retreated to very
high mountains. The Toloscobogi took positions on Olympus,
the Tectosagi on Magaba. Dislodged by slings and arrows from
both sides, they gave themselves up for permanent peace. But
they were astonishing when tied up, because they had tried
undoing their chains with bites and with their mouths, and
because they offered their throats to one another to be strangled.
And because King Orgiacons wife, raped by a centurion, had, in
a memorable example, escaped imprisonment and carried the
torn-off head of the adulterer back to her husband.
225
So the Senate made their friend Dejotarus head of Galatia. But
afterward Csar subjugated them and turned them into a
province. The Cappadocians too, established under Ariarathes
{(IX Eusebes Philopator, 10189 B.C.)} as their king, rst
sought partnership with the Romans through their ambassadors
then, with Ariobarzanes {(I Philoromaios, 9562 B.C.)}
succeeding him and expelled by Mithridates, surrendered of
their own accord to Roman servitude and renamed their own
great city Mazaca Csarea in honor of Csar. After that their
king, Archelaus, again coming to Rome under Emperor Claudius
as though a friend of the Roman people and dying there, through
a statement in his will left Cappadocia to the Romans, and so
then in its entirety it became a province.
226
Pontus was conquered by Pompey {65 B.C.} with its king
Mithridates and became a province.
Paphlagonias king
Pylmenes, a friend of the Roman people, being tormented by

many, sought the help of the Romans. Dying while he was

avenging himself on his enemies, he left the Romans his heirs
through his will.
227
Enough for this side of the Taurus range; now let us pass over to
the other side and we will go over what countries, or by
subjugating which ones, they were united to the Roman people.
Antiochus {III the Great}, the most powerful king of Syria,
mobilized an enormous war machine against the Roman people:
30 thousand, consequently, armed men and as many scythed
chariots as possible, countless elephants turreted and arrayed in
order in the battle line like a wall. After Scipio {Asiaticus I},
the brother of Scipio Africanus, had gone against him in Asia
outside the city of Magnesia, and after battle had been joined
{190 B.C.}, Antiochus was conquered and, having struck a
treaty with the Romans, retreated from Asia and was permitted
by decision of the Senate to reign beyond the Taurus, and after
the death of the father it allowed his sons, led into hostage status
at Rome, to reign by position of birthright.
228
The Cilicians, becoming pirates with the Isaurians and engaging
in frequent brigandage on the high seas, were conquered by the
proconsul Servilius and overthrown. This Servilius was also the
rst Roman to open a path through the Taurus range and,
winning a triumph with their spoils, was called Isauricus and
Cilicus.
229
Cato, unapologetic, invaded Cyprus with a seagoing fleet.
While the Cyprians denied having anything, he found great
riches belonging to them and ned them with conscations. Not
bearing this, Gnosius their king killed himself by drinking
poison, and thus Cyprus became a Roman province {58 B.C.}.
Libya that is, the Pentapolis, all freely granted by the famous
rst Ptolemus {VIII Euergetes II Physcon } to the Romans ,
despite subsequently opposing elements, was subjected to the
Roman people {96 B.C.} through the bequest of {Ptolemus}

Apion. The whole of Egypt was held through the Ptolemies by

friends of the Romans, that is, by the {(dynasty of the
Ptolemic)} Lagids.
Afterwards Cleopatra and Antony,
usurping it on their own authority, lost both themselves and it.
230
But the mountains of Armenia saw Roman arms rst through
Lucullus, through whom the Phylarchs of the Saracens too,
defeated in Osdrona, capitulated. And the very same man also
invaded the city of Nisibis. After him, Pompey, entering the
same area, reinforced it as under the Roman empire.
231
He had invaded the Syrian Cle, defeating Tigranes in a
textbook battle. Under the leadership of the same Pompey, the
Arabs and Palestinians were conquered.
232
Yet the frequently ghting Babylonians were often defeated,
nonetheless never completely subdued. Still, the proconsul
Lucius Sulla defeated them the rst time under their king
Arsaces and, asked by him through ambassadors, conceded
peace to them. The second time, when Lucius Lucullus was
expelling from the Pontic kingdom Tigranes, the king of
Armenia conquered with his eighteen thousand soldiers ,
and having invaded all of Armenia, he proceeded to
Mesopotamia where he captured Nisibis together with the
brother of the king of the Parthians {68 B.C.}, wishing with
equal luck to lay waste to Persis; but Pompey, ordered by the
Senate, had arrived to be his successor.
233
And as a matter of fact Pompey, arriving here immediately, in a
night battle soon thereafter overrunning Mithridates {VI Eupator
Dionysus (the Great)}, slaughtered 42 thousand of his armed
forces and set re to his camp. As a result Mithridates, fleeing
with his wife and two bodyguards, made it to the Bosphorus and,
seized by great desperation, took poison. But when even so

death did not come to him, he asked one of the two bodyguards
to kill him.
234
But while Pompey was going after the king of Greater Armenia
for why Tigranes had given aid against the Romans, the latter, in
the city of Artaxata, abdicating his kingship, voluntarily offered
his crown to Pompey; But Pompey, led by a sense of leniency,
for his part allowed him to reign over Greater Armenia, taking
from him Mesopotamia and Syria and part of Phnicia with
{(Lesser)} Armenia. For he placed Aristarchus as king over the
Bosphorans and Colchians {66 B.C.} and, pursuing the
Albanans, he conquered their king Orhodes a third time. Finally
implored for it, he granted peace. He received Iberia together
with its king Artag in surrender.
235
Vanquishing the Saracens and Arabs, he took over Jerusalem of
Judea. Having struck a treaty with the Persians, on his way back
he granted the eld of Daphne as a gift to the Antiochenes, on
account of the great beauty of the place.
236
With these and other operations successful in Syria, the greed of
one man spoiled <everything>. For Crassus the consul, when
gaping after Parthian gold, lost almost eleven legions with his
own head. In his sight his son was riddled with enemy missiles
and in addition he himself was killed and his head, severed along
with his right hand, taken to the king, was a laughingstock, and
not an undeserved one: for liquid gold was poured into his open
jaws so that even the dead and bloodless body of the one whose
mind had burned with the lust for gold would be burned with
gold. As for the remnants of the unlucky army, wherever flight
whisked them, scattered into Armenia, Cilicia and Syria, they
hardly brought back news of such a great catastrophe.
237

So the Parthians, further inflating their egos with this disaster,

invaded Syria through general Pacorus and, placing general
Labienus {Quintus} whom they had captured some time
previously at the head of the army, they sent him in battle
against the allies, that is, the Romans. But Ventidius {Publius}
Bassus, defeating the Persians who were devastating Syria under
both generals, routed them and killed Labienus, while he slew
the royal youth Pacorus, surrounded on all sides by missiles, and
then, cutting off his head and parading it around through the
cities which had deserted, he recouped Syria without war. Thus,
with the head of Pacorus and the death of Labienus, Ventidius
repaid the Crassian catastrophe.
238
But the Roman people was not thereby content to forget the
Crassian massacre without continuing to war on the Parthians.
239
For Mark Antony, having invaded Media, waged war against
them. While rst defeating them, he was subsequently worn
down with his two legions by hunger and winter; followed by
the Parthians, he barely fled into Armenia, and there escaped.
240
Subsequently, under Augustus Octavian, the Armenians, mixed
together with Parthians, were quickly vanquished through
Claudius Csar, the grandson of Augustus. So the Armenians
thought it more benecial to become reconciled to the friendship
of the Romans and to inhabit their own territory rather than,
allied with the Parthians, both to lose their territory and have the
Romans their enemies.
241
While the Roman army was thus heavily engaged in eastern
regions, the western areas were likewise under stress. The
Noricans living in the Norican Alps believed as though war
could not climb up to their rocks and snows; but soon the
Roman army, through the same Claudius Csar, defeated all the

tribes of that region: the Breuni, Teutoni, Ucenni and Vindelici.

Still, it is easy to show what the level of animalism of the Alpine
peoples was even by their women who, lacking weapons,
smashed their own young children on the ground and flung them
at the faces of the soldiers.
242
The Illyrians, also not second to these people in savagery, were
likewise red up. Advancing against them himself, Augustus
ordered a bridge built over which to cross the waters. And while
the soldiers were being disrupted in their ascent by the waters
and the enemies, he himself snatched a shield and was the rst to
advance on the way. Then, with the troops following him when,
breaking under their numbers, the bridge had collapsed, with
wounded arms and legs looking more impressive with blood and
more authoritative due to the danger itself, he attacked the backs
of the enemy.
243
The Pannonians, on the other hand, are walled off by two erce
rivers, the Drave and the Save. Against them he sent Vinicius,
who conquered them more swiftly than their rivers run rapidly in
their current.
244
The Dalmatians, dwelling similarly in forests, were laying waste
to a large area with their brigandage. To subdue them he ordered
Vibius, who forced that extremely wild tribe to dig in the earth
and wash out gold from its veins.
245
But the Msi how bestial, how erce they are! As one of the
leaders, calling for silence before the battle, said, Who are
you? The answer was, Romans, lords of mankind! And the
former said, So it will be, if you conquer us! But as soon as it
came to war, they could not even tolerate the trumpet-signal for
battle. Thus they were vanquished by Marcus.

246
Though the Thracians had often done it before, still, they then,
with Rhmetalces ruling over them, rebelled from the Romans.
For he had drilled the barbarians in discipline and the use of
military standards. But subjugated by Piso, they showed their
madness even in captivity: for by plucking at the chains with
which they were bound by biting them, they themselves
punished their own wildness.
247
With Dacia situated on the other side of the Danube, by sending
Lentulus he conquered, expelled and subjugated the Daci who
often crossed thence over the frozen Danube riverbed for looting
on Roman territory. He also drove the Sarmatians to the other
side of the Danube through the same Lentulus. They have
nothing else where they live but snow and hoarfrost and forests,
and there is so much barbarism in them that they do not even
understand what peace is.
248
Moreover through Quirinus he subjugated the Marmarid and
Garamantes in the eastern, wintery region.
249
The Germans, Gauls, Bretons, Spanish, Iberians, Astures,
Cantabrians, living in the western reaches and rebelling after
long servitude were forced by Augustus himself personally
advancing to serve again and to live under Roman jurisdiction.
250
But Cleopatra {VII Philopator}, queen of the Alexandrines of
the line of the Lagids and successor of the Ptolemies , against
the machinations of her {brother and} husband Ptolemy {XIII}
rst appealed to Gajus Julius Csar who, out of gratitude for
adultery, as they report, conrmed her queenship and sent her
with a great parade to reign in the city of Alexandria. {Gajus}
Cassius {Longinus}, having captured Judea, raided the temple.

251
However after Csar had been assassinated in the curia at
Rome, his grand-nephew Octavian took over the principate;
Antony, while he envied yet could by no means injure him, left
the city of Rome and, as though the provisioner of the Roman
Republic, went to the connes of Egypt. Finding there
Cleopatra a widow without a husband and also joining himself
with her, he began to establish overlordship for himself, and not
quietly but, forgetful of the name, the toga and the fasces of his
country, he fell away into a complete oddity in mind as well as
soul and dress:
252
a golden scepter in his hand, at his side a scimitar, a purple robe
embroidered with enormous gemstones. Only a crown was
lacking for him to be a king himself, enjoying his queen.
Hearing this, Augustus Csar crossed from Brundisium in
Calabria to Epirus to stop him from the beginnings of tyranny.
For Antony was already occupying the whole Actian shoreline
with his fleets. But when it subsequently came to a battle and
his ship began to be thrown into confusion by Csars fleet, the
queen, the rst leader in flight, put out into the high sea with her
golden stern and purple sails. Antony soon followed.
253
But Csar was pressing hard on their tracks. Thus neither their
precautions for flight into the ocean nor the garrison-fortied
promontories of Egypt, Paretonium and Pelusium, were of any
avail. They were almost within grasp. Antony rst fell on his
sword. The queen, throwing herself at the feet of Augustus,
tempted the eyes of the general. Indeed, it was in vain. For
beauty was beneath the virtue of the prince. Nor was she
struggling for her life, which was being offered to her, but for a
share of power.
254

When she despaired of the prince and realized she was being
kept for his triumph, having gotten a rather careless custody, she
retreated to the mausoleum of the kings and there having
donned, as she was wont, her nest clothes, on a throne lled
with fragrances, she placed Antony next to her and, pressing
serpents to her veins, was thus released by death as though by
sleep. This was the end of the wars of Augustus Csar, both
with citizens and with foreign peoples.
255
So too Augustus Csar Octavianus than whom no emperor
was more successful in war nor more moderate in peace was
extremely courteous to everyone. With a single peace pacifying
all peoples, from the east to the west, from the north to the south
and through the entire circle of the Ocean, he himself closed the
gates of Janus.
256
And conducting a census at Rome with Tiberius, he found {([90
* 100,000] + [370 * 1,000] = 9,370,000)} nine million, three
hundred seventy thousand people; and he ordered the whole
world, pacied at the divine nod of the coming Jesus Christ, to
be counted; and he reigned for 55 years. But in the fortysecond year of his command the Lord Jesus Christ deigned to be
born of the Holy Ghost and the virgin Mary as true God and true
man.
257
Reigning in peace for fourteen years after the Lords arrival in
bodily presence, he himself also held absolute power and,
leaving to those following him the same imperial power along
with his name of Augustus, he departed from human affairs,
leaving as his successor Tiberius, his stepson.
258
Tiberius Augustus Csar reigned for 23 years. Having enticed
many kings to himself with flattery, he never let them go back to
their own kingdoms, among whom also was Archelaus, king of

the Cappadocians. After this mans kingdom had been turned

into a province following his death, Tiberius renamed his city,
Mazaca, Csarea , after his own name. Then in this mans
18th year, in Judea under Pontius Pilate, our Lord Jesus Christ
suffered in the flesh, not in his divinity.
259
Gajus Csar, surnamed Caligula, reigned for 3 years and 10
months. For he forced Memmius Regulus to give him his own
wife in marriage as his daughter, and compelled him to sign the
marriage document as her father. Perpetrating these and similar
things, as well as setting up a statue of Jupiter in the Jerusalem
temple through Gajus Petronius, and slaughtering Jews in
Alexandria through the prefect Flaccus Avilius, he was nally
killed in the palace at Rome by his bodyguards at the age of
twenty-nine.
260
Claudius thereafter succeeding him reigned 13 years 9 months.
This Claudius undertook an expedition to the island of Britain
which no one before Julius Csar nor anyone after him had
dared to approach. He led the army and there, without any battle
or bloodshed, accepted the surrender of the greater part of the
island within a very few days. Moreover he added the Orkney
islands located in the ocean beyond Britain to the Roman
Empire. And the sixth month after leaving he returned to Rome
and died there at the age of 64.
261
Nero, the nephew of Gajus Caligula, reigned for 13 years and 8
months. He wallowed in such luxury that he would bathe in
cold and warm ointments. And to be sure, not just because he
did not advance the Republic ; instead, he harmed it greatly.
For he lost two legions in Armenia simultaneously with the
province itself which, submitting to the Parthian yoke, inflicted
grave dishonor on the Romans.
262

Besides every outrage and the parricide which he had committed

against his own relatives, he added the crime of setting re to
Rome after the fashion of Troy, and laying his hands on the
Christians he incited a persecution and killed even the doctors of
the faith, Peter and Paul, in the City, nailing the one to a cross,
executing the other by beheading. And after he had been
disgracefully torn from power, Galba seized power in Hiberia,
Vitellius in Germany, Otho at Rome; all of them, however,
perishing in a quick death.
263
Vespasian in Juda, summoned to power by the army, reigned
for 10 years. For, leaving his son Tito for the conquest of
Jerusalem, he himself, leaving for Rome, reigned in peace.
264
Titus, the son of Vespasian, also called Vespasian, the conqueror
of the people of Juda, reigned for two years and two months.
Moreover according to the trustworthiness of Josephus, this man
killed eleven hundred thousand Jews by starvation and the
sword, and sold another hundred thousand captives to benet the
state. A paschal celebration had gathered together that much of a
multitude in Jerusalem.
265
Domitian, the brother of Titus, son of Vespasian, reigned for 15
years and 5 months, and was so haughty that he rst ordered
himself to be called lord by everyone; and, banishing many of
the nobles with exile and killing some, out of their property he
made gold and silver statues for himself. Laying hands on the
Christians, after he had been unable to kill John the apostle and
evangelist when plunged in boiling oil, banished him as an exile
to the island of Patmos, where he saw the Apocalypse. Not
tolerating the mans cruelty, the Romans decided to kill him in
the palace at Rome, and that everything that he had established
would be futile.
266

The very old Nerva reigned for one year and 4 months. Being
slack in his private life, he was slacker in governing; nor did he
do anything benecial for the Republic other than that, while
still living, he chose Trajan.
267
Trajan, more powerful than almost all emperors, reigned for 18
years and 6 months. For this man triumphed over the Dacians
and Scythians and subdued the Iberians and Sauromat, the
Osdroni, the Arabs, the Bosphorians, the Colchi after they had
erupted into anarchy. He invaded and held Seleucia and
Ctesiphon and Babylonia.
268
He also established a fleet in the Red Sea whence he might lay
waste to the borderlands of India, and consecrated his own statue
there; and after so many labors he died at Seleucia of Isauria
from a hemorrhage of the bowels at the age of 63. His bones
were arranged in a golden urn and situated under a column in the
forum, and alone of all the emperors he was buried in the City.
269
Hadrian, born at Italic in Spain, the son of a maternal cousin of
Trajan, reigned for 21 years. This man did almost nothing for
the Republic other than that he repaired the long ruined
Alexandria and Jerusalem at his own expense, and relaxed the
public taxes in a few places.
270
Indeed, calling Jerusalem by his own forename, lia, he
permitted none of the Jews to enter it. For it is clear that he was
jealous of Trajans accomplishments, since soon after
succeeding him he immediately, with no necessity forcing him,
recalled the army to himself and left Mesopotamia and Assyria
and Armenia to the Persians, establishing the Euphrates river as
the limit and boundary between the Parthians and the Romans.
During his reign Aquila Ponticus translated the Scriptures from
Hebrew. Hadrian died at Baj, caused by sickness.

271
Antonius, surnamed Pius, reigned with his {adopted} sons,
{Marcus} Aurelius and Lucius {Verus}, for 12 years and 3
months.
And though Antoninus did nothing benecial,
nonetheless under him the Republic felt no harm. He died at the
twelfth milestone from the City in his villa named Lorium, at
the age of seventy-six.
272
Marcus Antoninus, also called Verus, and Lucius Aurelius
Commodus, connected by relationship, governed the Empire
with equal rights. Of the two, the younger, leading the military
against the Parthians, performing deeds of great valor and took
their city Seleucia with four hundred thousand ghters, over
whom he triumphed with great glory. The elder, on the other
hand, was frequently present in many wars, and more often
brought back a triumph through his generals, especially over the
nation of the Quadi. But the one died suffering from apoplexy
in Altinum, the other passed away of sickness in Pannonia.
273
Commodus, the son of Antoninus, reigned for 13 years and
brought back a great triumph over the Germanic people, and
afterwards died, strangled, in the house of Vestilian.
274
Helvius Pertinax, more than a sexgenarian when he was heading
the Urban Prefecture, having been made emperor by a decree of
the Senate, reigned for 6 months. Indeed also, when the Senate
was asking to call his wife Augusta and his son Csar, the
man said, It should be enough that I am reigning against my
will, when I do not deserve to. Overly egalitarian and
accessible to all, he was killed in the palace by the lawyer
{Didius} Julianus who himself was later killed by {Septimius}
Severus.
275

{Septimius} Severus, African by birth, from Tripoli, reigned 18

years and, taking vengeance against Julianus for the murder of
Pertinax, also called himself Pertinax. In addition, this man won
marvelous victories over the Parthians and Adiabenes when they
rose against Rome. He also defeated the Arabs of the interior so
thoroughly that he made their region a Roman province. Plus,
triumphing thus, he was titled Parthicus, Arabicus and
Adiabenicus.
276
While he was reigning, a Samaritan, a certain Symmachus,
having become a proselyte of the Jews, poured the divine
Scriptures from the Hebrew tongue into the Greek language and
created his own edition. After him, almost three years later,
Theodotion of Pontus likewise in the same effort composed his
own edition of the Scriptures. A British war broke out, from
which Severus gained a marvelous triumph.
277
{Marcus Aurelius} Antoninus, surnamed Caracalla, the son of
Severus, reigned for 7 years. It happened that he got this name
for the reason that, in disbursing these same kinds of garments at
Rome from the war-spoils, he would give himself the name
Caracalla {(hooded sweatshirt)} and to the garment
Antoniana. Under him, yet again, an edition of the divine
Scriptures which we call the fth was found in Jericho in a
jar. And then this emperor, while leading an expedition against
the Persians, died in Osdrone (Edessa).
278
{Marcus Opellius} Macrinus, prefect of the Pretorian Guard,
was made emperor and reigned for one year and was killed by
Archilas.
279
Marcus Aurelius, the son of Antoninus Caracalla and priest of
the temple of Ela-Gabal, was made emperor and reigned for 4

years. Emmaus was built in Juda and called Nicopolis.

Then also {Sextus Julius} Africanus, a distinguished historian,
undertook an embassy to the emperor for that very city. But the
emperor, while he overlooked no kind of obscenity during his
reign that he would not engage in, was killed by a military
revolt.
280
{Severus} Alexander, the son of Mama, coming from low
fortune, took control of the state while still young and soon,
taking up arms against Xerxes, king of the Persians, triumphed
magnicently with the spoils of the Parthians. Likewise under
this mans rule, in the Actian Nicopolis, that is, Epirus, an
edition called the sixth of the divine Scriptures was
found in a jar. He himself was killed in a Mainz military revolt;
Maximinus {I Thrax} of the military corps succeeded him in
power.
281
Maximinus, Goth by race, born of a father Mikka {Big Man}
and a mother Ababa, an Alan, ascending to the emperorship
solely through the choice of the soldiers, successfully waged war
against the Germans. Coming back from there, after attacking
the Christians in a civil battle, reigning for hardly three years, he
was killed by Pupienus in Aquileja.
282
{Marcus Antonius} Gordianus {III}, made emperor while still a
boy, reigned hardly six years. The facts are that as soon as he
entered Rome he killed on the spot Pupienus and Balbinus who,
assassinating Maximinus, had seized tyrannical power; and,
opening the gates of the double-faced Janus and leaving for the
Orient, he made war on the Parthians; and returning thence with
victory, he was killed in a trap by Philip, the head of the
Prtorian Guard, not far from Roman soil.
283

Philip {I, the Arab} shamelessly entered into the emperorship,

and reigned 7 years. For indeed he made his own son, also
Philip {II}, his partner in command, and he himself was the rst
of all emperors to become Christian. In the third year of his
reign he celebrated the festival of the city of Rome, in the
thousandth year which it had completed. Rebuilding the city of
his own name in Thracia which used to be called Pulpudeva
{(actually Eumolpias; Pulpudeva (now Plovdiv) is a
Thracian translation of Philippopolis)}, he renamed it
Philippopolis.
284
{C. Messius Quintus Trajanus} Decius from Lower Pannonia,
born at Budalia {(now Martinci, Serbia)}, after both Philips had
been killed, reigned for one year and three months, directing
arms against the Christians out of hatred for the name of the
Philips. He himself, ghting the Goths, with his son died a cruel
death at Abrittus {(modern Razgrad)}
285
{Gajus Vibius Trebonianus} Gallus and {Gajus Vibius Anius
Gallus Veldumnianus} Volusianus reigned 2 years and 4 months.
When they left the City to go against {Marcus milius}
milianus who was engineering a revolt in Msia, they were
killed at Forum Flaminii.
286
But milianus was killed in the third month of having taken
over the tyranny.
287
{Publius Licinius Cornelius} Valerianus and {Publius Licinius
Egnatius} Gallienus, while the one was raised to the
emperorship in Rtia by the soldiers, the other at Rome by the
Senate, reigned for 15 years. As it happened, Valerianus,
starting a persecution against the Christians, was shortly
captured by Shapur {I}, king of the Persians, and there grew old
in wretched slavery. Gallienus, seeing his fate, gave peace to the

Christians. But when he became too degenerate in the

emperorship and did nothing manly, the Parthians laid waste to
Syria and Ciliciam, the Germans and the Alans ravaging the
Gauls came all the way to Ravenna. The Goths devastated
Greece, the Quadi and Sarmat invaded the Pannonias. The
Germans again seized the Spains. Hence Gallienus was
assassinated at Milan.
288
{Marcus Aurelius Valerius} Claudius {II Gothicus} reigned for
1 year and 8 months. Undertaking a war against the Goths who
had been ravaging Illyricum and Macedonia for 15 years, he
obliterated them amidst incredible carnage, in fact so much so,
that a golden shield was placed in his honor in the curia and on
the Capitol a golden statue. He was assassinated at Sirmium
{(modern Sremska Mitrovica, Serbia)}
289
After his death, {Marcus Aurelius Claudius} Quintillus, his
brother, declared Augustus by the Senate, was assassinated at
Aquileja on the eighteenth day of his reign.
290
{Lucius Domitius} Aurelianus, originating in Riparian Dacia,
reigned for 5 years and 6 months. He soon recaptured the Gauls,
with {Gajus Pius Esuvius} Tetricus betraying his own army
among the Catalauni; and making an expedition to the Danube,
he beat the Goths in huge battles; and he persecuted the
worshippers of the Divine Name. Odnath of Palmyra,
gathering a band of peasants and expelling the Persians from
Mesopotamia, had, previous to him, himself invaded their
places.
291
Following his death, his wife held power; Aurelian undertook
an expedition against her, defeated her at Imm in the vicinity
of Antioch, and led her alive in his triumph in Rome. And from
there, embarking on an expedition, he was assassinated between

between Byzantium at Heraclea in Cnophrurium of the old

route.
292
Tacitus reigned for 6 years. After his assassination near Pontus,
{Marcus Annius} Florianus took over power and held it for 88
days. Similarly, at Tarsus he himself was also assassinated.
293
{Marcus Aurelius} Probus reigned for 6 years and 4 months. He
permitted Gauls and Spaniards to have vineyards. At which time
Saturninus, Master of the Soldiery, while he had been sent for
the restoration of the city of Antioch, usurping tyrannical power
in that very place, was soon defeated and killed at Apamea {in
Syria}. Emperor Probus himself was also killed in a military
revolt at Sirmium in the tower called the Iron-Clad.
294
{Marcus Aurelius} Carus, a native of Narbonne of Gaul, reigned
2 years with his sons Carinus and Numerianus. Having
admirably laid waste to almost the whole of Persia, this man
seized their famous cities Coche and Ctesiphon. He won the
Sarmatian war successfully. Carus himself, while pitching camp
on the Tigris river, also died struck by lightning.
295
{Marcus Aurelius Numerius} Numerianus, racked with eye pain,
while being carried in a litter, murdered through the treachery of
his father-in-law, Aper, was barely discovered only on the third
day due to the stench of his cadaver. As for {Marcus Aurelius}
Carinus, he was killed, conquered in battle near Margus {now
uprija, Serbia}.
296
{Gajus Aurelius Valerius} Diocletianus, from Dalmatia, the son
of a scribe, reigned for 20 years. And as it happened, shortly
after being raised to power, he killed Aper on the spot in a

soldiers assembly, swearing that it was without any crime of his

own that Numerius had died. And soon afterward he summoned
{Marcus Aurelius} Maximianus Herculius to his partnership.
Having crushed the mob of peasants that they call Bagaud,
this Maximianus returned peace to the Gauls.
297
At this time {Marcus Aurelius Mausus} Carausius, having
donned the purple, had taken over Britain; Narses, king of the
Persians, had made war on the East; the Quinquegentiani had
attacked Africa; Achilleus had invaded Egypt.
298
Because of all this Constantius {I Chlorus (father of
Constantine)} and {Gajus} Galerius {Valerius} Maximianus
were brought into the administration as Csars. Of whom
Constantius was the grandson of Claudius {II Gothicus} through
his daughter, while Galerius had been born in Dacia, not far
from Serdica {(now Soa, Bulgaria)}. And, so that Diocletian
could unite them with marriage ties, Constantius married
{Marcus Aurelius} Herculiuss stepdaughter, Theodora (by
whom he also fathered six children), whereas Galerius took
Valeria, Diocletians daughter both of the men repudiating
their former marriages.
299
So then the tribe of the Carpi was defeated and transferred onto
Roman soil. Moreover at that time Diocletian, as the rst of all
emperors, ordered that he be adored as a god, and braided
gemstones in his clothes and footwear and a diadem on his head,
whereas before him they had all had only a purple cloak to
distinguish them from private citizens, and were saluted as other
magistrates.
300
With each of the princes therefore taking charge of an
expedition, Diocletian, having defeated the tyrant of Egypt
within eight months, subjugated the entire province.

Maximianus Herculius vanquished the Quinquegentiani in

Africa. In a single day Constantius massacred 60 thousand
Alamanni near Lingonae {(now Langres)}.
301
Galerius Maximianus, beaten by Narseus in the rst battle, ran
in front of Diocletians wagon dressed in purple. Stung by that
humiliation, the second time he fought like a man, defeated
Narseus, made off with his wives and children, and was received
by Diocletian with tting honor.
302
After that victory, Diocletian and Maximianus celebrated a
spectacular triumph, with the children and wives of the king of
the Persians walking before them, and with that enormous booty
of various peoples. Thus, also whipping up a persecution of the
Christians, Diocletian . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
*
{Note:} At this point (between paragraphs 302 and 303) in the
Romana there is an extensive lacuna in the narrative of the
extant manuscripts. Since most of the text before and after this
lacuna closely follows (indeed, is often plucked verbatim from)
St. Jeromes Chronicle, a good idea of the missing text may be
gathered from the relevant sections of the latter work, here
presented:
Excerpts from the The Chronicle of St. Jerome ( 2317-2377)
Veturius, Master of the Soldiers, persecutes the Christian
soldiers, the persecution against us beginning little by little from
just that time. {(Jerome 2317)}
Galerius Maximian, after he had defeated Narses, and captured
his wives, children and sisters, is received by Diocletian with
great honour.
Diocletian and Maximian Augusti celebrated a triumph at Rome
with notable pomp. Before their chariot went the wife, sisters

and children of Narses, and all the booty, which they had looted
from the Parthians.
In a horrible earthquake at Tyre and Sidon, many edices were
ruined and an immense number of people were crushed.
In the nineteenth year of Diocletian, during the month of March,
in the days of Easter, the churches were destroyed. However in
the 4th year of the persecution, Constantine began to reign.
In the second year of the persecution, Diocletian at Nicomedia,
and Maximianus at Milan, laid down the purple.
Maximinus {Daia} et Severus are made Csars by Galerius
Maximianus.
In the 16th year of his reign Constantius {I Chlorus} died in
Britain at York; after him his son Constantine, born from the
concubine Helena, takes possession of the empire.
Maxentius, the son of Maximianus Herculius, is named Augustus
at Rome by the Prtorian Guard.
Severus Csar, sent against Maxentius by Galerius
Maximianus, is killed at Ravenna in the second year of his reign.
Licinius made emperor at Carnuntum by Galerius.
Maximianus Herculius, detected by his daughter Fausta,
because he was preparing a swindle against his son-in-law
Constantine, in flight is slain at Marseilles.
Galerius Maximianus dies.
Maximinus, after a persecution had been carried out against the
Christians, when now about to be punished by Licinius, dies at
Tarsus.
Maxentius, defeated by Constantine near the Milvian Bridge,
dies.
The war against Licinius at Cibal.

Diocletian dies in his villa at Split, not far from Salon, and,
alone of all (the emperors), is declared to be among the gods as
a private citizen.
Crispus and Constantine, sons of Constantine, and Licinius, the
adolescent son of Licinius Augustus, the offspring of
Constantine's sister, are appointed Csars; of these, Lactantius,
the most eloquent man of his time, educated Crispus in Latin
literature; but he (Lactantius) was in fact so poor in this life
that he generally lacked even the necessities.
Licinius expels the Christians from his palace.
Constantius, the son of Constantine, appointed Csar.
Licinius, contrary to a solemn pledge, is slain as a private
citizen at Thessalonica.
Crispus, the son of Constantine, and Licinius junior, the son of
Constantia, the sister of Constantine, and of Licinius, are very
cruelly killed.
The Vicennalia of Constantine held in Nicomedia, and
proclaimed at Rome in the following year.
Constantine, restoring the city of Drepana in Bithynia in honor
of the martyr Lucian, who was buried there, named it
Helenopolis, from the name of his mother.
In Antioch the construction of the Dominicum which is called
Aureum begun.
Constantine kills his wife Fausta.
Constantinople is dedicated by denuding nearly every other city.
By an edict of Constantine the temples of the gentiles were
overthrown.
The Romans defeated the Goths in the land of the Sarmatians.

Constans, the son of Constantine, is promoted to the royal

power.
An innumerable multitude perish from pestilence and famine in
Syria and Cilicia.
The Limigantes Sarmatians, having gathered a force, expelled
their masters, who are now called the Argaragantes, onto
Roman soil.
Calocerus revolts in Cyprus and is suppressed.
Constantine and his children sent an honoric letter to Antonius.
On the Tricennalia of Constantine, Dalmatius is named a Csar.
The prtorian prefect Tiberian, an eloquent man, rules the
Gallic provinces.
Constantine, baptized by Eusebius of Nicomedia at the very end
of his life, falls into the dogma of Arius, and from that time until
now seizures of churches and discord of the whole world have
followed.
While preparing for war against the Persians, Constantine dies
at Ancyra in a public villa near Nicomedia at the age of 66;
after him his three sons are hailed Augusti from being Csars.
Ablabius the Prtorian Prefect and many of the nobles
slaughtered.
apor, king of Persia, after Mesopotamia had been devastated,
besieged Nisibis for almost two months.
Dalmatius Csar, whom his uncle Constantine had left as a
colleague in the power of his sons, is murdered by a plot of his
cousin Constantius and in a military disturbance.
From this point the Arian impiety, propped up by the support of
the ruler, Constantius, with exiles and imprisonments and
various types of affliction rst persecuted Athanasius and then
all bishops not of their party.

Constantine, waging war against his brother near Aquileja, is

slain at Alsa.
Constans ghts against the Franks with mixed fortune.
Many cities of the east collapsed in a horrible earthquake.
The Franks are subdued by Constans and peace made with
them.
apor, king of the Persians, persecutes the Christians.
Dyrrachium collapsed in an earthquake, and for three days and
nights Rome tottered and many cities of Campania were shaken.
A sea-port constructed in Seleucia of Syria at great expense to
the state.
apor for three months again besieges Nisibis.
An eclipse of the sun happened. {(A.D. 346 June 6)}
Nocturnal Persian battle at Singara in which we lost a certain
victory by the stupidity of the soldiers. Nor indeed was there
any more serious battle out of nine extremely serious conflicts
against the Persians, for, to pass over the others, Nisibis was
besieged and Bizabde and Amida were captured.
After Magnentius had seized the emperorship at Augustodunum,
Constans is killed in the thirtieth year of his life not far from
Spain in a camp which is named Helena; on account of this,
since the state was thrown into turmoil, Vetranio, at Mursa, and
Nepotian, at Rome, became emperors.
At Rome, the people rebelling against the followers of
Magnentius are betrayed by Heraclides the senator.
The head of Nepotian paraded through the City on a pike, and
many proscriptions and slaughters of noblemen carried out.

The insignia of imperial power taken away from Vetranio by

Constantius at Naissus.
Magnentius conquered at Mursa, in which battle the Roman
forces were ruined.
Gallus, cousin of Constantius, made Csar.
Gallus crushed the Jews, who after killing the soldiers by night
had taken possession of arms in order to rebel, with the
slaughter of many thousands of men, even including those of
innocent years, and turned over to re their cities, Diocsarea,
Tiberias and Diospolis, and a great many towns.
Some of the nobles of Antioch killed by Gallus.
Magnentius of Lugdunum kills himself in the palace by his own
hand; and his brother Decentius, whom he had sent to look
after the Gallic provinces, ends his life among the Senones with
a noose.
Gallus Csar, deceived by his cousin Constantius, under whose
suspicion he had come because of his outstanding inborn ability,
is executed at Histria.
Silvanus, having revolted in Gaul, died on the twenty-eighth day.
Julian, brother of Gallus, is named Csar at Milan.
Large numbers of the forces of the Alamanni crushed by Julian
Csar at Argentoratum, a city of the Gallic provinces.
Saracens, rushing into the monastery of Blessed Anthony, kill
Sarmata.
After Constantius had entered Rome, the bones of the apostle
Andrew and evangelist Luke were received from the people of
Constantinople with marvellous goodwill.
Nicomedia utterly destroyed by an
neighbouring cities partially damaged.

earthquake;

the

Gratian, who is now emperor, is born.

Constantius II dies at Mopsucrene, between Cilicia and
Cappadocia, in the forty-fth year of his life. {(A.D. 361
Jerome 2377)}
*
303
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Constantius {II, son of Constantine the Great
and Fausta} died {[at Mopsucren (or Mopsuestia, now
Messis), on the way between Cilicia]} and Cappadocia.
304
{Flavius Clausius} Julianus the Apostate reigned one year and 8
months and, having left Christianity, he turned to the worship of
idols and, enticing many with flattering pressure, he compelled
them to sacrice to idols. He himself, indeed an extraordinary
man and necessary for the Republic, took up war against the
Parthians with an immense apparatus. When leaving, he vowed
the blood of Christians to his gods after victory, and took the
surrender of a number of Parthian towns, devastated them with
great violence, and for a while had his camp near Ctesiphon.
305
Having left there, led into the deserts through the treachery of a
certain defector, at a time when his army was perishing, undone
through the effects of thirst and the suns heat, he himself being
anxious about such dangers, while he was wandering more
uncautiously through the wastelands of the desert, died, pierced
in the groin with a lance by a cavalryman of the enemy at the
age of thirty-three. After him, on the following day, {Flavius
(Jovinus)} Jovianus, the head of the imperial guard, was elected
to power by the army.
306
Jovianus reigned for eight months. Forced by the necessity of
the situation, he handed over Nisibis and a large part of

Mesopotamia to Shapur, king of the Parthians; and he himself

died, suffocated by the fumes of coals, at Dadastana at the age of
33.
307
Valentinian {I} and {Flavius Julius} Valens reigned for 13 years
and 5 months. For they were Pannonians, born at Cibal,
brothers on both sides. Valentinian had been lling the ofce of
the tribunate in Nicomedia and, elected emperor, made his
brother Valens his colleague in power. He himself was
extraordinary and similar to Aurelian in behavior except for the
fact that some denounced his excessive severity and thrift as
cruelty and avarice. Leaving his brother in the Eastern empire,
he himself held the West.
308
During his reign, another Valentinian {(actually Valentine)} in
Britain, seizing tyrannical power, was crushed on the continent.
Also at Constantinople, a certain Procopius, rebelling against
Valens and achieving nothing, left the city and, exercizing
tyranny over Phrygia Salutaris, was executed, and many of the
Procopian faction were killed and outlawed. Valens, converted
and baptized by Eudoxius, an Arian bishop, hostilely attacked
the orthodox.
309
Valentinianus made {Flavius} Gratianus, his son by Severa in a
previous marriage, emperor at Amiens; and he was going to war
against the Saxons and Burgundians who, over 80 thousand
armed men in number, were for the rst time pitching camp on
the edge of the Rhine; but at Brigetio {(now Komarom-Szny,
Hungary)} he died suddenly of apoplexy and a hemorrhage.
310
Then Gratianus took Valentinianus {II}, his brother born of
Justina, the second wife, as his colleague in the emperorship.
For Valentinianus {I} senior, given that his wife Severa had long
been praising the beauty of Justina, took her to himself in

marriage and created laws on account of her that all men who
wanted to might with impunity contract double marriages,
because for that reason nations were populous, since among
them this is customary, and a single man is heard of as being the
husband of many wives.
311
Therefore Valentinianus {I}, having taken Justina, fathered four
children by her: the above-said emperor Valentinianus {II}; and
Grata; and Justa; and Galla. By this Galla the emperor
Theodosius, after the death of Flacilla who had borne Arcadius
and Honorius, later begot Placidia who was the mother of the
most recent Valentinianus {III} junior, the emperor. But let us
return to our subject.
312
Emperor Valens, having given a law that monks must serve as
soldiers, also commanded that the refusers be executed. During
this, even Theodosius, the father of the later emperor Theodosius
{I (the Great)}, and many nobles were killed through Valens
insanity. Emperor Gratianus slaughtered in war more than 30
thousand Alamanni near the town of Argentarium {(actually
Argentovaria, now Colmar, France)} of Gaul, and pacied the
Gauls.
313
Attacking the Goths, the race of the Huns subjugated certain of
them, routed others. The latter, coming onto Roman territory
and being accepted without the surrender of their arms, were
forced by hunger, due to the greed of General Maximus, to rebel;
and having beaten the Romans in battle, they poured into the
Thraces.
314
Against them {Flavius Julius} Valens, forced to leave from
Antioch, departed for Thrace; and there, engaging in a
deplorable war, the emperor, wounded by an arrow, was carried
wounded into a paltry house where, with the Goths swooping

down on it and setting it ablaze, he was incinerated. But with

the emperor killed, the Goths, now safe, rushed to the city of
Constantinople where then {Albia} Dominica Augusta, Valens
wife, by distributing a large amount of money to the people,
prevented the enemy from devastating the city and loyally and
manfully saved the empire of her relative {(actually her nephewin-law) Flavius Gratianus (emperor of the West)} until he could
appoint Theodosius {I (the Great)}.
315
The Spaniard Theodosius {I}, of the city of Italica {(now Itlica,
Spain)} of the divine Trajanus, was made emperor by Gratianus
Augustus at Sirmium after the death of Valens, and reigned for
17 years.
Arriving at Thessalonica {(now Thessaloniki,
Greece)}, he was baptized by the holy bishop Ascholius and
greatly distinguished himself as a religious propagator of the
Church and an exceptional defender of the Empire. For in
various battles he conquered the Huns and Goths who had
exhausted it under Valens, and checked them in their criminal
devastations. Petitioned, he also struck a peace treaty with the
Persians.
316
On the other hand, attacking from the East together with
Emperor Valentinianus at Mediolanum {(now Milan)}, he
encircled, captured and killed the tyrant Maximus, who had
killed Gratianus and was claiming the Gauls for himself.
317
Armed with divine assistance, he also vanquished the tyrant
{Flavius} Eugenius and {Flavius} Arwa-gast {Fast-guest,
Expeditious-visitor}, annihilating their ten thousand ghters.
For indeed this Eugenius, depending on the forces of Arwa-gast
after the latter had killed Valentinian {II} at Vienna {(now
Vienne, France)}, usurped power, but soon lost his throne along
with his life.
318

For after the death of Arwa-gast, he killed himself in despair.

Theodosius, with all of his enemies vanquished, departed from
human affairs in peace at Mediolanum, leaving one apiece of the
two republics, both tranquil, to each of his two sons. In the
same year his body was transported to Constantinople and
buried.
319
The brothers Arcadius and Honorius, the sons of Emperor
Theodosius, began to rule both empires, only with separate
headquarters, that is, Arcadius, the older, the city of
Constantinople, but Honorius the Roman one. Then the
patrician Runus, setting a trap for Prince Arcadius, invited Alareik {All-ruler}, king of the Goths, to lay waste to the Greek
territories, by secretly sending him money. In the sequel,
Runus was exposed, was deservedly cut to pieces in front of
the gates of the city by soldiers from Italy sent with Count Gaina
to Arcadius, and his head and right hand were paraded around in
ridicule at Constantinople and, after his wife had been exiled, the
eunuch Eutropius gained all his wealth.
320
Gildo, formerly appointed count of Africa by Theodosius, as
though despising the youthful twofold reign, began looking to
obtain Africa for himself; and, after nding himself revealed by
his own brother Mascezel and close to liquidation, he slew
himself with his own hand. On the other hand, the abovementioned Count Gaina, stirring up a civil war in
Constantinople, disrupted the entire city with re and the sword;
and fleeing to the Hellespont, he lived like a pirate. After a
naval battle had been launched against him, many of his Goths
were killed. He himself, escaping from the war too, nonetheless
soon paid for it with his head.
321
After his suppression, the Isaurians running around through the
Taurus range inflicted enormous damage on the Republic.
{Manlius Bothius} Narbazaicus {(original Armenian name:
Artabazakos)}, sent against them, immediately paid them back

with greater losses. However in the realm of Emperor Honorius,

to begin with, Hraa-gais {Agile-spear, Quick-javelin}, a
Scythian, inundated the western empire with two hundred
thousand of his men. Vanquishing him, Huldin and Sarwa
{Armament, War-equipment, Arms}, kings of the Huns
and Goths, sold all the captives they brought back for one gold
coin apiece.
322
But Count Stilika {Stealer} whose two daughters, Maria
and Thermantia, were individually wives of Emperor Honorius,
and both of whom died as virgins , scorning Honorius and
gaping after his power, stirred up the peoples of the Alans,
Sweves and Vandals against the dominion of Honorius, enticing
them with gifts and money, wanting to appoint his own son
Eucherius as Csar a pagan, and one engineering traps for
Christians. On the discovery of the plot, he was killed together
with that same son. In the same year Arcadius, emperor of the
East, also died, having reigned for 13 years after the death of his
father.
323
Theodosius {II} junior, son of Arcadius, a distinguished young
man, succeeded to his fathers place on the throne and reigned
for 43 years. Ala-reik {All-ruler}, king of the Visigoths,
having laid waste to Italy, entered Rome and, after having
plundered the wealth of Honorius the Augustus, took his sister
Placidia captive and later assigned her to Aa-wulf {Noble
wolf}, his own successor, for him to take her in marriage.
324
At that time a certain Constantine {III}, having taken over the
Gauls, went after the emperorship. < Immediately his enemies,
raging against him and desiring to deprive his > son < of the
throne, made the latter a monk. He himself, having returned
safely from Gaul, > out of the monk made his son Constans a
Csar. But shortly he himself lost his throne together with his
life at Arelatum {(now Arles, France)}, his son lost his at
Vienna.

{Note:} < Statim svientes, > < illius regno lium >
(< Immediately to deprive his > < of the throne from
Gaul, >): these portions are not found in the better codices or
in Marcellinus.
325
Similarly, forgetful of their demise, Jovinus and Sebastianus set
up a tyranny there in the Gauls, but they themselves also came to
their end right away. Subsequently Heracleanus arrived with
seventy-three armed ships to plunder the city of Rome. Count
Marinus, going out against him, so terried him that he fled with
only a single ship to Carthage where in a short time he entered
and was killed.
326
Wallia {Selected one, Elite}, king of the Visigoths, having
concluded a peace with Honorius, returned Placidia, his sister
after joining whom in matrimony to the patrician Constantius
who had called for her return, Honorius departed from human
affairs. Maximus and Jovinus, bound in irons, were led away
from the Spains and executed.
327
But after the death of Honorius, John {the Usurper} took over
the Western empire. Placidia, having been made an Augusta,
and her son Valentinian {III}, a Csar, were sent against him.
Aspar and Ara-barjis {Earth-son, Child of the land} also
conquered him more through trickery than through Atiuss
valor.
328
After the death of John the tyrant, Valentinianus was ordained
emperor at Ravenna by his paternal uncle Theodosius. The
latters sister, {Justa Grata} Honoria, being that she was forced
to maintain her virginity for the honor of the court, by secretly
sending an emissary, invited Attila, king of the Huns, to Italy.
And when she could not full her vow once Attila had come, she

furthermore committed the crime which she had not done with
Attila, with Eugenius her steward. For which she was taken into
custody by her brother and sent to Constantinople to Theodosius,
the emperor.
329
The third year afterward, Valentinian {III} came from Rome to
Constantinople to take in marriage {Licinia} Eudoxia, the
daughter of Emperor Theodosius and, giving as a present to his
father-in-law all of Illyria, after having celebrated the wedding,
he returned to his realm with his wife.
330
The African province was surrendered to the Vandals by Count
Boniface and removed from Roman jurisdiction because
Boniface, after having fallen into the disfavor of Valentinian
{III}, sought to defend himself with national harm. Having
invited in Gaisa-reik {Spear Ruler, Javelin Ruler}, king of the
Vandals, from the Spains, he achieved the treachery that he had
devised.
331
The king of the Huns, Attila, having allied to himself the
Gibios {The Givers} under Ara-reik {Earth-ruler, Homeground ruler} and the Goths under Wala-mer {Beloved
famous one}, and different other tribes with their kings,
ravaged all of Illyria and Thrace, and both Dacias, Msia et
Scythia. Against them Arni-gisl {Eagle-arrowshaft, Eaglejavelin}, the general in charge of Msia, leaving from
Marcianopolis, fought valiantly, and with his horse collapsing
under him he was outmaneuvered and, even so, not ceasing to
ght, was killed.
332
Emperor Marcianus reigned for 6 years and 6 months. Indeed,
this man, called to the throne soon after the death of Theodosius
{II}, taking in marriage Theodosiuss sister Pulcheria who as a
mature woman in the palace had still kept her virginity, repaired

with divine foresight the empire that his effeminate ruling

predecessors and forerunners had by turns diminished through
almost sixty years, to the point that great joy grew in everyone.
333
For with the constantly warring Parthians and the Vandals he
established peace; he checked the threats of Attila; through
Florus, governor of the city of Alexandria, he quelled the
Nubades and Blemmyes who had slipped in from thiopia, and
drove them back from the frontiers of the Romans; and to his
good fortune he learned of the death of Attila and downfall of
Zenon the Isaurian of men of misfortune before he died.
And, with the Lords power, stomping on the necks of all of his
foes, reigning in his sixth year and sixth month, he died in peace.
334
Valentinianus {III}, however, the western emperor, was
assassinated in an ambush of the patrician Maximus, through
whose deception Atius had also perished, in the Campus
Martius by Uftila {Often, Frequent (i.e, Always at the
ready)} and rafstila {Consoler, Encourager}, bodyguards
of Atius, after the eunuch Heracleus had already been killed.
The same Maximus usurped his throne also, and in the third
month of his tyranny was torn limb from limb at Rome by the
Romans. Then Gaisa-reik, king of the Vandals, having been
invited by Valentinians wife Eudoxia, entered Rome from
Africa and, having plundered that city of everything, returning to
Africa took her and her two daughters with him.
335
Through the power of the patrician Aspar, Leo {I (the Great)},
of Bessian origin, from being a tribune of the soldiers was made
emperor. Through his backing, the man soon ordained Csar in
the place of Valentinian {III} at Ravenna was Majorianus who,
not yet having completed his third year in the emperorship, was
killed near Dertona {(now Tortona, Italy)}, and {Libius}
Severus took over his place without Leos permission.
336

But he himself too, after having completed the third year of his
tyranny, died at Rome. Leo then, raising Anthemius, the son-inlaw of the divine Marcian, from being a patrician to Csar, set
him up in the emperorship at Rome, whereupon he killed
Bigeles {(= Beorgor, cf. Getica, 236)}, king of the Get,
through Aspars son Ara-barjis.
337
< Leo erred greatly, > Sending his brother-in-law {Flavius}
Basiliscus that is, the brother of his Augusta, {lia} Verina
to Africa with an army, a man who, often attacking Carthage
in naval battles, being conquered by avarice, sold it to the king
of the Vandals for money rather than subjecting it to Roman
power.
338
However he slaughtered the patrician Aspar, along with his sons
Ara-barjis and Patriciolus, in the palace at the prompting of
Zenons son-in-law; and, with Anthemio killed at Rome,
through his own client Domitian, at Ravenna he ordained
{Julius} Nepos, the son of Nepotianus, as Csar, having joined
his niece to him in marriage.
Having assumed power
legitimately, this Nepos, expelling from the emperorship
Glycerium who had tyrannically usurped power for himself,
made him a bishop in Salona of Dalmatia.
339
Thus also Leo {I}, appointing his own grandson (through his
daughter {lia} Ariadne), Leo {II} the Younger to the Eastern
emperorship, he died in the sixteenth year of his reign.
340
While for a few short months Leo the Younger had ruled the
child-led Empire his father nevertheless appointing him ,
with his own hand crowning his own father Zenon and making
him emperor, he departed from human affairs.

341
Zeno, Isaurian by nationality, son-in-law of Emperor Leo,
reigned for 17 years. As it happened, while he was in
conferences at Chalcedon, suddenly his mother-in-law, Verina,
the Augusta, bringing her brother Basiliscus into the
emperorship, proclaimed him Augustus in the city.
342
Discovering this, Zeno left Chalcedon for Isauria without any
harm to the Republic, preferring to be exiled alone with Ariadne,
his Augusta, than to bring about any damage to the Republic
through civil wars on his account. Learning of this, Basiliscus,
happy over Zenos flight, ordained his own son Marcus as
Csar.
Inflated with the Nestorian perdy, this man
immediately tried to do a lot against the Church; but through the
will of God, this inflated man died suddenly before he could
stand repentent.
343
For Zeno, returning again to his own kingdom, sent both him
and his father and mother to exile in the town of Limnai of the
province of Cappadocia. Where, because the love of God and of
neighbor had turned cold in them, they were overcome with cold
and lost their lives along with their power.
344
In the realm of the West, Orestes, having put Emperor Nepos to
flight, placed his own son Augustulus on the throne. But soon
Aua-wakr {Blest-awake, "Fortunate (in) alertness,
Auspiciously conscious}, Rugian {Hard-striver, Exerter,
Toiler} by nationality, reinforced by masses of orkilings {=
warhei-l-ingos? (= ingos Progeny) the Sons of Wrath,
Race of Ire?}, Skeiri {Pure(-blooded) ones}, and Aruli
{Earls, Men}, invaded Italy and, having torn Emperor
Augustulus from power, condemned him to a punishment of
exile in the Lucullan castle of Campania.
345

Thus too the Western empire and the lordship of the Roman
people which, in the seven hundred and ninth year after the
foundation of the city, Octavian Augustus began to hold as the
rst of the Augusti, perished with this Augustulus, in the ve
hundred twenty-second year of the succeeding emperors of the
realm, Gothic kings thenceforth holding Rome.
346
iua-reik {People-ruler, Prince over the folk}, the son of
Triarius, surnamed Squinter, king of the Goths, having
mustered his men, arrived battle-ready at the fourth city
milestone from Stabulum Diomedis {(near Philippi in
Macedonia)}; nonetheless, having injured none of the Romans,
he immediately turned back; hastening on to Illyria, while he
was advancing among the moving wagons of his men, impaled
by the point of a javelin lying atop a cart and the jolt of his
scared horse, he died, run through by it, and gave the Republic a
holiday with his death.
347
With Wala-mer {Beloved famous one}, king of the Goths,
having died in the war of the Skeiri, iui-mer {Peoplefamed} succeeded to his brothers kingship with his brother
Wii-mer {I, Forest-fame}, and his son iua-reik. But by
casting lots, the Western parts went to Wii-mer {I} with his son
Wii-mer {II}, Illyria went to iui-mer with his son iua-reik
and the Thraces to be raided. Thus, leaving Pannonia, the
one undertook the ravaging of Italy, the other that of Illyria; but
soon after entering the apportioned areas, both kings quickly
departed from human affairs Wii-mer {I} in Italy, in Illyria,
iui-mer. They died leaving sons, of whom Wii-mer {II},
conquered by Italian bribes, headed for the regions of Gaul and
Spain, abandoning Italy.
348
iua-reik, seduced by the civility of Zeno the Augustus, went to
Constantinople where, made Presental Master of the Soldiers, he
celebrated the triumph of a year-starting {(ordinarius)} consul

at public expense. But because then, as we have said, Auawakr had taken command of Italy, Emperor Zeno, realizing that
now the tribes held that land, he prefered to entrust it to iuareik as though to a man already his own client rather than
to someone whom he did not know. And thinking thus, ordering
him to the regions of Italy, he committed the Roman people and
Senate to his care.
349
And triumphantly iua-reik, king of tribes and Roman consul,
headed for Italy and, after exhausting Aua-wakr in great battles,
took him in surrender. Later, as it happened, killing him in the
palace at Ravenna on the pretext that he was suspicious, he
wisely and peacefully maintained the kingship of his own tribe
and the overlordship of the Roman people for thirty years.
However Illus the Isaurian, the Master of Ofces and close
intimate of Zeno in his private life and connected with him
through friendship, while to the detriment of {lia} Ariadne, the
Augusta, he secretly talked with her husband, he stirred the
Augustus up in jealousy.
350
He, determining to kill her, secretly entrusted the affair to one of
his own men. As the latter was getting ready to execute this, he
revealed to some chambermaid the crime he was about to
commit that very night. The queen discovered the plot and,
leaving in her own bed the same woman who had informed her
of the matter, escaped without anyones knowing it to the
bishops house, to Acacius.
351
On the following day Zeno, thinking the matter accomplished,
while, as though buried in grief, he received no one, the bishop
Acacius, entering, attacked his impiety and demanded a
guarantee of pardon, and assured him that the Augusta was
innocent of suspicion; having received the guarantee, with the
pledge of pardon, the Augusta returned. As she repeatedly
mulled over by what fate she might exact vengeance on her
enemy, having (as she thought) gotten the opportunity, she

ordered one of her men standing in concealment to kill Illus as

he was leaving her. Obeying the orders of the queen, the man,
as he was eagerly striking with his sword on his head, did not
cut off his neck, as he wanted, but his ear.
352
Escaping this danger, Illus, shortly leaving the city and hostile
towards Zeno, seized the East. Leontius, sent against him,
enticed through seductive verbiage by that very man, usurped
the crown; and with Leontius and Illus having simultaneously
become enemies of the Republic, as tyrants they rampaged
through the regions of Syria and Isauria. Adding tribute above
the usual to the Isaurians, they all conspired simultaneously
against Zeno, with whose treasures, found in the strongly
fortied Papirian stronghold, they ran wild.
353
But not much later they were captured and beheaded in the same
stronghold by Zenos army, and their heads were brought to
Constantinople and rotted away spitted on lances. Thus Zeno,
having defeated his enemies, also died in good peace.
354
{Flavius} Anastasius was suddenly raised from being a
silentiary {(imperial ofcial charged with keeping silence and
order in the court)} to the emperorship by the Augusta Ariadne,
and at the same time gained fame as both emperor and husband,
and reigned for 27 years and 2 months. The Isaurians took up
arms against him since they were cheated by him of the donative
which the tyrant Illus had provided them with, and Zeno, for the
sake of reconciliation, had unwillingly granted them.
355
With the war begun, having set up camp near Cotyaum, a city
of Phrygia, they fought the Republic for almost six continuous
years. Where when Longinus {(probably) Calvus} also, their
foremost man in both war and strategy, even though slow on his
feet due to bodily weakness, nonetheless extremely erce as a

cavalryman in war, had been killed, all the Isaurians fled and
were dispersed and vanquished, and expelled everywhere, and
some of their cities were razed to the ground.
356
For the soldiery, exhausted by various battles under Anastasius,
both now in Illyria with Sabinianus and Mund {Guardarm,
"Protection"; Hun with a Gothic name} at the Margus {modern
Morava} river, and now with Pompey at Adrianople, now with
Aristus at the Zurta river, now with the Parthians in Syria to
say nothing of the civil disasters and battles in the forum of the
royal city , nally ghting against Italy in a war more piratical
than national, was brought to naught.
357
But what was more to be regretted was the fact that for six years
he protracted a civil war against his own servant, Vitalianus of
Scythia. Indeed, this Vitalianus, approaching with 60 thousand
armed men mobilized within almost three days, hostile not to the
Republic but to the emperor, desolated many suburban districts
of the royal city by plunder and pillage.
358
While Hypatius, the nephew of Csar, going with a
multitudinous army to ght against him, was starting out
before he, as the opponent, could show himself in open battle on
the opposite side beforehand, he was captured by the Hun
auxiliaries and, sitting on a female mule, ignominiously sold to
Vitalianus. After Hypatius, Runus and Alathar, the Master of
the Soldiery {(for the Thraces)}, were both often likewise
defeated, often ridiculed by him and held in contempt.
359
Thus also Anastasius, walled in on different sides by enemy
armies, often groaned; still, he did not deserve to hear the
punishment of any of his enemies, as he himself did not keep the
laws of the Church; rather, lamenting and raging, he departed
from human affairs over eighty years of age and in the twenty-

eighth year of his reign; and, under his successor Justinus, the
buffeted Republic barely caught its breath a little.
360
Justinus, elected emperor by the Senate from being Count of the
Imperial Guard, reigned for 9 years. The man soon struck down
Amantius, the Palace Manager, Andrew and Misal and Arabarjis {Earth-son, Child of the land}, the chamberlains,
perceiving them to be gaping after his throne. Indeed, he cut
down Amantius and Andrew with the sword, and sent Misal
and Ara-barjis into exile at Serdica {(now Soa, Bulgaria)}.
Also taking captive and imprisoning Theocritus, Amantiuss
bodyguard, whom the same Amantius had secretly readied for
ruling, he crushed him with huge rocks and threw him into the
salt sea, depriving him of a burial as well as of the power he had
lusted after.
361
He struck an alliance with Vitalianus and, having called him to
himself, also made him a Presental Master of the Soldiers and a
year-starting {(ordinarius)} consul;
suspecting him of
returning to his earlier project, he had him stabbed to death with
16 wounds in the palace together with his bodyguards
Celerianus et Paulus.
362
Also, this emperor, the fourth month before his own death,
taking into consideration his own old age and the welfare of the
Republic, ordaining Justinian, his nephew through his sister, as
his consort in power and successor in the emperorship, departed
from human affairs.
363
Emperor Justinianus, with the help of the Lord, then reigned for
24 years. As soon as he was put in charge of the royal scepters
by his uncle, he shortly checked the war-initiating Parthians by
sending an army against them and, guarding his own frontiers,
often struck down many Parthians. But afterwards, given that

sins were being committed, a battle having been begun on

Saturday, the eve of holy Easter, at the instigation of the army,
not of the general, a multitudinous Roman army fleeing the
Parthians plunged into the Euphrates river. Through his
magistrates he frequently shielded Illyria from the ravaging
Aruli {Earls, Men}, Gibios {The Givers} and Bulgars
and manfully beat them.
364
Next, Hypatius and Pompey, insurgents against their own
government, having gathered a band of civilians and entered the
Circus with Hypatius crowned with a golden wreath for a
diadem and already taking over the emperors seats, and Pompey
wearing armor under his shirt and now invading the palace ,
both stopped, arrested in front of the palace gates and fettered,
were sentenced; and, having their heads cut off, he made them
lose their power before they had it. With those of their
associates who escaped the slaughter outlawed, the emperor
celebrated a triumph with spoils, as though a great enemy had
been defeated.
365
In the same year, after the interminable and immense labor of a
war that had been waged against the Parthians with the sweat of
the Romans, through the patrician Runus and Hermogenes the
Master of Ofces, both sent by the emperor as ambassadors,
peace was agreed to and a treaty entered upon, and gifts were
sent mutually to one another by both emperors.
366
Soon, with the army of the Eastern theatre disbanded, he chose
Belisarius, the same general whom he had sent across some time
ago to the Orient; with a great many and the most valiant
soldiers having been assigned to the man, he sent him to the
southern regions against the Vandals. Through divine favor he
defeated the Vandals with as much speed as the ease with which
he had come and, uniting Libya to the body of the whole
Republic, in the royal city offered king Gaila-mer {Gladfamous, Cheerfully-renowned} and the riches of Carthage to

the emperor with the people looking on. Having been rewarded
under the latters approval, and shortly thereafter designated
year-starting consul, Belisarius celebrated a triumph with the
Vandal spoils.
367
But after King iua-reik had died in Italy, in accordance with
his directions his grandson Aala-reik followed him in ofce,
although he was just an eight-year-old boy; for that reason his
mother Amala-swino {Amal strength} directed the
government. At that time the long-held Gaulic lands were
returned to the Franks at their insistence.
368
After Aala-reiks death his mother made her cousin iua-ha
{Folk-conflict, Nation-battle, Clash-of-peoples} her coregent, but not long afterwards she was killed at his command.
And because quite some while before she had placed herself and
her son under the protection of Emperor Justinian, the latter was
grieved to hear of her death and did not let it go unpunished.
Instead, he sent the same army commander who had vanquished
the Phnicians and who was still invested with consular powers
from his triumph over the Vandals {534}, to the western land at
the head of troops from various nations.
369
In his rst attack Belisarius took Sicily, where the Gothic eld
commander Sina-re {Marching plan, Journey plan} was
beaten. But while he remained there a bit to reorganize the
country, he learned that in Africa civil wars and an internal
conflict were raging. For Stotzas, effectively the dregs of
soldiery and a retainer of Martinus, the Master of Soldiery {in
the East after Belisarius}, having killed Cyrillus, Marcellus, Fara
{Farer, Traveler, Courier} and other administrators by
trickery, had seized upon despotism ; he had been made the
leader of mutineers and was raging against the general Salomon,
tyrannically devastating all of Africa {536}.
370

So Belisarius crossed over the water from Sicily to Africa and

with his usual success defeated the rebels, liberated the province,
re-installed Salomon in Carthage, and then returned to Sicily.
Here Ibr-mo {Boar-mood}, the Gothic king iua-has sonin-law who had come with an army to ght him, seeing the
success of the victorious consul, surrendered to him of his own
accord. He urged him to come to the aid of Italy which,
suspicious of his own arrival, now eagerly desired him. So
lining up his army and leading it with both fleet and cavalry,
Belisarius surrounded Naples with a wall, forced his way into
the city by night through an aquaduct after a siege of a few days,
killed both the Goths and the rebellious Romans in it, and
plundered it thoroughly.
371
When iua-ha learned of this, he appointed Weiti-gis
{Punishing spear}, one of his commanders, to the head of the
army and sent him against Belisarius.
372
Having hardly arrived at the Barbarian Plains {(= probably the
Pomptine Marshes between Rome and Terracina)} in Campania,
Weiti-gis immediately won the favor of the army which he
suspected was against iua-ha. So he said, What do you
want? Whereupon they answered, Get rid of him who seeks to
have his own crimes excused with the blood and downfall of the
Goths. And they rushed upon him and unanimously acclaimed
him king. Thus raised to power, as he himself had wanted, in
accordance with the peoples wishes he immediately sent off
several of his companions and had iua-ha killed on the
latters way back to Ravenna.
373
To consolidate his rule, he broke off the campaign, repudiated
his wife, a commoner, and more through force than by love
joined to himself in marriage the princess Mau-swino
{Good strength}, a granddaughter of iua-reiks. While he
was enjoying his new wedding in Ravenna, Consul Belisarius

entered Rome {536 December 9/10} and was accepted by that

people and Senate that had been formerly Roman (their name
having practically died together with their virtue). He quickly
occupied the neighboring positions the fortications of the
cities and towns.
374
In his rst clash with the Goths under the leadership of Hunila
{Powerful one} near the city of Perusia, he won, slaughtering
more than seven thousand of them, and chased the rest all the
way to Ravenna. In the second one he fought with Weiti-gis
himself while the latter was surrounding the fortications of
Rome with siege works, used re to destroy the machines and
towers with which he was trying to attack the City, and, even
though hard pressed by famine, outsmarted him for a full year.
375
After that he pursued him to Ariminum, chased him from there
too, shut him up within Ravenna and forced him to surrender.
Also, this one consul, while he was ghting against the Goths,
triumphed with almost the same success over the Franks, who
had come to Italy in a force more than two hundred thousand
strong with their King iuda-barht {People-gleaming,
Bright Folk, Glorious Nation}. But because Belisarius,
busy with other things, did not want to get tied down elsewhere,
at the request of the Franks he gave them peace and, without
losing any of his own men, expelled them from Italy. Having
taken King Weiti-gis and his queen prisoner, he also took the
treasures of their palace together with them back to the Emperor
who had sent him. Thus within a short time Emperor Justinian,
through his faithful consul, subjected two kings and two
kingdoms to his rule.
376
Learning of this, the Parthians, becoming inflamed with the
torches of envy, advanced into Syria and, laying waste to
Callinicum {(also called Nicephorium or Leontopolis; on the
Euphrates river in northeastern Syria)}, Sura {(on the Euphrates,
west of Callinicum)} and Neocaesaria {(Neocaesarea, also

called Athis, on the Euphrates, west of Sura)}, proceeded to

Antioch. When the patrician Germanus, together with Justin, his
son and Consul, had returned from the province of Africa, since
he could not block the arrival of the Parthians, he left the city
and withdrew to Cilicia {southern Asia Minor}. The Persians
took over the City of Antioch, which was empty of troops, and
saw the populace intermixed with soldiers fleeing to the seaside
Seleucia {Pieria, Mediterranean port city for Antioch} along the
route of the Orontes river, yet did not pursue them but competed
with one another in pillaging Antioch. They then passed on,
partly invading the neighboring cities and towns, partly
bypassing them after exacting sums of money from them.
Indeed, the Parthians took the wealth of almost all of Clesyria
in the space of a single year.
377
And they did not leave, but kept constantly ghting against the
Roman Empire. Consul Belisarius, victor over the Vandals and
the Goths, was sent against them as usual. Even if he did not
subdue them as he did the rest of the nations, he still compelled
them to retreat to behind their own borders, and victory over this
people, too, would have been granted to this successful general
if the disaster of Italy, which had happened after his departure,
had not made Martinus his rapid successor. {I.e., Martinus was
directed to replace Belisarius in Italy in 542, cf. Procopius, Bell.
Pers. 2, 21. 24.} Even if in troops he was unequal to the
Parthians, he was not inferior in strategy, even though paired
with Constantianus {Master of Soldiery of the East and Count of
the Imperial Stables}; since he was unable to hold them at bay,
he made peace instead of dragging the war out over a long
period.
378
But so that the reader may understand more clearly the disaster
in the West which I spoke about, I will be more explicit. When
Consul Belisarius left Italy taking, as we said, the King and
Queen and the treasure of the Palace back to the Emperor, the
Goths who dwelt on the other side of the Po in Liguria revived
their will to war, rose up, installed Hildi-bau {"Battle-combat"}
as chieftain, and emerged as adversaries. Although the Emperor

tried various outts of not just one but diverse generals against
them, the Goths proved themselves the stronger side and held
rm. And after little more than a year Hildi-ba was killed and
Aira-harjis {Early(?)-soldier, Early(?) warrior} took his
place.
379
This man, too, was assassinated in ofce in just over a year.
Then, to the misfortune of Italy, the youthful Bawila {or Bau
(Little) Combatant, (Little) Fighter, (-ila is a diminutive
sufx) ; Totilas real name}, a nephew of Hildi-bas, was
elevated to the throne {October 541}. He quickly and without
delay went into battle {spring 542} near the city of Faventia
{modern Faenza, southwest of Ravenna} on the soil of milia,
and defeated the Roman army. Not long afterwards he fought a
successful battle through his ofcers near Mucelli {modern
Mugello}, in grain-supplying Tuscany, put the ofcials to flight,
won the army over partly by gifts and partly by flattery, and
marched through the whole of Italy including Rome. He tore
down the fortications of all of the cities and, after destroying
Rome, moved the Senators, one and all, to the state of
Campania, after he had divested them of everything {547}.
380
Belisarius was sent against him from the Orient with just a few
troops, thinking he would nd intact the entire army that he had
left. So when after his arrival in Ravenna {544} he found no
forces with whom he could face Bawila, he went back over the
Adriatic Sea to Epirus, where Johannes and Valerianus joined
him. But while these three were arguing and quarreling with one
another, Totila {Tot- = perhaps -tojis "doer, worker" (cf. fullatojis "perfectly wrought," Lat. per-fectus, & ubil-tojis "evildoing") + -ila, i.e., "(Little) Doer, "Achiever"}, also called
Bawila, completed his hostile work in Italy. Belisarius, who
could not face this cruelty, weighed anchor with a fleet from
Sicily, betook himself through the Tyrrhenian Sea to anchorage
at the port of Rome {546}; going thence to the City and nding
it destroyed and desolate, it pained him and, exhorting his
comrades, he set about to restore the great City.

381
When the wall around the city was not yet quite nished, he
found Totila attacking him ; but given all of his usual victories
he was unafraid, marched out against him with but few troops
and put him to flight so badly, that more fleeing men drowned in
the Tiber than died by the sword {547}. Then, after having
exhorted his army, he returned to Sicily to, insofar as possible,
provide the city with grain and, being close to the straits, cause
trouble for Totila who was staying in Campania. But as usual,
there is a change of events also depending on the varying will of
emperors.
382
When the Empress Theodora died, Belisarius was called back to
Constantinople from Sicily.
After his departure Totila,
unhampered and with renewed madness, attacked Rome, which
the Isaurians also handed over to him. And thus, gathering
forces from everywhere and fortied with military auxiliaries, he
invaded and conquered Sicily.
383
Now the emperor had given Mau-swino, the granddaughter of
iua-reik and widow of Weiti-gis, in marriage to the Patrician
Germanus. But while he was to set out with the army against
Totila, he died in the city of {Ulpia} Serdica {(now Soa,
Bulgaria)} , leaving behind a pregnant wife. (After his death she
bore him a posthumous son and named him Germanus.) When
Totila heard of this stroke of luck, deriding the Romans, he laid
waste almost the whole of Italy.
384
But in Africa, with Salomon long since killed by the Moors
{543}, Stotzas and John fell together, mutually, in a duel-like
battle. Adopting tyranny, yet another John called Stotzas the
Younger persuaded Guni-reik {"Battle-ruler"}, Master of
the Soldiery, to go along with him. He, having killed her
husband {543} Arja-bind {Aryan-bound, Noble bond} and
seeking to acquire the Emperors niece as wife, was forestalled

in this by Artabanes. Having killed Guni-reik at a banquet, he

both sent the Emperors rescued niece with honor to
Constantinople, to the Emperor, and at the same time also sent
him John the tyrant chained in iron shackles the one who,
after Stotzas murder, had taken the latters place in the selfsame
tyranny.
385
After he had been put on trial in the city and his hands cut off,
the prefect hung him on an X-cross as an example to others.
After the command of Africa had been assigned to John the
Patrician, surnamed Troglita, Artabanus was recalled and
accepted the title of Presental Master of the Soldiery. Not long
afterwards, Artabanus, seeking to lay hands on the Emperor
himself, was exposed and convicted, but through Imperial
pardon he remained unpunished, and as if being faithful he
hastened with the patrician Liberius to Sicily against Totila.
John, on the other hand, was working successfully in the African
province. After having defeated the Moors of the hostile faction
through the Peacefurthering Moors, in a single day he
annihilated seventeen of their leaders and with the help of the
Lord achieved the peace of the whole of Africa.
386
The nation of the Langobards {Long-beards}, which was
allied with the princes of the Roman Empire and had joined the
daughter of the sister of iua-ha {Folk-conflict, Nationbattle, Clash-of-peoples} (whom the Emperor had given to
them) to their king in marriage, in one day launched a battle
against the enemies of the Romans, the Gibios {The Givers},
and practically overran their camp. Altogether on both sides
more than sixty thousand men died.
387
And they say that in our times no battle equal to this one has
been heard of in these parts since the days of Attila, other than
the one before this with the Gibios which had happened under
Callux the Master of the Soldiery, or, similarly, that of Mundo
{Guardarm, "Protection"; Giped/Hun with a Gothic name}

with the Goths, in both of which the initiators of the war fell
equally.
388
These are the misfortunes of the Roman Empire aside from the
daily inroads of the Bulgars, Antes and Slavs. If anyone wishes
to know them, let him go through the annals and the history of
the consuls without disdain, and he will nd a modern-day
empire worthy of a tragedy. And he will know whence it arose,
how it grew or in what way it subjected all lands to itself and
how again it lost them through ignorant rulers. It is something
we, to the extent of our ability, have treated so that, through
reading, the serious reader may gain a broader knowledge of
these things.
Explicit
(Added by later copyists)
The end of the history of the Roman Empire.