Orosius: HISTORIARUM ADVERSUM PAGANOS LIBRI VII

[Praef.] Dixisse Aenean Virgilius refert, cum post pericula sua suorumque naufragia residuos aegre socios solaretur,
Forsan et haec olim meminisse iuuabit.
² haec sententia, semel apte ficta, semper uim sui triplicem diuersissimis effectibus refert, cum et praeterita tanto gratiora habentur in uerbis quanto grauiora referuntur in gestis et futura dum desiderabilia fastidio praesentium fiunt semper meliora creduntur, ³ ipsis autem praesentibus ob hoc nulla in parte miseriarum iusta conparatio adhiberi potest, quia multo maiore molestia adficiunt quantulacumque sint ista quae sunt quam illa quae siue transacta siue uentura, etsi magna dicuntur, interim omnino tunc non sunt. ⁴ ueluti si quis nocturnis pulicibus titillatus atque ex eo uigiliis anxius alias forte, quas aliquando ex ardentissimis febribus diu sustinuit, uigilias recordetur, procul dubio inpatientius feret istarum inquietudinem quam illarum recordationem.

[Praef.] Virgil reports that Aeneas said, when after his perils and the shipwrecks of his men he was with difficulty consoling his remaining comrades,
Perhaps even these things one day it will be a pleasure to remember.
² This sentiment, once aptly fashioned, always brings back its triple force with the most diverse effects, since both the things past are held so much the more gratifying in words as they are related the heavier in deeds, and the things future, while as things to be desired they are made by the distaste for present things to seem always better, ³ but to the present things themselves, for this reason, no just comparison can be applied in any part of miseries, because they affect with much greater vexation, however small they may be, these things which are, than those which, whether past or to come, although said to be great, meanwhile then are altogether not. ⁴ Just as if someone, tickled by nocturnal fleas and thereby anxious with wakefulness, should perchance recall other wakeful nights which he once long endured from most burning fevers, without doubt he will bear the restlessness of these more impatiently than the recollection of those.

⁵ sed quamuis apud omnium sensus pro captu temporum ita uideri queat, numquid tamen aliquis exsistet, qui uel in ipsa anxietate pronuntiet grauiores pulices esse quam febres? aut acerbius accipiat se uigilare sanum quam dormire non potuisse moriturum ? ⁶ quae cum ita sint, delicatis istis et querulis nostris utcumque concedo, ut haec, quibus nunc, quia sic expedit, interdum admonemur, sentiendo grauia putent, non tamen coniueo, ut etiam adserant conparando grauiora. ⁷ quemadmodum si quis e mollissimis stratis cubiculoque percommodo matutinus egrediens nocturno gelu lacunarum dorsa obriguisse herbasque incanuisse prospiceret et inopinato uisu admonitus diceret 'frigus est hodie' : hic mihi nequaquam reprehendendus uideretur, quia uel communi usu uel proprio sensu locutus esset.

⁵ but although it may be able so to seem in the senses of all, according to the grasp of the times, will anyone, however, arise who even in the very anxiety will pronounce that fleas are graver than fevers? or will he take it more bitterly that, being healthy, he keeps vigil, than that, about to die, he could not sleep ? ⁶ since these things are so, to those of ours who are delicate and querulous I concede somehow, that they think these things, by which now, because thus it is expedient, we are sometimes admonished, to be grave by feeling; yet I do not connive, that they also assert by comparing that they are graver. ⁷ just as if someone, going out early from the softest beds and a very comfortable bedroom, should espy that, by the night frost, the backs of the coffered ceilings had stiffened and the grasses had grown hoary, and, warned by the unlooked-for sight, should say 'it is cold today' : this man would by no means seem to me to be reprehensible, because he had spoken either by common use or by his own sense.

⁸ at si trepidus in cubiculum recurrens stratisque sese adoperiens uel magis abdens clamaret, tantum omnino frigus esse quantum nec in Appennino aliquando fuerit, cum Hannibal elephantos equos plurimamque exercitus sui partem niuibus clausus atque oppressus amisit: ⁹ hunc ego puerilibus licentiis nausiantem non modo dicentem ista non ferrem, sed etiam ab ipsis stratis, otii sui testibus, in populum publicumque protraherem, eique foras producto infantes in eo atque ex eo gelu ludentes iucundantes sudantesque monstrarem, ¹⁰ ut uerbosa nugacitas delicatis uitiata nutrimentis non in tempore uiolentiam sed in se esse segnitiam doceretur et in conparatione rerum diiudicanda non maiores parua tolerasse sed se nec parua tolerare sufficere probaretur.

⁸ but if, in a panic, running back into the bedchamber and covering himself with the bedclothes or hiding himself even more, he were to shout that there is altogether so much cold as there has not ever been even in the Apennine, when Hannibal, shut in and oppressed by snows, lost his elephants, his horses, and a very great part of his army: ⁹ I, nauseated at childish licenses, would not only not endure his saying such things, but would even drag him from those very bedclothes, witnesses of his leisure, out into the people and the public, and, once he had been brought outside, I would show him infants playing in that frost and rejoicing and sweating in it and from it, ¹⁰ so that talkative trifling, vitiated by delicate nutriments, might be taught that it is not a violence in the season but a sluggishness in itself, and that, in the adjudicating of the comparison of things, it is proved not that the great have borne small things, but that he is not sufficient to bear even small things.

¹¹ Quod euidentius ipsis in memoriam reuolutis praeteritorum cladibus adprobabo Pyrrhi bello in primis, sicut ordo est, prodito. cuius causa et origo haec fuit.

¹¹ I will make this more evident by setting forth, first of all, as the order is, the war of Pyrrhus, the calamities of the past being revolved in their memory. The cause and origin of it was this.

[1] Anno ab urbe condita CCCCLXIIII Tarentini Romanam classem forte praetereuntem, spectaculo theatri prospectam hostiliter inuaserunt, quinque tantum nauibus uix per fugam elapsis; cetera retracta in portum classis et profligata est; praefecti nauium trucidati, omnes bello utiles caesi, reliqui pretio uenditi sunt.² continuo missi Tarentum a Romanis legati, ut de inlatis quererentur iniuriis, pulsati ab isdem auctas insuper iniurias rettulerunt. his causis bellum ingens exortum est.

[1] In the year 464 from the founding of the City the Tarentines, having viewed a Roman fleet by chance passing by as a spectacle from the theater, hostilely assailed it, only five ships scarcely slipping away by flight; the rest, the fleet having been dragged back into the harbor, was crushed; the prefects of the ships were butchered, all useful for war were cut down, the remaining were sold for a price.² Immediately envoys were sent to Tarentum by the Romans, to complain about the injuries inflicted; beaten by these same men, they reported back injuries increased besides. For these causes a huge war arose.

³ Romanos, qui quantique hostes circumstreperent permetientes, ultima adegit necessitas proletarios quoque in arma cogere, hoc est eos qui in urbe semper sufficiendae prolis causa uacabant, militiae adscribere: quippe cum frustra de prole cura est, nisi rebus praesentibus consulatur. ⁴ itaque inruit in uniuersos Tarentinorum fines cum Aemilio consule Romanus exercitus, igni ferroque uastat omnia, plurima expugnat oppida, iniuriam insolenter acceptam crudeliter uindicat. ⁵ continuo Tarentinos, plurimis finitimorum praesidiis fultos, maxime Pyrrhus auxit, qui etiam in se ob magnitudinem uirium consiliorumque summam belli nomenque transduxit.

³ The Romans, tolerating who and how great enemies were clamorously surrounding them, were driven by utmost necessity to compel even the proletarians into arms—that is, to enroll in military service those who in the city were always at leisure for the sake of supplying offspring; for care about offspring is in vain, unless provision is made for present circumstances. ⁴ And so, the Roman army, together with the consul Aemilius, rushed into all the borders of the Tarentines, lays waste everything with fire and iron, storms very many towns, cruelly avenges the injury insolently received. ⁵ Immediately Pyrrhus greatly aided the Tarentines, who were supported by very many garrisons of their neighbors, and he even transferred to himself, on account of the greatness of his forces and counsels, the whole conduct and even the very name of the war.

⁶ nam Tarentum, utpote ex Lacedaemoniis conditam cognatamque Graeciae ciuitatem, uindicaturus totas uires Epiri Thessaliae et Macedoniae, elephantos etiam usque in id tempus inuisos Romanis numero XX in Italiam primus inuexit: terra mari, uiris equis, armis beluis, ad postremum uiribus suis dolisque terribilis, ⁷ nisi quod Delphici illius uanissimi spiritus et mendacissimi nebulonis, quem magnum ipsi uatem ferunt, responso circumuentus ambiguo exitum fecit eius, qui non consuluisset. ⁸ itaque apud Heracleam, Campaniae urbem, fluuiumque Lirim prima inter Pyrrhum regem et Laeuinum consulem pugna commissa est. consumpta est grauissimo certamine dies, utrimque omnibus mori intentis, fugere nesciis.

⁶ for Tarentum, as a city founded by Lacedaemonians and cognate to Greece, to be avenged, he brought to bear the whole forces of Epirus, Thessaly, and Macedonia, and he was the first to bring into Italy elephants, to the number of 20, creatures up to that time unseen by the Romans: by land and sea, with men and horses, with arms and with beasts, and at last with his own strengths and stratagems he was terrible, ⁷ except that, ensnared by the ambiguous response of that most vain Delphic spirit and most mendacious charlatan, whom they themselves proclaim a great vates, he met the end of one who had not consulted. ⁸ and so, at Heraclea, a city of Campania, and the river Liris, the first battle between King Pyrrhus and the consul Laevinus was joined. the day was consumed in a most heavy contest, with all on both sides intent on dying, ignorant how to flee.

⁹ introductos autem inter concurrentia agmina elephantos forma truces, odore graues, mole terribiles ut uidere Romani, nouo pugnandi genere circumuenti et territi, equis maxime pauitantibus, diffugerunt. ¹⁰ sed postquam Minucius quartae legionis primus hastatus protentam in se manum beluae gladio desecuit et conturbatam dolore uulneris auerti bello atque in suos saeuire conpulit eiusque inmoderato discursu perturbari ac permisceri coepere, finis pugnae etiam beneficio noctis inpositus est. ¹¹ uictos fuisse Romanos turpis fuga prodidit: quorum tunc cecidisse referuntur peditum XIIII DCCCLXXX, capti I CCCX, equites autem caesi CCXLVI, capti DCCCII, signa amissa XXII.

⁹ however, when elephants were introduced amid the clashing battle-lines—grim in form, rank in odor, terrible in mass—as the Romans saw them, surrounded and terrified by the new kind of fighting, with the horses especially quaking, they scattered. ¹⁰ but after Minucius, the first hastatus of the fourth legion, cut off with his sword the beast’s trunk (the “hand”) stretched out against him and, it being thrown into confusion by the pain of the wound, drove it to wheel away from the battle and to rage against its own, and as by its immoderate running-about they began to be disturbed and commingled, an end of the fight was imposed also by the favor of night. ¹¹ that the Romans had been defeated their shameful flight betrayed: of whom there are reported to have fallen of the infantry 14,880, captured 1,310; but of the cavalry, cut down 246, captured 802; standards lost 22.

¹² nam quantus e diuerso numerus sociorum Pyrrhi fuerit extinctus, memoriae traditum non est, maxime quia scriptorum ueterum mos est ex ea parte quae uicerit occisorum non commendare numerum, ne uictoriae gloriam maculent damna uictoris, ¹³ nisi forte cum adeo pauci cadunt, ut admirationem terroremque uirtutis augeat paucitas perditorum, sicut in prima Persici belli congressione apud Alexandrum Magnum fuit: cui inter CCCC fere milia hostium interfecta nouem tantummodo in exercitu eius pedites defuisse referuntur. ¹⁴ sed Pyrrhus atrocitatem cladis, quam hoc bello exceperat, dis suis hominibusque testatus est, adfigens titulum in templo Tarentini Iouis, in quo haec scripsit:
Qui antehac inuicti fuere uiri, pater optime Olympi,
Hos ego in pugna vici uictusque sum ab isdem.
¹⁵ et cum a sociis increpitaretur, cur se uictum diceret qui uicisset, respondisse fertur: Ne ego si iterum eodem modo uicero, sine ullo milite Epirum reuertar.

¹² for how great, on the other hand, the number of Pyrrhus’s allies who were slain was, has not been handed down to memory, chiefly because it is the custom of ancient writers not to commend, on the side that has won, the number of those killed, lest the losses of the victor stain the glory of the victory, ¹³ unless perhaps when so few fall that the smallness of the lost augments admiration and terror of valor, as in the first engagement of the Persian war under Alexander the Great: for whom, with nearly 400 thousand of the enemy slain, only 9 infantrymen in his army are reported to have been missing. ¹⁴ but Pyrrhus attested the ferocity of the disaster which he had sustained in this war, to his gods and to his men, affixing a title in the temple of Tarentine Jove, in which he wrote these things:
The men who before now were unconquered, best father of Olympus,
These I in battle conquered and was conquered by these same.
¹⁵ and when he was rebuked by his allies, why he said he had been defeated who had won, he is said to have replied: Nay, if I win again in the same way, I shall return to Epirus without a single soldier.

¹⁶ interea Romanus exercitus, postquam uictus clam fugit e castris, miserabilem belli cladem grauioribus monstris auctam accumulatamque persensit. ¹⁷ nam pabulatores forte progressos uelut hostilis quaedam oborta tempestas cum horribili fragore caeli correptos diris fulminibus exussit. ¹⁸ quippe XXX et IIII eorum idem turbo prostrauit; duo et uiginti semineces relicti, iumenta exanimata et capta conplurima: ut merito contigisse non in signum uastationis futurae sed uastatio ipsa referatur.

¹⁶ meanwhile the Roman army, after it had been defeated, secretly fled from the camp, and perceived that the pitiable disaster of the war had been augmented and accumulated by graver portents. ¹⁷ for the foragers, who had by chance gone forward, as if some hostile storm had arisen, with a horrible crash of the sky seized them and burned them up with dire lightning-bolts. ¹⁸ indeed 34 of them the same whirlwind laid low; twenty-two were left half-dead, and very many beasts of burden were killed and captured: so that with good reason what occurred is reported not as a sign of future devastation but as devastation itself.

¹⁹ Secunda inter Pyrrhum et Romanos consules pugna in Apuliae finibus fuit. ubi clades belli ad utrosque sed maxime ad Pyrrhum, uictoria ad Romanos concessit. ²⁰ nam cum diu obnixe cunctis in mutuam caedem ruentibus, anceps belli penderet euentus, Pyrrhus, transfixo bracchio saucius, prior cessit e proelio.

¹⁹ The second battle between Pyrrhus and the Roman consuls was on the borders of Apulia. There the disaster of the war fell upon both sides, but especially upon Pyrrhus, while victory went to the Romans. ²⁰ For when, for a long time and strenuously, with all rushing into mutual slaughter, the outcome of the war hung in the balance, Pyrrhus, wounded with his arm transfixed, was the first to withdraw from the battle.

sed et Fabricius legatus tunc uulneratus est. ²¹ elephanti prima pugna uulnerari atque in fugam cogi posse deprehensi, deinde subiectis inter posteriora ac mollia ignibus exagitati, ardentes insuper machinas furore trepido circumferentes exitio suis fuere. ²² caesa sunt in ea pugna V milia Romanorum, de exercitu uero Pyrrhi XX milia prostrata sunt.

but also the legate Fabricius was then wounded. ²¹ the elephants, in the first battle, were discovered to be able to be wounded and to be driven into flight; then, with fires placed beneath among the hind parts and the soft places, harried, and carrying about burning machines in a trembling frenzy, they were a destruction to their own. ²² in that battle 5 thousand Romans were cut down, but of the army of Pyrrhus 20 thousand were laid low.

regis signa ablata LIII, Romanorum undecim amissa sunt.

the king’s standards carried off were 53; of the Romans, 11 were lost.

²³ Pyrrhus bello fractus, Agathocle mortuo rege Syracusano ad Siciliae arcessitus imperium Syracusas concessit.

²³ Pyrrhus, broken by war, with Agathocles, the Syracusan king, dead, summoned to the rule of Sicily, went to Syracuse.

[2] Sed Romanorum miseria nullis cessat indutiis; consumitur morborum malis intercapedo bellorum et, cum foris cessatur a proelio, agitur introrsum ira de caelo.² nam Fabio Gurgite iterum C. Genucio Clepsina consulibus pestilentia grauis urbem ac fines eius inuasit; quae cum omnes tum praecipue mulieres pecudesque corripiens necatis in utero fetibus futura prole uacuabat, et immaturis partubus cum periculo matrum extorti abortus proiciebantur, adeo ut defectura successio et defuturum animantum genus adempto uitalis partus legitimo ordine crederetur.

[2] But the misery of the Romans ceases with no truces; the interval between wars is consumed by the evils of diseases, and, when outside there is a cessation from battle, wrath from heaven is carried on within.² for, with Fabius Gurges, for the second time, and Gaius Genucius Clepsina as consuls, a grave pestilence invaded the city and its borders; which, seizing all, but especially women and herds, with the fetuses killed in the womb was emptying them of future offspring, and by premature births abortions, wrenched out with danger to the mothers, were being cast forth, to such a degree that it was believed succession would fail and the race of living creatures would be wanting, the legitimate order of vital birth having been taken away.

³ Interea reuersum ex Sicilia Pyrrhum Curius consul excepit, tertiumque id bellum contra Epirotas apud Lucaniam in Arusinis campis gestum est. ⁴ itaque primo concursu cum Pyrrhi milites Romanorum inpressione trepidarent et circumspectantes fugam bello cedere molirentur, Pyrrhus elephantos ex subsidiis iussit induci. ⁵ Romani, adsueti iam pugnare cum beluis, cum malleolos stuppa inuolutos ac pice oblitos uncis insuper aculeis tenaces praeparauissent eosque flammatos in terga beluarum turresque uibrarent, non difficile furentes ardentesque beluas in eorum excidia, quorum subsidia fuerant, retorserunt.

³ Meanwhile Curius the consul met Pyrrhus, returned from Sicily, and that third war against the Epirotes was waged near Lucania in the Arusinian plains. ⁴ And so, at the first clash, when Pyrrhus’s soldiers, alarmed by the onrush of the Romans, and looking around, were attempting to yield to flight from the battle, Pyrrhus ordered the elephants to be brought in from the reserves. ⁵ The Romans, now accustomed to fight with the beasts, since they had prepared small fire-darts wrapped with tow and smeared with pitch, further equipped with clinging hooked barbs, and hurled these, aflame, onto the backs of the beasts and their towers, easily turned the raging and blazing beasts back upon the ruin of those whose support they had been.

⁶ LXXX milia peditum in illo proelio habuisse regem dicunt, equitum uero VI milia. ex his caesa referuntur XXXIII milia, capti autem sunt mille trecenti. ⁷ Pyrrhus quinto demum anno, quam uenerat, ab Italia uictus aufugit.

⁶ They say that in that battle the king had 80 thousand foot-soldiers, and indeed 6 thousand horsemen. of these, 33 thousand are reported slain, however, 1,300 were captured. ⁷ Pyrrhus, at last in the fifth year after he had come, fled from Italy vanquished.

qui post multa grauissimaque bella, quae gessit, in Graecia apud Argos Achaiae florentissimam urbem, Spartani regni auiditate seductus, saxo ictus occubuit.

who, after many and most grievous wars which he waged, in Greece at Argos, Achaia’s most flourishing city, seduced by avidity for the Spartan kingdom, struck by a stone, fell.

⁸ Tunc quoque apud Romanos Sextilia uirgo Vestalis conuicta damnataque incesti ad portam Collinam uiua defossa est.

⁸ Then also among the Romans, the Vestal virgin Sextilia, convicted and condemned of unchastity, was buried alive at the Colline Gate.

[3] Anno ab urbe condita CCCCLXXV Tarentini Pyrrhi morte conperta iterum noua aduersum Romanos arma sollicitant, Carthaginiensium auxilia per legatos poscunt atque accipiunt.² conserto proelio uicere Romani: ubi iam tunc Carthaginienses, quamuis nondum hostes adiudicati, uinci tamen a Romanis se posse senserunt.

[3] In the year 475 from the founding of the city, the Tarentines, the death of Pyrrhus having been learned, again solicit new arms against the Romans; they demand and receive Carthaginian auxiliaries through legates.² with battle joined, the Romans were victorious: where even then the Carthaginians, although not yet adjudged enemies, nevertheless perceived that they could be conquered by the Romans.

³ Sequenti anno magnam uiscerum suorum partem seueritas Romana concidit. ⁴ nam aduentante dudum Pyrrho octaua legio diffidens Romanae spei, nouum scelus ausa Reginenses omnes, quibus subsidio praeerat, interfecit, praedam sibi omnem atque ipsum oppidum uindicauit. ⁵ hoc facinus in tam sceleratos defectores puniendum Genucio consuli iussum est.

³ In the following year the Roman severity cut down a great part of its own vitals. ⁴ For, with Pyrrhus having been approaching for some time, the 8th Legion, despairing of Roman prospects and daring a new crime, killed all the Rheginians whom it commanded as a garrison, and claimed for itself all the booty and the town itself. ⁵ The punishment of this deed upon such wicked defectors was ordered to the consul Genucius.

qui obsessa Reginorum urbe captisque omnibus ipse quidem in reliquos perfugas et latrones exercuit digna supplicia, Romanos uero milites integrae legionis Romam misit: qui populi iussu medio in foro uirgis caesi sunt securique percussi.

who, with the city of the Rhegini besieged and all taken, he indeed exacted worthy punishments upon the remaining deserters and bandits, but sent the Roman soldiers of the intact legion to Rome: who, by the order of the people, in the middle of the forum were beaten with rods and struck with the axe.

⁶ Visa sibi est tunc Roma uincere, cum legionem suam integram occidit, quae sine dubio uicta fuisset, si eam hostili proelio perdidisset.

⁶ Rome then seemed to herself to conquer, when she killed her own intact legion, which without doubt would have been conquered, if she had lost it in a hostile battle.

[4] Anno ab urbe condita CCCCLXXVIII obscena et dira prodigia uel uisa Romae uel nuntiata sunt. aedes Salutis ictu fulminis dissoluta, pars muri sub eodem loco de caelo, ut dicunt, tacta est.² lupi tres ante lucem ingressi urbem, semesum cadauer intulerunt sparsumque membratim in foro ipsi strepitu hominum exterriti reliquerunt.

[4] In the year from the founding of the City 478, obscene and dire prodigies were either seen at Rome or reported. The temple of Salus was dissolved by a stroke of lightning; a part of the wall beneath the same spot was, as they say, struck from the sky.² Three wolves, before dawn, having entered the city, brought in a half-eaten cadaver and, scattered limb by limb in the Forum, they themselves, frightened by the noise of men, left it behind.

³ apud Formias multis ictibus fulminum moenia undique ambusta et dissoluta sunt. ⁴ apud agrum Calenum repente flamma scisso hiatu terrae eructata tribus diebus tribusque noctibus terribiliter exaestuans, quinque agri iugera exhausto penitus suco ubertatis in cinerem exterruit, ita ut non fruges solum sed et arbores cum imis stirpibus absumpsisse referatur.

³ at Formiae, by many strokes of lightning, the walls on all sides were scorched and dissolved. ⁴ at the Calenian field, suddenly a flame, belched up from a riven chasm of the earth and seething terribly for three days and three nights, blasted into ash five iugera of land, the sap of fertility thoroughly exhausted, so that it is reported to have consumed not only the crops but also the trees with their deepest roots.

⁵ Sequenti abhinc anno Sempronius consul aduersum Picentes duxit exercitum. et cum directae intra iactum teli utraque acies constitissent, repente ita cum horrendo fragore terra tremuit, ut stupore miraculi utrumque pauefactum agmen hebesceret. ⁶ diu attoniti utrimque populi haesitauere praeiudicata incepti conscientia; tandem procursu concito iniere certamen.

⁵ In the year thereafter the consul Sempronius led an army against the Picentes. and when both battle lines, drawn up, had taken position within a javelin’s cast, suddenly the earth trembled with such a horrendous crash that, in stupefaction at the prodigy, each army, struck with fear, grew numb. ⁶ for a long time the peoples on both sides, thunderstruck, hesitated, with the conscience of the undertaking prejudged; at last, with a hurried advance, they entered into combat.

⁷ triste adeo id bellum fuit, ut merito dicatur tantum humanum sanguinem susceptura etiam cum gemitu horrisono tunc terra tremuisse. Romani pauci admodum eo proelio qui euasere uicerunt.

⁷ so sad was that war, that it may deservedly be said that the earth then, about to receive so much human blood, also trembled with a horrisonous groan. The Romans, very few indeed who escaped from that battle, were the victors.

[5] Anno ab urbe condita CCCCLXXX inter multa prodigia sanguis e terra, ac uisum est manare de caelo. nam et plurimis locis scaturiens e fontibus cruor fluxit et de nubibus guttatim in speciem pluuiae lacte demisso, diri, ut ipsis uisum est, terram imbres inrigauerunt.² eo tempore Carthaginienses dato aduersum Romanos auxilio Tarentinis, cum a senatu per legatos arguerentur, turpissimam rupti foederis labem praesumpto accumulauere peiurio.

[5] In the year from the founding of the city 480, among many prodigies, blood from the earth, and it was seen to flow from the sky; for in very many places gore, bubbling up from springs, flowed, and from the clouds, drop by drop, with milk let down in the likeness of rain, dire rains, as it seemed to them, irrigated the land.² At that time the Carthaginians, having given aid against the Romans to the Tarentines, when they were charged by the senate through legates, accumulated the most disgraceful stain of a ruptured treaty by resorting to perjury.

³ Tunc etiam Vulsinienses, Etruscorum florentissimi, luxurie paene perierunt. nam cum, licentia in consuetudinem prorogata, seruos suos passim liberos facerent, conuiuiis allegarent, coniugiis honestarent: ⁴ libertini in partem potestatis recepti plenitudinem per scelus usurpare meditati sunt et liberati seruitutis iugo, ambitu dominationis arserunt et quos dominos subditi aequanimiter dilexerunt, eos iam liberi, quod dominos fuisse meminerant, exsecrati sunt. ⁵ itaque conspirantes in facinus libertini - quorum tanta manus fuit, ut sine controuersia auso potirentur - correptam urbem suo tantum generi uindicant, patrimonia coniugiaque dominorum sibi per scelus usurpant, extorres dominos procul abigunt, qui miseri, exules egentesque Romam deferuntur: ubi ostentata miseria querellaque defleta, per Romanorum seueritatem et uindicati sunt et restituti.

³ Then also the Vulsinians, the most flourishing of the Etruscans, nearly perished through luxury. For when, license prolonged into custom, they were everywhere making their slaves free, were attaching them to banquets, were honoring them with marriages: ⁴ the freedmen, received into a share of power, set their minds to usurp, by crime, the fullness of it; and, freed from the yoke of servitude, they burned with the ambition of domination, and those masters whom, as subjects, they had loved with even-mindedness, those same men, now being free, they execrated because they remembered them to have been masters. ⁵ And so, conspiring into a crime, the freedmen—whose band was so great that they could, without controversy, get possession of their attempt—having seized the city, claim it for their own kind alone; they usurp for themselves, by crime, the patrimonies and marriages of their masters; they drive their masters far away as outcasts; who, wretched, exiles and needy, are conveyed to Rome: where, their misery displayed and their complaint lamented, through the severity of the Romans they were both avenged and restored.

⁶ Anno ab urbe condita CCCCLXXXI pestilentia ingens apud Romam conflagrauit, cuius atrocitatem significare contentus sum, quia uerbis inplere non possum. ⁷ si enim spatium temporis quo mansit inquiritur, ultra biennium uastando porrecta est; si depopulatio quam egerit, census indictus est, qui non quantum hominum deperisset, sed quantum superfuisset, inquireret; si uiolentia qua adfecerit, Sibyllini libri testes sunt, qui eam caelesti ira inpositam responderunt. ⁸ sed, ne quemquam quasi temptatio cauillationis offendat, quod, cum Sibylla iratos deos dixerit, nos iram caelestem dixisse uideamur, audiat et intellegat, quia haec, etsi plerumque per aerias potestates fiunt, tamen sine arbitrio omnipotentis Dei omnino non fiunt.

⁶ In the year from the founding of the City 481, an immense pestilence conflagrated around Rome, the atrocity of which I am content to signify, because I cannot fill it out with words. ⁷ For if the span of time during which it remained is inquired, it was extended, by ravaging, beyond a biennium; if the depopulation which it wrought, a census was proclaimed, which should inquire not how many of men had perished, but how many had survived; if the violence with which it afflicted, the Sibylline books are witnesses, which answered that it was imposed by celestial wrath. ⁸ But, lest a kind of temptation of cavillation offend anyone, because, since the Sibyl said that the gods were angry, we seem to have said “celestial wrath,” let him hear and understand that these things, although for the most part they happen through aerial powers, nevertheless do not happen at all without the will of Almighty God.

⁹ Eodem tempore Caparronia uirgo Vestalis incesti rea suspendio periit: corruptor eius consciique serui supplicio adfecti sunt.

⁹ At the same time Caparronia, a Vestal virgin, guilty of incest, perished by hanging: her corrupter and the complicit slaves were subjected to punishment.

¹⁰ Ecce continuatim quae et quanta numeramus accidisse annis singulis plurima, inter quos certe raro aut paene nullo nihil triste gestum, et hoc, cum idem scriptores proposito sibi magis laudandi negotio cauerent numerositates miseriarum, ¹¹ ne eosdem quibus haec et de quibus scribebantur offenderent auditoresque suos exemplis praeteritorum terrere potius quam instituere uiderentur. ¹² porro autem nos in ultimo temporum positi mala Romanorum scire non possumus nisi per eos, qui laudauere Romanos. ¹³ ex quo intellegi datur, quanta illa fuerint quae studio propter horrorem repressa sunt, cum tanta inueniuntur quae tenuiter inter laudes emanare potuerunt.

¹⁰ Behold, consecutively, how many and how great things we reckon to have happened in each single year, very many—among which, surely, rarely or in almost none was nothing sad transacted—and this, although the same writers, having set before themselves the task rather of praising, were careful to avoid the numerosity of miseries, ¹¹ lest they offend those very persons about whom and for whom these things were being written, and lest they seem to terrify their auditors by examples of the past rather than to instruct them. ¹² Furthermore, we, placed at the last times, cannot know the evils of the Romans except through those who praised the Romans. ¹³ Whence it is given to be understood how great those things were which were repressed by deliberate zeal on account of their horror, since such great things are found as could trickle thinly among the praises.

[6] Et quoniam ex hoc iam Punica bella succedunt, res ipsa exigit, ut de Carthagine, quae ante urbem Romam duo et septuaginta annos ab Helissa condita inuenitur, eiusque cladibus ac domesticis malis, sicut Pompeius Trogus et Iustinus exprimunt, uel pauca referantur.² Carthaginienses uernaculum atque intestinum semper inter se malum habuere discordiam, qua infeliciter exagitante nulla umquam tempora uel foris prospera uel domi quieta duxerunt. ³ sed cum inter cetera mala etiam pestilentia laborarent, homicidiis pro remediis usi sunt: quippe homines ut uictimas inmolabant aetatemque inpuberem, quae etiam hostium misericordiam prouocaret, aris admouebant.

[6] And since from this point the Punic wars now follow, the matter itself requires that concerning Carthage, which is found to have been founded by Helissa seventy-two years before the city of Rome, and concerning its disasters and domestic evils, as Pompeius Trogus and Justin express, at least a few things be related.² The Carthaginians always had as a home-born and intestine evil among themselves discord, and, with this unhappily harrying them, they never at any time passed either prosperous seasons abroad or quiet ones at home. ³ But when, among the other evils, they were also suffering from pestilence, they used homicides as remedies: indeed they immolated men as victims, and they brought to the altars an age not yet pubescent, which might even provoke the mercy of enemies.

⁴ De quo sacrorum immo sacrilegiorum genere quid potissime discutiendum sit non inuenio. si enim huiusmodi ritus aliqui daemones praecipere ausi sunt, ut mortibus hominum occisione hominum satisfieret, intellegendum fuit se operarios atque adiutores pestilentiae conduci, ut ipsi quos illa non corripuisset occiderent: ⁵ sanas enim atque incorruptas offerri hostias mos est, ita ut illi non sedarent morbos sed praeuenirent.

⁴ Concerning this kind of sacra—nay, of sacrileges—I do not find what ought most of all to be discussed. For if demons of this sort dared to prescribe such rites, to the effect that satisfaction for the deaths of human beings should be made by the slaughter of human beings, it had to be understood that they were hiring themselves out as workmen and adjutors of the pestilence, so that they themselves might kill those whom it had not seized: ⁵ for it is the custom that healthy and uncorrupted victims be offered, so that they not soothe diseases but prevent them.

⁶ Itaque Carthaginienses auersis dis propter istius modi sacra - sicut Pompeius Trogus et Iustinus fatentur, sicut autem apud nos constat, propter praesumptionem impietatemque ipsorum irato Deo - ⁷ cum in Sicilia diu infeliciter dimicassent, translato in Sardiniam bello iterum infelicius uicti sunt. propter quod ducem suum Mazeum et paucos qui superfuerant milites exulare iusserunt. exules ueniam per legatos petentes repulsi patriam bello et obsidione cinxerunt.

⁶ And so the Carthaginians, with the gods turned away on account of rites of this sort - as Pompeius Trogus and Justin confess, but as among us it is established, on account of their own presumption and impiety, by an angry God - ⁷ after they had long fought unhappily in Sicily, with the war transferred into Sardinia, were again, more unhappily, defeated. On account of which they ordered their leader Mazeus and the few soldiers who had survived to go into exile. The exiles, seeking pardon through legates and repulsed, encircled their fatherland with war and siege.

⁸ ibi tunc Mazeus dux exulum Carthalonem filium suum, sacerdotem Herculis, cur sibi uelut insultans purpuratus occurreret, in crucem sub oculis patriae ita ut erat cum purpuris infulisque suspendit. ⁹ post paucos dies urbem ipsam cepit; qui cum, interfectis plurimis senatorum, cruente dominaretur, occisus est. haec temporibus Cyri Persarum regis gesta sunt.

⁸ There then Mazeus, leader of the exiles, hanged his son Carthalon, a priest of Hercules, on a cross before the eyes of the fatherland, just as he was, with purple and fillets, because, purple-clad and as if insulting him, he had run to meet him. ⁹ After a few days he captured the city itself; and when, with very many of the senators killed, he was ruling bloodily, he was slain. These things were done in the times of Cyrus, king of the Persians.

¹⁰ Post haec uero Himelcho rex Carthaginiensium cum in Sicilia bellum gereret, repente horribili peste exercitum amisit. ¹¹ nec mora: morbis, populo cateruatim cadente, cito quisque correptus, mox mortuus, iam nec sepeliebatur: cuius mali nuntius cum attonitam repentino luctu Carthaginem repleuisset, non secus ac si capta esset turbata ciuitas fuit. ¹² omnia ululatibus personabant, clausae ubique ianuae, cuncta publica priuataque officia damnata, uniuersi ad portum decurrunt egredientesque de nauibus paucos, qui cladi superfuerant, de suis percontantur.

¹⁰ But after this, Himilco, king of the Carthaginians, when he was waging war in Sicily, suddenly lost his army to a horrible pestilence. ¹¹ Without delay: with diseases raging, the populace falling in crowds, each one quickly seized and soon dead, now was not even being buried: and when the report of this evil had filled Carthage, stunned by sudden mourning, the city was thrown into turmoil no otherwise than if it had been captured. ¹² All things resounded with ululations, doors everywhere were shut, all public and private duties were condemned, all run down to the harbor and question the few disembarking from the ships, who had survived the disaster, about their own.

¹³ postquam de clade suorum, tacentibus illis uel gementibus, miseri intellegunt, tunc toto litore plangentium voces, tunc infelicium matrum ululatus et flebiles querellae audiebantur. ¹⁴ inter haec procedit et ipse de naui sua imperator sordida seruilique tunica discinctus; ad cuius conspectum plangentia iunguntur agmina; ipse quoque manus ad caelum tendens nunc suam nunc publicam infelicitatem accusat et deflet; ¹⁵ ad postremum uociferans per urbem, tandem ingressus domum, cunctos, qui lacrimantes prosequebantur, ultimo dimisit adloquio ac deinde obseratis ianuis exclusisque etiam filiis gladio dolorem uitamque finiuit. haec Darii temporibus gesta sunt.

¹³ after they understood about the calamity of their own, with them silent or groaning, the wretched perceived it; then along the whole shore the voices of the lamenting, then the ululations of ill-fated mothers and tearful complaints were being heard. ¹⁴ amid these things the commander himself, ungirded, in a sordid and servile tunic, comes forth from his ship; at whose sight the ranks of mourners are joined; he too, stretching his hands to heaven, now accuses and bewails his own, now the public misfortune; ¹⁵ at last, vociferating through the city, having finally entered his house, he dismissed with a final address all who, weeping, were accompanying him, and then, with the doors barred and even his sons shut out, by the sword he brought to an end his grief and his life. these things were done in the times of Darius.

¹⁶ Post haec Hanno, uir quidam Carthaginiensis priuatis opibus reipublicae uires superans, inuadendae dominationis hausit cupiditatem. cui rei consilium utile ratus est, ut simulatis unicae filiae nuptiis omnes senatores, quorum dignitatem obstaturam inceptis suis arbitrabatur, inter pocula ueneno necaret. ¹⁷ quae res per ministros prodita sine ultione uitata est, ne in uiro potenti plus negotii faceret res cognita quam cogitata.

¹⁶ After these things Hanno, a certain Carthaginian man, with private resources surpassing the forces of the commonwealth, imbibed a desire for seizing domination. For this scheme he judged a plan useful, namely that, with the nuptials of his only daughter simulated, he should kill with poison, among the cups, all the senators, whose dignity he supposed would obstruct his undertakings. ¹⁷ This affair, betrayed through his attendants, was avoided without vengeance, lest in the case of a powerful man the thing known make more trouble than the thing merely conceived.

hoc consilio elusus Hanno alio machinamento facinus adgredi parat: seruitia concitat, quibus repente incautam urbem opprimeret. ¹⁸ sed cum ante statutam caedibus diem proditum se praeuentumque intellexisset, castellum quoddam cum uiginti milibus seruorum armatis occupauit. ¹⁹ ibi dum Afros regemque Maurorum concitat, captus est ac primo uirgis caesus, deinde effossis oculis et manibus cruribusque fractis, uelut a singulis membris poena exigeretur, in conspectu populi necatus est.

Foiled in this plan, Hanno prepares to undertake the deed by another contrivance: he incites the slave-bands, with which he might suddenly overwhelm the unwary city. ¹⁸ But when, before the day appointed for slaughters, he realized that he had been betrayed and preempted, he seized a certain stronghold with twenty thousand armed slaves. ¹⁹ There, while he was stirring up the Africans and the king of the Mauri, he was captured and at first beaten with rods; then, his eyes gouged out and his hands and legs broken, as if punishment were being exacted from each several limb, he was killed in the sight of the people.

²⁰ corpus uerberibus lacerum cruci suffixum, filii cognatique omnes supplicio traditi, ne quis eum eiusdem familiae umquam aut imitari aut ulcisci meditaretur. haec temporibus Philippi gesta sunt.

²⁰ the body, lacerated by lashings, was crucified; his sons and kinsmen all were delivered to punishment, lest anyone of the same family should ever contemplate either to imitate or to avenge him. these things were done in the times of Philip.

²¹ Post haec Carthaginienses cum Tyrum urbem, auctorem originis suae, ab Alexandro Magno captam euersamque didicissent, timentes transitum eius in Africam futurum, Hamilcarem quendam cognomento Rhodanum, uirum facundia sollertiaque praecipuum, ad perscrutandos Alexandri actus direxerunt. ²² qui per Parmenionem quasi transfuga exceptus, dehinc in militiam regis admissus omnia ciuibus suis per tabellas scriptas et post cera superlitas enuntiabat. hunc mortuo Alexandro Carthaginem reuersum, quasi urbem regi uenditasset, non ingrato tantum animo uerum etiam crudeli inuidia necauerunt.

²¹ After these things the Carthaginians, when they learned that the city of Tyre, the author of their origin, had been captured and overthrown by Alexander the Great, fearing that his crossing into Africa was imminent, sent a certain Hamilcar by the cognomen Rhodanus, a man preeminent in eloquence and sagacity, to scrutinize the acts of Alexander. ²² He, received through Parmenion as if a defector, and then admitted into the king’s service, made known everything to his fellow citizens by written tablets, afterwards smeared over with wax. Him, with Alexander dead, returning to Carthage, as though he had sold the city to the king, they put to death, not only with ingratitude but even with cruel envy.

²³ deinde cum adsidua nec umquam satis prospera aduersus Siculos bella gererent et Syracusas urbem Siciliae tunc florentissimam obsidione cinxissent, per Agathoclen Siciliae regem miro circumuenti ingenio usque ad extrema desperationis adducti sunt. ²⁴ namque Agathocles cum apud Syracusas a Carthaginiensibus obsideretur ac se neque bello parem instructu copiarum neque obsidionis patientem stipendiorum sufficientia uideret, bene prouiso ac melius dissimulato consilio in Africam cum exercitu transiit. ibi suis quid moliatur aperit, deinde quid facto opus sit docet.

²³ then, as they were waging assiduous and never sufficiently prosperous wars against the Sicels, and had encircled Syracuse, at that time the most flourishing city of Sicily, with a siege, they were, through Agathocles, king of Sicily, by wondrous ingenuity circumvented and driven to the utmost extremes of desperation. ²⁴ for Agathocles, when he was being besieged at Syracuse by the Carthaginians and saw that he was neither a match in war in the equipment of forces nor, by the sufficiency of stipends, able to endure a siege, with a counsel well foreseen and better dissimulated crossed over into Africa with his army. There he reveals to his men what he is contriving, then he teaches what needs to be done in deed.

²⁵ ilico unanimiter naues primum in quibus uenere succendunt, ne qua spes refugiendi foret; dein cum omnia in quae direxisset prosterneret, uillas castellaque incenderet, Hannonem quendam cum triginta milibus Poenorum obuiam habuit. quem cum duobus milibus suorum interfecit; ipse autem duos tantum in eo bello perdidit. ²⁶ qua pugna et Afrorum animis incredibiliter fractis et suorum in inmensum auctis urbes castellaque expugnat, praedas ingentes agit, hostium multa milia trucidat.

²⁵ Immediately they unanimously set fire first to the ships in which they had come, so that there might be no hope of fleeing back; then, as he laid low whatever he had aimed at and was burning villas and forts, he met a certain Hanno with thirty thousand Punics. Him he slew along with two thousand of his men; he himself, however, lost only two in that battle. ²⁶ By which battle, with the spirits of the Africans unbelievably broken and those of his own increased beyond measure, he storms cities and forts, drives immense spoils, and slaughters many thousands of the enemy.

²⁷ castra deinde ad quintum lapidem a Carthagine statuit, ut damna rerum opulentissimarum uastationemque agrorum et incendia uillarum de muris ipsius urbis specularentur. ²⁸ adicitur praesentibus malis tristior fama. nam et apud Siciliam deletus cum imperatore Afrorum exercitus nuntiatur, quem reuera incautum ac paene otiosum Andro Agathoclis frater oppresserat.

²⁷ then he established camp at the fifth milestone from Carthage, so that the losses of the most opulent goods, the devastation of the fields, and the burnings of the villas might be observed from the walls of the city itself. ²⁸ A gloomier rumor is added to the present evils: for it is reported that near Sicily the army of the Africans, together with its commander, has been destroyed—which in truth Andro, the brother of Agathocles, had crushed when incautious and almost idle.

²⁹ hoc per totam Africam rumore disperso non tributariae tantum urbes ab his, uerum etiam socii reges deficiebant. inter quos rex quoque Cyrenarum Afellas pactus est cum Agatholcle communionem belli, dum regnum Africae ardenter adfectat. ³⁰ sed postquam in unum exercitus et castra iunxerunt, per Agathoclen blandimentis et insidiis circumuentus occisus est.

²⁹ With this rumor dispersed through all Africa, not only the tributary cities were defecting from them, but even allied kings. Among these, the king too of Cyrene, Afellas, made a pact with Agathocles for a league in war, while he ardently aspired to the kingship of Africa. ³⁰ But after they had joined their armies and camp into one, he, surrounded by Agathocles with blandishments and stratagems, was slain.

³¹ Carthaginienses contractis undique copiis in bellum exarsere. quibus Agathocles habens secum Afellae copias congreditur, eosque magno utriusque exercitus sanguine et graui proelio superat. ³² hoc certaminis discrimine tanta desperatio inlata Poenis est, ut, nisi in exercitu Agathoclis orta seditio fuisset, transfugiturus ad eum Hamilcar dux Poenorum cum exercitu fuerit.

³¹ The Carthaginians, with forces gathered from every side, blazed forth into war. Against them Agathocles, having with him the forces of Afellas, engages, and, with great bloodshed of both armies and in a grave battle, he defeats them. ³² By this crisis of the contest such despair was brought upon the Poeni (the Carthaginians) that, if a sedition had not arisen in Agathocles’s army, Hamilcar, the Punic commander, would have defected to him with his army.

ob quam noxam in medio foro iussu Carthaginiensium patibulo suffixus crudele spectaculum suis praebuit. ³³ deinde cum post mortem Agathoclis Carthaginienses Siciliam instructa classe uastarent, a Pyrrho rege Epiri ab Italia arcessito terrestri naualique certamine saepe superati, nouissime ad Romana bella conuersi sunt.

for which offense, in the middle of the forum, by order of the Carthaginians, fastened to a gibbet, he presented to his own people a cruel spectacle. ³³ then, when after the death of Agathocles the Carthaginians were ravaging Sicily with a well-equipped fleet, often defeated in land and sea combat by Pyrrhus, king of Epirus, summoned from Italy, at last they turned to Roman wars.

³⁴ Pro dolor, leguntne ista de ueteribus, qui de recentibus conqueruntur? immo legunt et ea non aequitate sed aemulatione coniciunt. ³⁵ maximo enim illo et ineffabili quem nec ipsi discernunt stimulo conpunguntur non propter tempora mala sed propter tempora Christiana, et deriuatio est inuidi ulceris, ut, quidquid sub exsecrabili agitur, atrocius esse uideatur: ³⁶ sicut etiam inter nos saepe inimicorum oculis uideri solet, eos, quos exsecrantur, nihil non prauum, nihil non subsiciuum, nihil non in uulnus suum dicto factoue agere, et hoc tamen plane simpliciter, in tantum enim captum cor obliquat inuidia, ut rectum natura non uideat.

³⁴ Alas, do those who complain about recent things read these matters about the ancients? Nay rather, they do read, and they cast them not with equity but with emulation. ³⁵ For they are pricked by that greatest and ineffable goad—which they themselves do not even discern—not on account of evil times but on account of Christian times; and it is a derivation, as it were, of an envious ulcer, so that whatever is done under the execrable seems more atrocious: ³⁶ just as also among us it is often wont to appear to the eyes of enemies that those whom they execrate do nothing that is not depraved, nothing that is not refuse, nothing in word or deed that is not to their own wound; and this, moreover, quite plainly and simply—for envy so bends a captured heart that it does not see what is straight by nature.

³⁷ de quorum numero sunt isti, sed multo miseriores quia inimici Dei ac perinde inimici ueritatis - de quibus flentes haec dicimus et quos misericorditer, si patiantur, arguimus, ut sanemus, - ³⁸ qui uitioso oculo haec uident atque ideo duplicia illis uidentur quae uident et confusi caligine nequitiae in id cadunt, ut minus uidendo plus uideant, cum tamen id quod est ita ut est uidere non possint; ³⁹ qui grauiora arbitrantur flagella patris, quam hostis incendia; qui acerbiorem uocant blandientem admonentem et redimentem Deum quam persequentem dominantem trucidantemque diabolum; ⁴⁰ quamquam, si de patre intellegerent, de castigatione gauderent et, si praeuideretur fructus eruditionis, esset disciplina tolerabilis ac propter spem, quae nunc gentibus data est, antea uero non fuerat, leuiora ducerent, etsi grauiora paterentur. ⁴¹ quamquam contemptus miseriarum possunt etiam a suis discere, apud quos summa mala pro summis bonis aestimata sunt, tantum ut gloriam famae celebrem atque inlustrem consequerentur: ⁴² per quos colligi datur, quanta nobis, quibus aeternitas beata promittitur, sint toleranda pro uita, cum illi tanta potuerint tolerare pro fama.

³⁷ of whose number are these, but much more miserable because enemies of God and likewise enemies of truth — about whom we say these things weeping and whom we mercifully, if they allow, reprove, that we may heal — ³⁸ who see these things with a vitiated eye, and therefore the things they see seem double to them; and, confused by the gloom of iniquity, they fall into this, that by seeing less they see more, while yet they cannot see the thing that is as it is; ³⁹ who judge the scourges of the Father to be heavier than the fires of the enemy; who call more bitter the God who blandishes, admonishes, and redeems than the devil who persecutes, dominates, and slaughters; ⁴⁰ although, if they understood about the Father, they would rejoice in chastisement; and if the fruit of erudition were foreseen, discipline would be tolerable, and on account of the hope which now has been given to the nations, but before had not been, they would deem things lighter, even if they suffered heavier. ⁴¹ although they can learn a contempt of miseries even from their own, among whom the greatest evils have been appraised as the greatest goods, only that they might attain the glory of fame, celebrated and illustrious: ⁴² through whom it is given to gather how great things must be endured by us, to whom blessed eternity is promised, for life, since they were able to endure such great things for fame.

[7] Anno ab urbe condita CCCCLXXXIII id est Appio Claudio Q. Fabio consulibus Mamertinis, quorum Messana nobilis Siciliae ciuitas erat, auxilia contra Hieronem Syracusanum regem et Poenorum copias Hieroni iunctas et Appium Claudium consulem cum exercitu misere Romani.² qui tam celeriter Syracusanos Poenosque superauit, ut ipse quoque rex rerum magnitudine perterritus ante se uictum quam congressum fuisse prodiderit; ³ qui exim fractis uiribus amissaque fiducia cum pacem supplex rogaret, ducentis argenti talentis iussu consulum multatus accepit. ⁴ consules Agrigentum Siciliae ciuitatem ibique praesidia Poenorum operibus ualloque cinxerunt.

[7] In the year from the founding of the City 483, that is, with Appius Claudius and Q. Fabius as consuls, the Romans sent auxiliaries to the Mamertines—whose Messana was a noble city of Sicily—against Hiero, king of the Syracusans, and the forces of the Poeni joined to Hiero, and they sent Appius Claudius the consul with an army.² He so swiftly overpowered the Syracusans and the Poeni that the king himself, terrified at the magnitude of the situation, admitted that he had been conquered before he had engaged. ³ He, with his strength broken and his confidence lost, when as a suppliant he asked for peace, received it, having been fined, by order of the consuls, two hundred talents of silver. ⁴ The consuls [went] to Agrigentum, a city of Sicily, and there surrounded the Punic garrisons with works and a rampart.

⁵ cumque inclusus ea obsidione senior Hannibal imperator Poenorum ad summam egestatem redactus esset, Hanno imperator nouus Carthaginiensium cum equitibus mille quingentis et triginta milibus peditum, triginta etiam elephantis ex inprouiso intercessit expugnationemque ciuitatis paulisper distulit. ⁶ sed continuo ciuitas capta est: Poeni maximo bello uicti et profligati, undecim elephanti in potestatem redacti, Agrigentini sub corona omnes uenditi sunt; Hannibal senior facta cum paucis eruptione diffugit.

⁵ and when, shut in by that siege, the elder Hannibal, general of the Poeni, had been reduced to extreme want, Hanno, the new general of the Carthaginians, with 1,500 cavalry and 30,000 infantry, and 30 elephants as well, unexpectedly interposed and for a little while deferred the storming of the city. ⁶ but immediately the city was taken: the Poeni, in a very great battle, were conquered and routed; 11 elephants were brought into Roman power; the Agrigentines were all sold under the crown (i.e., at auction as slaves); the elder Hannibal, having made a sally with a few, fled.

⁷ Cn. Cornelio Asina C. Duilio consulibus cum Hannibal senior oram Italiae maritimam instructa septuaginta nauium classe uastaret, Romani et ipsi classem fabricari atque instrui praeceperunt. ⁸ quod Duilius consul celeriter inpleuit; nam intra sexaginta dies quam arbores caesae erant centum triginta nauium classis deducta in anchoris stetit. ⁹ Cornelius Asina consul alter cum sedecim nauibus Liparam insulam petiit; ubi ab Hannibale quasi ad conloquium pacis euocatus Punica fraude captus atque in uinculis necatus est.

⁷ In the consulship of Gnaeus Cornelius Asina and Gaius Duilius, when Hannibal the Elder was ravaging the maritime shore of Italy with a fleet equipped with seventy ships, the Romans likewise ordered that a fleet be fabricated and equipped. ⁸ This Consul Duilius quickly fulfilled; for within sixty days from when the trees had been felled, a fleet of one hundred thirty ships, having been launched, stood at anchor. ⁹ The other consul, Cornelius Asina, with sixteen ships sought the island of Lipara; where, having been summoned by Hannibal as if to a conference of peace, by Punic fraud he was captured and killed in chains.

¹⁰ quod ubi Duilius alter consul audiit, cum triginta nauibus aduersus Hannibalem profectus est. commisso nauali proelio Hannibal, amissa naui qua uehebatur, scapha subductus aufugit; triginta et una naues eius captae, tredecim mersae, tria milia hominum occisa, septem milia capta referuntur.

¹⁰ when Duilius, the other consul, heard this, he set out against Hannibal with thirty ships. With a naval battle joined, Hannibal, having lost the ship by which he was being conveyed, taken off in a skiff, fled; thirty-one of his ships captured, thirteen sunk, three thousand men killed, seven thousand captured are reported.

¹¹ Postea Carthaginienses C. Aquilio Floro L. Cornelio Scipione consulibus Hannonem in locum Hannibalis subrogatum pro Sardis et Corsis defensandis nauali proelio praefecerunt, qui a Scipione consule uictus, amisso exercitu ipse confertissimis hostibus se inmiscuit ibique interfectus est. ¹² eodem anno tria milia seruorum et quattuor milia naualium sociorum in urbis Romae excidium coniurarunt et, nisi maturata proditio consilium praeuenisset, destituta praesidio ciuitas seruili manu perisset.

¹¹ Afterwards, the Carthaginians, under the consuls Gaius Aquilius Florus and Lucius Cornelius Scipio, appointed Hanno, substituted in the place of Hannibal, to command for defending the Sardinians and Corsicans in a naval battle; he, defeated by the consul Scipio, his army lost, mingled himself with the enemies packed in closest order and there was slain. ¹² In the same year three thousand slaves and four thousand allies of the fleet conspired for the destruction of the city of Rome, and, unless a hastened betrayal had forestalled the plan, the city, left without garrison, would have perished by a servile band.

[8] Anno ab hoc proximo Calatinus consul Camerinam Siciliae urbem petens temere in angustias deduxit exercitum, quas Poenorum copiae iam dudum praestruxerant.² cui cum omnino nulla uel obsistendi uel euadendi facultas esset, Calpurni Flammae uirtute et opera liberatus est, qui lecta trecentorum uirorum manu insessum ab hostibus tumulum occupauit et in se Poenos omnes pugnando conuertit, donec Romanus exercitus obsessas angustias hoste non urguente transiret. ³ caesi sunt in eo bello omnes trecenti, solus Calpurnius quamuis multis confossus uulneribus et cadaueribus obtectus euasit.

[8] In the year next after this one, the consul Calatinus, aiming at Camarina, a city of Sicily, rashly led his army into narrows which the forces of the Punics had long before obstructed.² When there was absolutely no means either of resisting or of escaping for it, he was freed by the valor and effort of Calpurnius Flamma, who, with a picked band of three hundred men, seized a hill occupied by the enemies and by fighting turned all the Punics upon himself, until the Roman army crossed the beset narrows, the enemy not pressing. ³ All three hundred were cut down in that battle, Calpurnius alone escaped, although pierced with many wounds and covered with corpses.

⁴ Hannibal senior a Carthaginiensibus iterum classi praepositus, infeliciter cum Romanis nauali proelio congressus et uictus, ab exercitu suo seditione orta lapidibus coopertus interiit. ⁵ Atilius consul Liparam Melitamque insulas Siciliae nobiles peruagatus euertit. ⁶ consules, in Africam iussi transferre bellum, cum trecentis triginta nauibus Siciliam petiuerunt: quibus Hamilcar Poenorum imperator et Hanno classi praefectus occurrit.

⁴ Hannibal the elder, by the Carthaginians again put in charge of the fleet, engaged the Romans in a naval battle to ill effect and, defeated, was covered with stones by his own army when a sedition arose, and perished. ⁵ The consul Atilius, having traversed the distinguished Sicilian islands Lipara and Melita, laid them waste. ⁶ The consuls, ordered to transfer the war into Africa, made for Sicily with 330 ships: Hamilcar, commander of the Carthaginians, and Hanno, prefect of the fleet, met them.

conserto nauali proelio Carthaginienses in fugam uersi sexaginta et quattuor naues perdiderunt. ⁷ uictores consules in Africam transuecti sunt primamque omnium Clipeam urbem in deditionem receperunt. ⁸ inde Carthaginem petentes trecenta aut eo amplius castella populati sunt, infesta Carthagini signa circumtulerunt.

with a naval battle having been joined, the Carthaginians, turned to flight, lost sixty-four ships. ⁷ the victorious consuls were transported into Africa and, first of all, received the city of Clipea into surrender. ⁸ thence, making for Carthage, they ravaged three hundred or even more fortresses, and bore around standards hostile to Carthage.

⁹ Manlius consul Africa cum uictrici classe decedens septem et uiginti milia captiuorum cum ingentibus spoliis Romam reuexit. ¹⁰ Regulus, bellum Carthaginiense sortitus, iter cum exercitu faciens haud procul a flumine Bagrada castra constituit: ubi cum plurimos militum aquandi necessitate ad flumen descendentes serpens mirae magnitudinis deuoraret, Regulus ad expugnandam bestiam cum exercitu profectus est. ¹¹ sed nihil in tergo eius proficientibus iaculis atque omni telorum ictu inrito, quae per horrendam squamarum cratem quasi per obliquam scutorum testudinem labebantur mirumque in modum, ne corpus laederent, ipso corpore pellebantur, cum insuper magnam multitudinem morsu conminui, impetu proteri, halitu etiam pestifero exanimari uideret, ballistas deferri imperauit, per quas murale saxum spinae eius incussum conpagem totius corporis soluit.

⁹ Manlius the consul, departing from Africa with the victorious fleet, brought back to Rome 27 thousand captives with enormous spoils. ¹⁰ Regulus, having drawn the Carthaginian war by lot, making the march with the army, pitched camp not far from the river Bagrada: where, as a serpent of wondrous magnitude was devouring very many of the soldiers descending to the river from the necessity of getting water, Regulus set out with the army to storm the beast. ¹¹ But with javelins accomplishing nothing on its back and every blow of missiles ineffectual, which were sliding through the dreadful lattice of scales as if through the slanting testudo of shields, and, in a wondrous manner, so as not to wound the body, were being repelled by the body itself—when, moreover, he saw that a great multitude were being mangled by its bite, trampled by its charge, and even slain by its pestiferous breath, he ordered ballistae to be brought up, by which a mural stone, driven into its spine, loosened the compages of the whole body.

¹² talis siquidem est natura serpentis, ut, cum pedibus carere uideatur, costis tamen et squamis, quas a summo gutture usque ad imam aluum parili modo dispositas habet, ita instruitur, ut squamis quasi unguibus, costis quasi cruribus innitatur. ¹³ non enim ut uermis, cui spinae rigor non est, et in directum corpusculi sui partes gradatim porrigendo contractas, contrahendo porrectas motum explicat, sed alternis intenta conatibus latera sinuosa circumfert, ut per exteriorem spinae curuaturam rigentem costarum aciem tendat, costis autem natura ad summum rectis squamarum ungulas figat; quod uicissim et celeriter agendo non solum plana perlabitur, sed etiam conuexa conscendit, tot uestigiis instructa quot costis. ¹⁴ huius itaque rei causa est, ut, si in qualibet corporis parte ab aluo usque ad caput ictu aliquo conlidatur, debilis reddita cursum habere non possit; quia ubicumque ille ictus inciderit spinam soluit, per quam costarum pedes et motus corporis agebantur.

¹² Such indeed is the nature of the serpent, that, although it seems to lack feet, yet by the ribs and scales, which it has arranged in like fashion from the top of the throat to the lowest belly, it is so equipped that it rests upon the scales as if upon nails, upon the ribs as if upon legs. ¹³ For it is not like a worm, which has no rigidity of spine, and which, by stretching in a straight line the parts of its little body, unfolding its motion by degrees—by extending what was contracted and by contracting what was extended—but with alternate strained efforts it carries its sinuous sides around, so that through the outer curvature of the spine it may stretch the rigid line of the ribs, and, the ribs by nature being quite straight, it may set the little claws of the scales; which, doing this in turn and swiftly, it not only glides over level ground, but even climbs convex places, furnished with as many footprints as ribs. ¹⁴ Therefore the cause of this matter is, that, if in any part of the body from the belly up to the head it is struck by some blow, being rendered debilitated it cannot keep a course; because wherever that blow falls it loosens the spine, through which the feet of the ribs and the motion of the body were being driven.

unde etiam haec serpens, quae tamdiu tot iaculis inuulnerabilis obstitit, ad unius saxi ictum debilis cessit ac mox circumuenta telis facile oppressa est. ¹⁵ corium autem eius Romam deuectum - quod fuisse centum uiginti pedum spatio ferunt - aliquamdiu cunctis miraculo fuit.

whence also this serpent, which for so long withstood so many javelins invulnerable, yielded, weakened, at the blow of a single stone, and soon, surrounded by weapons, was easily overwhelmed. ¹⁵ its hide, moreover, conveyed to Rome - which they say was of a span of 120 feet - was for some time a marvel to all.

¹⁶ Regulus aduersum tres imperatores, id est Hasdrubales duos et accitum ex Sicilia Hamilcarem, atrocissimum bellum gessit, in quo caesa sunt Carthaginiensium decem et septem milia, capta autem quinque milia, decem et octo elephanti abducti, oppida octoginta et duo in deditionem cessere Romanis.

¹⁶ Regulus waged a most atrocious war against three generals, that is, two Hasdrubals and Hamilcar summoned from Sicily, in which 17,000 Carthaginians were cut down, but 5,000 were captured, 18 elephants were led away, and 82 towns yielded in surrender to the Romans.

[9] Carthaginienses fracti bellis et cladibus exinaniti pacem a Regulo poposcerunt. sed cum intolerabiles et duras condiciones pacis audissent, tutius rati sese armatos mori quam miseros uiuere, pretio non solum Hispanorum uel Gallorum auxilia, quae iam dudum plurima habebant, sed etiam Graecorum conparanda duxerunt.² itaque Xanthippum Lacedaemoniorum regem cum auxiliis accitum, ducem bello praefecerunt.

[9] The Carthaginians, broken by wars and emptied out by disasters, asked peace from Regulus. But when they had heard the intolerable and harsh conditions of peace, thinking it safer to die armed than to live wretched, they judged that auxiliaries must be procured for a price, not only of the Spaniards or the Gauls—which already long since they had in great numbers—but even of the Greeks.² And so, having called in Xanthippus, king of the Lacedaemonians, with auxiliaries, they placed him in command of the war.

Xanthippus, inspectis Poenorum copiis atque in campum deductis, longe in melius mutato apparatu pugnam cum Romanis conseruit. ³ ingens ibi ruina Romanorum uirium fuit: nam triginta milia militum Romanorum in illa tunc congressione prostrata sunt. Regulus ille dux nobilis cum quingentis uiris captus est et in catenas coniectus decimo demum anno Punici belli nobilem triumphum Carthaginiensibus praebuit.

Xanthippus, after inspecting the Punic forces and leading them down into the plain, with the apparatus/disposition changed far for the better, joined battle with the Romans. ³ There an immense ruin of Roman strength occurred: for thirty thousand Roman soldiers in that then engagement were laid low. That noble leader Regulus, captured with five hundred men and cast into chains, in the tenth year at last of the Punic war furnished the Carthaginians a noble triumph.

⁴ Xanthippus tam audacis facti conscius rerum instabilium mutationem timens ilico ex Africa migrauit in Graeciam.

⁴ Xanthippus, conscious of so audacious an act and fearing a change in unstable affairs, immediately migrated from Africa into Greece.

⁵ Igitur Aemilius Paulus et Fuluius Nobilior consules audita captiuitate Reguli et clade exercitus Romani transire in Africam cum classe trecentarum nauium iussi Clipeam petunt. eo confestim Carthaginienses cum pari classe uenerunt; nec differri potuit nauale certamen. ⁶ centum et quattuor naues Carthaginiensium demersae, triginta cum pugnatoribus captae, praeterea triginta et quinque milia militum ex ipsis caesa sunt ; Romanorum autem nouem nauibus depressis mille centum periere milites.

⁵ Therefore Aemilius Paulus and Fulvius Nobilior, consuls, having heard of the captivity of Regulus and the disaster of the Roman army, were ordered to cross into Africa with a fleet of 300 ships; they make for Clipea. Thither at once the Carthaginians came with an equal fleet; nor could the naval contest be deferred. ⁶ 104 ships of the Carthaginians were sunk, 30 were captured with their fighting crews, moreover 35,000 of their soldiers were cut down; but on the Roman side, with 9 ships sunk, 1,100 soldiers perished.

⁷ consules apud Clipeam castra posuerunt. duo Hannones imperatores Poenorum eo rursus cum magno exercitu conuenerunt proelioque commisso nouem milia militum perdiderunt. ⁸ sed - ut tunc apud Romanos numquam diuturna felicitas erat et qualescumque successus magnis continuo malorum molibus obruebantur - cum Romana classis ad Italiam praedis onusta remearet, infando naufragio euersa est: nam de trecentis nauibus ducentae uiginti perierunt, octoginta uix abiectis oneribus liberatae sunt.

⁷ the consuls pitched camp near Clipea. Two Hannos, commanders of the Punics, came together thither again with a great army, and with battle joined they lost 9,000 soldiers. ⁸ but—as at that time among the Romans prosperity was never long-lasting, and whatever successes were straightway overwhelmed by great masses of evils—when the Roman fleet, laden with plunder, was returning to Italy, it was overturned by an unspeakable shipwreck: for out of 300 ships, 220 perished; 80, scarcely with their burdens thrown overboard, were freed.

⁹ Hamilcar dux Poenorum cum exercitu in Numidiam Mauretaniamque missus postquam hostiliter cruenteque in uniuersos egit, cur Regulum libenter suscepisse dicerentur, mille argenti talentis et uiginti milibus boum reliquos condemnauit; principes autem omnium populorum patibulo suffixit.

⁹ Hamilcar, leader of the Carthaginians, having been sent with an army into Numidia and Mauretania, after he proceeded against all in a hostile and bloody manner, on the charge that they were said to have gladly received Regulus, condemned the rest to 1,000 talents of silver and 20,000 head of cattle; but the chiefs of all the peoples he affixed to the gibbet.

¹⁰ Tertio anno - sicut semper indomitus furor cito periculorum obliuiscitur - Seruilius Caepio et Sempronius Blaesus consules ducentis sexaginta nauibus Africam transgressi uniuersam oram maritimam, quae circa Syrtes iacet, depopulati sunt atque in superiora progressi captis euersisque ciuitatibus plurimis ingentem praedam ad classem deuexerunt. ¹¹ inde cum ad Italiam redirent, circa Palinuri promuntorium, quod a Lucanis montibus in altum excurrit, inlisi scopulis centum quinquaginta naues onerarias nobilemque praedam crudeliter adquisitam infeliciter perdiderunt. ¹² uicit aliquando apud Romanos improbissimam cupiditatem enormitas miseriarum: nam patres, quibus iam nauticae rei pertaesum esset, decreuere ne amplius quam sexaginta nauium classis ad subsidium haberetur Italiae; quod quidem decretum continuo adacti indomita cupiditate ruperunt.

¹⁰ In the third year - just as an ever indomitable frenzy quickly forgets dangers - Servilius Caepio and Sempronius Blaesus, consuls, having crossed over to Africa with two hundred sixty ships, devastated the whole maritime shore which lies around the Syrtes, and, having advanced into the upper regions, with very many cities captured and overthrown, they conveyed an immense booty to the fleet. ¹¹ Thence, when they were returning to Italy, around the Promontory of Palinurus, which runs out into the deep from the Lucanian mountains, one hundred fifty transport ships, having been dashed upon the rocks, and the noble booty cruelly acquired, they unhappily lost. ¹² At last among the Romans the enormity of miseries overcame the most shameless cupidity: for the Fathers, who by now were weary of the nautical affair, decreed that a fleet of no more than sixty ships should be kept for the support of Italy; which decree indeed, driven immediately by their untamed cupidity, they broke.

¹³ praeterea Cotta consul in Siciliam transgressus plurimis proeliis aduersum Poenos et Siculos terra marique pugnauit et per totam Siciliam partim hostium partim etiam sociorum inhumatas strages reliquit.

¹³ moreover Cotta the consul, having crossed over into Sicily, fought in very many battles against the Punics and the Sicilians by land and sea, and throughout all Sicily he left inhumate carnage, partly of the enemy and partly even of the allies.

¹⁴ L. Caecilio Metello C. Furio Placido consulibus Hasdrubal nouus Carthaginiensium imperator cum elephantis centum triginta et equitum peditumque amplius triginta milibus Lilybaeum uenit ex Africa et continuo cum Metello consule apud Panormum pugnam conseruit. ¹⁵ sed Metellus uim magnam beluarum timens prius eas magno usus consilio uel in fugam uel in mortem egit et sic facile quamuis magnam uim hostium superauit: XX milia Carthaginiensium in eo proelio caesa sunt, elephanti quoque sex et uiginti interfecti centum et quattuor capti et per Italiam ducti maximum Italicis gentibus spectaculum praebuerunt. Hasdrubal cum paucis Lilybaeum profugit atque absens a Poenis capitis damnatus est.

¹⁴ In the consulship of L. Caecilius Metellus and C. Furius Placidus, Hasdrubal, the new commander of the Carthaginians, came to Lilybaeum from Africa with 130 elephants and with more than 30,000 of cavalry and infantry, and immediately engaged in battle with the consul Metellus at Panormus. ¹⁵ But Metellus, fearing the great force of the beasts, first, by employing a great stratagem, drove them either into flight or to death, and thus easily overcame however great a force of the enemy: 20,000 Carthaginians were slain in that battle; 26 elephants were also killed, 104 captured, and led through Italy, and they provided the Italic peoples a very great spectacle. Hasdrubal fled to Lilybaeum with a few and, being absent, was condemned to death by the Carthaginians.

[10] Post haec fessi tot malis Carthaginienses petendam esse pacem a Romanis decreuerunt. ad quam rem Atilium Regulum antea ducem Romanum, quem iam per quinque annos captiuum detinebant, inter ceteros legatos praecipue mittendum putauerunt: quem non impetrata pace ab Italia reuersum resectis palpebris inligatum in machina uigilando necauerunt.² alter deinde Atilius Regulus et Manlius Vulsco, ambo bis consules, cum classe ducentarum nauium et quattuor legionibus Lilybaeum profecti: quod oppidum in promuntorio situm Romani obsidere conati, superueniente Hannibale qui Hamilcaris filius fuit uicti, maiore exercitus sui parte perdita ipsi aegre euaserunt.

[10] After these things, wearied by so many evils, the Carthaginians decreed that peace should be sought from the Romans. For this purpose they thought that Atilius Regulus, formerly a Roman general, whom they had already held captive for five years, should be sent above all among the other legates: he, when peace was not obtained and he returned from Italy, with his eyelids cut off, being bound in a device, they killed by forcing wakefulness.² Then another Atilius Regulus and Manlius Vulsco, both twice consuls, set out for Lilybaeum with a fleet of two hundred ships and four legions: which town, situated on a promontory, the Romans attempted to besiege; but with Hannibal arriving, who was the son of Hamilcar, they were defeated, and, the greater part of their army lost, they themselves scarcely escaped.

³ post hos Claudius consul cum classe centum uiginti nauium ad Drepani portum contra hostem profectus: ubi mox exceptus classe Poenorum superatusque est. et ipse quidem cum triginta nauibus Lilybaeum in castra confugit, reliquae omnes, id est nonaginta, aut captae aut demersae fuerunt; octo milia militum caesa, uiginti milia capta referuntur. Gaius quoque Iunius collega Claudi uniuersam classem naufragio amisit.

³ after these, the consul Claudius set out with a fleet of 120 ships to the port of Drepana against the enemy: where he was soon intercepted by the Punic fleet and overcome. And he himself indeed, with 30 ships, fled for refuge to the camp at Lilybaeum; all the rest, that is 90, were either captured or sunk; 8,000 soldiers are reported slain, 20,000 captured. Gaius Junius also, colleague of Claudius, lost the entire fleet by shipwreck.

⁴ Anno etiam consequenti classis Punica in Italiam transiit eiusque plurimas partes longe lateque uastauit. ⁵ interea Lutatius cum classe trecentarum nauium in Siciliam transuectus dum apud Drepanam ciuitatem pugnam inter primores ciet, transfixo femore aegerrime, cum iam obrueretur, ereptus est. ⁶ porro autem Poeni cum quadringentis nauibus magnisque copiis ad Siciliam duce Hannone concurrunt.

⁴ In the following year as well, the Punic fleet crossed into Italy and far and wide devastated very many parts of it. ⁵ Meanwhile Lutatius, conveyed with a fleet of 300 ships into Sicily, while near the city of Drepana he was stirring up a battle among the foremost, with his thigh pierced, was rescued with the greatest difficulty when he was already being overwhelmed. ⁶ Furthermore, the Carthaginians, with 400 ships and great forces, hurry together to Sicily under the leadership of Hanno.

nec Lutatius segnior, immo consilia Poenorum mira celeritate praeuenit. postquam proxime sibi utrorumque classes apud Aegades insulas per totam noctem intertextis propemodum anchoris constiterunt, orta luce prior Lutatius signum bello dedit. ⁷ crudescente pugna uictus Hanno nauem auertit et dux fugae primus fuit.

Nor was Lutatius more sluggish; nay rather, he forestalled the counsels of the Punic side with wondrous celerity. After the fleets of both sides, very near each other, had taken their stand by the Aegadian Islands for the whole night, their anchors almost interlaced, with light arisen Lutatius was first to give the signal for battle. ⁷ As the fight grew fierce, defeated, Hanno turned his ship away and was the first leader of the flight.

aliquanta cum eo pars exercitus sui Africam petiit, alii confugere Lilybaeum; sexaginta et tres Punicae naues captae sunt, centum uiginti quinque demersae, triginta duo milia hominum capta, caesa quattuordecim milia fuere; Romanorum autem duodecim naues demersae sunt. ⁸ Lutatius deinde ad Erycinam ciuitatem quam Poeni tenebant, uenit ibique duo milia Carthaginiensium conserta pugna interfecit.

with him a considerable part of his army made for Africa, others fled for refuge to Lilybaeum; sixty-three Punic ships were captured, one hundred twenty-five sunk, thirty-two thousand men taken, fourteen thousand were slain; but of the Romans twelve ships were sunk. ⁸ Lutatius then came to the city of Erycina, which the Carthaginians were holding, and there, the battle joined, he slew two thousand Carthaginians.

[11] Tunc Carthaginienses praecipiti festinatione ad Lutatium consulem ac deinde Romam mittunt: orant pacem, quam condicionibus ante propositis ilico consequuntur.² condiciones autem erant, ut Sicilia Sardiniaque decederent proque inpensis bellicis puri argenti tria milia talentum Euboicorum aequis pensionibus per annos uiginti penderent. ³ huius pacis condicio habita est post annum tertium et uicensimum, ex quo bellum Punicum primum fuerat inchoatum.

[11] Then the Carthaginians, in headlong haste, send envoys to the consul Lutatius and then to Rome: they beg for peace, which they obtain immediately on the conditions previously set forth.² The conditions, moreover, were that they withdraw from Sicily and Sardinia and, for war expenditures, pay 3,000 talents of pure silver of the Euboean standard in equal installments over 20 years. ³ The settlement of this peace was concluded in the 23rd year from when the First Punic War had been begun.

⁴ Quis, rogo, duarum ciuitatum unum bellum per annos tres et uiginti gestum fando explicet, quot reges Carthaginiensium, quot consules Romanorum, quot agmina exercituum, quantum numerum nauium contraxerit profligarit oppresserit? et tunc demum, si illa ad plenum perpensa uideantur, de praesentibus iudicetur.

⁴ Who, I ask, would by telling explicate a single war of two commonwealths waged for twenty-three years—how many kings of the Carthaginians, how many consuls of the Romans, how many formations of armies, what number of ships it gathered, routed, overwhelmed? and then at last, if those things seem to have been weighed to the full, let judgment be made about present matters.

⁵ Anno ab urbe condita DVII repentina subuersio ipsius Romae praeuenit triumphum Romanorum; neque enim temere dixerim, quando non uel modicam laetitiam Romae superueniens repente quam grauissimus luctus oppresserit. ⁶ siquidem Q. Lutatio Catulo A. Manlio consulibus diuersae ignium aquarumque clades paene absumpsere urbem. nam Tiberis insolitis auctus imbribus et ultra opinionem uel diuturnitate uel magnitudine redundans omnia Romae aedificia in plano posita deleuit.

⁵ In the year 507 from the founding of the City, a sudden subversion of Rome itself forestalled the triumph of the Romans; nor would I be speaking rashly to say that scarcely ever has even a modest joy at Rome not been crushed by a most grievous mourning suddenly supervening. ⁶ Indeed, under the consuls Q. Lutatius Catulus and A. Manlius, diverse disasters of fire and of water almost consumed the city. For the Tiber, increased by unusual rains and overflowing beyond expectation either in duration or in magnitude, destroyed all the buildings at Rome situated on the level ground.

⁷ diuersae qualitates locorum ad unam conuenere perniciem, quoniam et, quae segnior redundatio tenuit, madefacta dissoluit et, quae cursus torrentis inuenit, inpulsa deiecit. ⁸ aquarum grauissimam cladem grauior ignis secuta uastatio est; qui ignis, incertum unde surrexerit, plurimas ciuitatis partes peruagatus cum hominum domorumque miserabilem stragem fecit tum etiam tantum opum uno consumpsit incendio quantum plurimae et peregrinae uictoriae conferre non possent. ⁹ dehinc cum omnia in circuitu fori popularetur, aedem Vestae corripuit et ne sibi quidem dis subuenientibus ignem illum, qui aeternus putabatur, temporarius ignis oppressit; unde etiam Metellus, dum arsuros deos eripit, uix bracchio semiustilatus aufugit.

⁷ diverse qualities of the places converged to one destruction, since both what the more sluggish overflow held, it, soaked, dissolved, and what the course of the torrent found, driven, it cast down. ⁸ the very heavy disaster of the waters was followed by a more grievous devastation of fire; which fire, uncertain from where it arose, ranging through very many parts of the city made a pitiable carnage of humans and homes, and also consumed in a single conflagration so great a wealth as many foreign victories could not contribute. ⁹ then, while it was ravaging everything around the circuit of the Forum, it seized the Temple of Vesta, and not even with the gods themselves coming to its aid: that fire which was thought eternal was suppressed by a temporary fire; whence also Metellus, while he snatched the gods who were about to burn, scarcely escaped, his arm half-scorched.

¹⁰ T. Sempronio Graccho C. Valerio Falcone consulibus cum Faliscis bellauere Romani, eoque proelio quindecim milia Faliscorum interfecta sunt.

¹⁰ In the consulship of T. Sempronius Gracchus and C. Valerius Falco the Romans waged war with the Faliscans, and in that battle 15,000 Faliscans were slain.

[12] eodem anno Galli Cisalpini noui exstitere hostes. aduersum quos uaria sorte bellatum est; nam in primo conflictu Valerio consule tria milia quingenti cecidere Romani, secundo quattuordecim milia Gallorum caesa, duo milia capta sunt, sed ob priorem cladem triumphus consuli denegatus est.

[12] in the same year the Cisalpine Gauls appeared as new enemies. against whom war was waged with mixed fortune; for in the first conflict, with Valerius as consul, 3,500 Romans fell, in the second 14,000 Gauls were cut down, 2,000 were captured, but on account of the earlier disaster a triumph was denied to the consul.

² T. Manlio Torquato C. Atilio Bubulco consulibus Sardinia insula rebellauit auctoribus Poenis. unde mox Sardi subacti et oppressi sunt; Carthaginiensibus autem uiolatoribus pacis, quam ipsi poposcissent, inferri bellum decretum est. ³ contra Carthaginienses pacem suppliciter poposcerunt et cum bis missis legatis nihil profecissent, post etiam decem principibus bis aeque supplicantibus nec impetrarent, nouissime Hannonis, minimi hominis inter legatos, oratione meruerunt.

² Under the consuls T. Manlius Torquatus and C. Atilius Bubulcus, the island of Sardinia rebelled, with the Carthaginians as instigators. Whence soon the Sardinians were subjugated and oppressed; but against the Carthaginians, violators of the peace which they themselves had demanded, it was decreed that war be brought. ³ In response the Carthaginians supplicantly asked for peace, and when, with envoys sent twice, they accomplished nothing, afterward even with ten principal men twice equally supplicating they did not obtain it, finally they earned it by the speech of Hanno, the least man among the envoys.

⁴ hoc anno porta Iani Gemini clausa est, quia nusquam eodem anno bellum erat; quod sub Numa solum Pompilio rege prouenerat.

⁴ in this year the gate of Janus Geminus was closed, because nowhere in the same year was there war; which had come to pass only under King Numa Pompilius.

⁵ Hic demum nobis tacendum est et tempora, quibus conferri nostra nullo modo possunt, silentio transmitti expedit, ne obtrectatores dierum uitae suae ad insultandum potius sibi hoc strepitu suscitemus. ⁶ ecce portae Iani clausae fuerunt, foris bellum Romanorum non fuit, omnem subolem suam in gremio suo conquiescentem Roma continens non suspirauit. ⁷ et hoc quando?

⁵ Here at last we must be silent, and it is expedient that the times, with which our own can in no way be compared, be transmitted in silence, lest we rouse the detractors of the days of their own lifetime to insult themselves rather with this noise. ⁶ Behold, the gates of Janus were closed, outside there was no Roman war, Rome, holding all her offspring resting in her own lap, did not sigh. ⁷ and this—when?

post primum Punicum bellum; post quantum temporis? post annos CCCCXL; quamdiu? anno uno; et quid altero subsecutum est?

after the First Punic War; after how much time? after 440 years; how long? for one year; and what followed in the second?

ut de ceteris taceam, bellum Gallicum et Hannibal cum bello Punico secundo. ⁸ ei mihi, cognouisse haec et denudasse quam etiam me pudet! pax ista unius anni uel magis umbra pacis lenimentum miseriarum an incentiuum malorum fuit?

to say nothing of the rest, the Gallic war and Hannibal with the Second Punic War. ⁸ alas for me, to have known these things and to have laid them bare—how even I am ashamed! was that peace of one year, or rather the shadow of peace, a leniment of miseries or an incentive of evils?

stilicidium istud olei in medium magnae flammae cadens extinxit fomitem tanti ignis an aluit ? parum aquae frigidae ardentissimis haustum in febribus sanauit aegrotum an potius incendit ? ⁹ per annos prope septingentos, id est ab Hostilio Tullo usque ad Caesarem Augustum, una tantummodo aestate Romana sanguinem uiscera non sudarunt, et inter plurimas magnorum saeculorum aetates misera ciuitas, uere misera mater, uix uno tempore a timore luctuum, ut non dicam ab ipsis luctibus, conquieuit. ¹⁰ hoc, si quisquam hominum tam parum in uita sua quietis habuisset, numquid uel uixisse diceretur? aut, si quisquam per totum annum doloribus et cruciatibus agatur, medio autem anni ipsius spatio unum tantum diem tranquillum et sine conflictationibus transigat, numquid ex eo leuamentum malorum accipiet ac non totum annum miseriis deputabit?

did that drip of oil, falling into the midst of a great flame, extinguish the fuel of so great a fire or nourish it ? did a small draught of cold water, drunk in most burning fevers, heal the sick man or rather inflame him ? ⁹ for nearly 700 years, that is, from Hostilius Tullus up to Caesar Augustus, in only one Roman summer did the entrails not sweat blood, and amid the many epochs of great ages the wretched city, truly a wretched mother, scarcely at a single time came to rest from the fear of bereavements, not to say from the bereavements themselves. ¹⁰ this—if any human being had had so little rest in his life—would he even be said to have lived ? or, if someone for a whole year is driven by pains and torments, while in the mid-span of that very year he passes only one day tranquil and without conflicts, will he receive from that an alleviation of evils and not reckon the whole year to miseries?

¹¹ sed illi, inquit, hunc annum pro glorioso signo infatigabilis uirtutis conlocauerunt. atque utinam pro obliuione calamitatis continuae praeterissent. ¹² nam sicut in corpore hominis ita demum lepra dinoscitur, si uariatim inter sanas cutis partes color diuersus appareat, at si ita se ubique diffundat, ut omnia unius coloris quamuis adulteri faciat, perit illa discretio: ita si continuus labor aequali tolerantia sine respirandi appetitu perfluxisset, intentio uoluntatis et electio consuetudinis diceretur.

¹¹ but they, he says, have set this year down as a glorious sign of indefatigable virtue. and would that they had let it pass for an oblivion of continuous calamity. ¹² for just as in the body of a man leprosy is only then discerned, if in variegated fashion among the healthy parts of the skin a different color appears, but if it so spreads itself everywhere that it makes everything of a single color, though adulterine, that distinction perishes: so, if continuous toil had flowed on with equal tolerance without any appetite for respite, it would be called an intention of the will and a choice of custom.

¹³ cum autem in hoc pausillulum otii tantopere uel maiorum gaudia uel minorum studia reclinantur, profecto discernitur, et quam iucunditatem habuerit haec breuitas et quam amaritudinem illa prolixitas, hoc est, et quies illa quam grata fuisset, si diuturna mansisset, et haec incessabilis miseria quam etiam uitanda fuerit, si uitari quacumque potuisset.

¹³ but when upon this very little pause of leisure either the joys of the greater or the pursuits of the lesser so greatly recline, assuredly it is discerned, both what pleasantness this brevity has had and what bitterness that prolixity, that is, both how welcome that repose would have been, if it had remained long-enduring, and how this incessant misery was even to be avoided, if by any means it could have been avoided.

[13] Anno ab urbe condita DXVII Hamilcar dux Carthaginiensium ab Hispanis in bello, cum aliud bellum aduersus Romanos clam pararet, occisus est.

[13] In the year 517 from the founding of the city Hamilcar, leader of the Carthaginians, was slain by the Spaniards in war, while he was secretly preparing another war against the Romans.

² Sequenti anno legati Romanorum ab Illyriis interfecti sunt. post cum ipsis Illyriis atrocissimum bellum gestum est: in quo multis oppidis populisque deletis reliqui se Fuluio Postumioque consulibus dediderunt.

² In the following year the legates of the Romans were slain by the Illyrians. Afterwards a most atrocious war was waged with the Illyrians themselves: in which, with many towns and peoples destroyed, the rest surrendered themselves to the consuls Fulvius and Postumius.

³ Tertio deinceps anno miseram ciuitatem sacrilegis sacrificiis male potentes funestauere pontifices; namque decemuiri consuetudinem priscae superstitionis egressi Gallum uirum et Gallam feminam cum muliere simul Graeca in foro boario uiuos defoderunt. ⁴ sed obligamentum hoc magicum in contrarium continuo uersum est; namque diras illas quas fecerant externorum mortes foedissimis suorum caedibus expiauerunt. ⁵ siquidem L. Aemilio Catulo C. Atilio Regulo consulibus magna formidine consternatus est senatus defectione Cisalpinae Galliae, cum etiam ex ulteriore Gallia ingens aduentare exercitus nuntiaretur, maxime Gaesatorum, quod nomen non gentis sed mercennariorum Gallorum est.

³ In the third year in succession the pontiffs, wielding power ill by sacrilegious sacrifices, made the wretched commonwealth funereal; for the decemvirs, overstepping the usage of ancient superstition, buried alive in the forum boarium a Gallic man and a Gallic woman together with a Greek woman. ⁴ But this magical binding was immediately turned to the contrary; for they expiated those dire deaths of foreigners which they had brought about by the most shameful slaughters of their own people. ⁵ Indeed, under the consuls L. Aemilius Catulus and C. Atilius Regulus the senate was thrown into great panic by the defection of Cisalpine Gaul, since it was also reported that from Further Gaul a huge army was approaching—especially of the Gaesatae, which name is not of a tribe but of mercenary Gauls.

⁶ itaque permoti consules totius Italiae ad praesidium imperii contraxere uires. quo facto in utriusque consulis exercitu octingenta milia armatorum fuisse referuntur, sicut Fabius historicus, qui eidem bello interfuit, scripsit. ⁷ ex quibus Romanorum et Campanorum fuerunt peditum CCLXLVIIII milia ducenti, equitum uero XXVI milia sescenti; cetera multitudo sociorum fuit.

⁶ And so, being moved, the consuls drew together the forces of all Italy for the presidium of the empire. When this was done, it is reported that in the army of each of the consuls there were 800,000 armed men, as Fabius the historian, who took part in that same war, wrote. ⁷ Of these, of the Romans and Campanians there were of infantry 299,200, and of cavalry indeed 26,600; the remaining multitude was of allies.

⁸ commisso proelio apud Arretium Atilius consul occisus est: octingenta milia Romanorum, nec saltem tanta quanta eos terrere debuit, caesa sui parte fugerunt: nam tria milia eorum tunc interfecta historici tradunt. ⁹ quod ideo ignominiosius turpiusque est, tam paucis amissis tanta agmina diffugisse, quia se in aliis uictoriis non uiribus animorum praeualuisse sed bellorum prouentibus prodiderunt. quis enim rogo in exercitu Romanorum crederet numerum istum fuisse saltem, non dico fugisse ? ¹⁰ post haec secundum cum Gallis proelium gestum est, in quo plane quadraginta milia Gallorum trucidata sunt.

⁸ with the battle joined near Arretium, the consul Atilius was slain: the eight hundred thousand Romans, a portion of themselves cut down—not even so many as ought to have terrified them—took to flight; for the historians relate that three thousand of them were then killed. ⁹ which is for that reason the more ignominious and more disgraceful, that with so few lost such great formations scattered, because they betrayed that in other victories they had prevailed not by the forces of their spirits but by the outcomes of wars. For who, I ask, would believe in a Roman army that at least that number existed, not to say, had fled? ¹⁰ after these things a second battle with the Gauls was waged, in which plainly forty thousand Gauls were butchered.

¹¹ Sequenti anno Manlius Torquatus et Fuluius Flaccus consules primi trans Padum Romanas duxere legiones. pugnatum est ibi cum Insubribus Gallis, quorum interfecta sunt uiginti tria milia, quinque milia capta sunt.

¹¹ In the following year Manlius Torquatus and Fulvius Flaccus, consuls, were the first to lead Roman legions across the Po. Battle was joined there with the Insubrian Gauls, of whom twenty-three thousand were slain, five thousand were captured.

¹² Eo deinde anno, qui huic proximus fuit, dira miseram urbem terruere prodigia: miseram utique, quae hinc fremitu hostium, inde nequitia daemonum terrebatur; namque in Piceno flumen sanguine effluxit et apud Tuscos caelum ardere uisum est et Arimini nocte multa lucem claram obfulsisse ac tres lunas distantibus caeli regionibus exortas apparuisse. ¹³ tunc quoque magno terrae motu Caria et Rhodus insulae adeo concussae sunt, ut labentibus uulgo tectis ingens quoque ille colossus rueret. ¹⁴ eodem anno Flaminius consul contemptis auspiciis, quibus pugnare prohibebatur, aduersum Gallos conflixit et uicit.

¹² Then in the year next to this, dire prodigies terrified the wretched city: wretched indeed, which on the one side was being frightened by the roaring of enemies, on the other by the wickedness of demons; for in Picenum a river flowed with blood, and among the Tuscans the sky was seen to burn, and at Ariminum late in the night a bright light flashed forth, and three moons appeared to have risen in distant regions of the sky. ¹³ Then too, by a great earthquake, Caria and the island of Rhodes were so shaken that, with roofs everywhere collapsing, that mighty Colossus also fell. ¹⁴ In the same year the consul Flaminius, the auspices being scorned by which he was forbidden to fight, clashed against the Gauls and conquered.

in quo bello nouem milia Gallorum caesa, decem et septem milia capta sunt.

in which war nine thousand of the Gauls were slain, and seventeen thousand were taken captive.

¹⁵ Post hoc Claudius consul Gaesatorum triginta milia deleuit, ubi etiam ipse Virdomarum regem in primam aciem progressus occidit: et inter multa Insubrium, quos ad deditionem coegerat, oppida Mediolanium quoque urbem florentissimam cepit.

¹⁵ After this the consul Claudius annihilated thirty thousand of the Gaesates, where also he himself, having advanced into the front battle-line, slew King Virdomarus: and among many towns of the Insubres, whom he had compelled to surrender, he also captured Mediolanum, a most flourishing city.

¹⁶ Deinde Histri noui hostes excitati sunt: quos Cornelius Minuciusque consules multo quidem Romanorum sanguine subegerunt. ¹⁷ emergit hic paululum antiquus ille Romanorum improbae laudis etiam de parricidiis appetitus. ¹⁸ nam Fabius Censorius Fabium Buteonem filium suum furti insimulatum interfecit: dignum scilicet facinus, quod pater uel parricidio plectendum duceret, quod ne leges quidem nisi multa pecuniae aut summum exilii circa quemlibet hominum censuerunt.

¹⁶ Then the Histri, new enemies, were stirred up: whom the consuls Cornelius and Minucius subdued indeed with much Roman blood. ¹⁷ Here there emerges for a little that ancient appetite of the Romans for shameless praise, even from parricides. ¹⁸ For Fabius Censorius killed his son Fabius Buteo, accused of theft: a deed, forsooth, which the father judged to be punished even by parricide—though not even the laws have decreed such, concerning anyone among men, except with a money-fine or the utmost of exile.

[14] Anno ab urbe condita DXXXIIII Hannibal Poenorum imperator Saguntum florentissimam Hispaniae ciuitatem, amicam populi Romani, primum bello inpetitam, deinde obsidione cinctam et fame excruciatam omniaque fortiter contemplatione fidei, quam Romanis deuouerant, digna indignaque tolerantem octauo demum mense deleuit.² legatos Romanorum ad se missos iniuriosissime etiam a conspectu suo abstinuit. ³ exinde odio Romani nominis, quod patri Hamilcari, cum esset nouem annos natus, fidelissime alias infidelissimus ante aras iurauerat, P. Cornelio Scipione et P. Sempronio Longo consulibus Pyrenaeos montes transgressus inter ferocissimas Gallorum gentes ferro uiam aperuit et nono demum die a Pyrenaeo ad Alpes peruenit; ⁴ ubi dum montanos Gallos, repellere ab ascensu obnitentes, bello superat atque inuias rupes igni ferroque rescindit, quadriduum commoratus quinto demum die cum maximo labore ad plana peruenit.

[14] In the year 534 from the founding of the City, Hannibal, commander of the Carthaginians, destroyed Saguntum, a most flourishing city of Spain and a friend of the Roman people, first attacked in war, then girded by siege and racked by famine, and, bravely enduring—out of consideration for the faith which they had vowed to the Romans—things worthy and unworthy alike, only in the eighth month at last.² He most outrageously kept the Roman envoys sent to him even from his sight. ³ Thereafter, from hatred of the Roman name (which, before the altars, when he was nine years old, he had sworn to his father Hamilcar most faithfully—otherwise a most faithless man), in the consulship of P. Cornelius Scipio and P. Sempronius Longus he crossed the Pyrenaean mountains, opened a way with iron among the fiercest nations of the Gauls, and only on the ninth day reached from the Pyrenees to the Alps; ⁴ where, while he overcame in war the mountain Gauls striving to repel [him] from the ascent, and cleft the pathless rocks with fire and iron, having tarried for four days, on the fifth day at last he reached the plains with the greatest toil.

⁵ fuisse tunc exercitum eius in centum milibus peditum et uiginti milibus equitum definiunt. ⁶ Scipio consul Hannibali primus occurrit commissoque proelio apud Ticinum ipse grauiter uulneratus per Scipionem filium admodum praetextatum, qui post Africanus cognominatus est, ab ipsa morte liberatus euasit. caesus est ibi omnis paene Romanus exercitus.

⁵ they define that his army then stood at one hundred thousand foot-soldiers and twenty thousand horsemen. ⁶ Scipio the consul was the first to meet Hannibal, and, with the battle joined at the Ticinus, he himself, gravely wounded, was delivered from death itself and escaped thanks to his son Scipio, very much still in the toga praetexta (who afterwards was surnamed Africanus). Almost the whole Roman army was cut down there.

⁷ pugnatum deinde eodem consule ad flumen Treuiam iterumque Romani pari clade superati sunt. Sempronius consul cognito collegae casu a Sicilia cum exercitu rediit; qui similiter apud eundem fluuium congressus, amisso exercitu paene solus evasit. in eo tamen bello etiam Hannibal sauciatus est.

⁷ Then battle was fought, with the same consul, at the river Trebia, and again the Romans were overcome with an equal calamity. The consul Sempronius, the disaster of his colleague having been learned, returned from Sicily with the army; who likewise, having engaged at that same river, with the army lost, escaped almost alone. In that battle, however, Hannibal also was wounded.

⁸ qui postea, cum in Etruriam primo uere transiret, in summo Appennino tempestate correptus, biduo continuo inmobiliter cum exercitu niuibus conclusus et onustus obriguit. ubi magnus hominum numerus, iumenta conplurima, elephanti paene omnes frigoris acerbitate perierunt. ⁹ at uero alter tunc Scipio, frater consulis Scipionis, in Hispania plurima bella gessit, Magonem quoque Poenorum ducem bello uicit et cepit.

⁸ who afterwards, when he was crossing into Etruria at the very beginning of spring, caught by a tempest on the top of the Apennine, for two continuous days, motionless with his army, enclosed by snows and weighed down, grew numb with frost. where a great number of men, very many beasts of burden, almost all the elephants, perished from the keenness of the cold. ⁹ but indeed the other Scipio then, the brother of the consul Scipio, waged very many wars in Hispania, and he also defeated in war and captured Mago, a leader of the Carthaginians.

[15] Diris tunc etiam Romani prodigiis territi sunt. nam et solis orbis minui uisus est et apud Arpos parmae in caelo uisae, sol quoque pugnasse cum luna, apud Capenas interdiu duas lunas ortas, in Sardinia sanguine duo scuta sudasse, Faliscis caelum scindi uelut magno hiatu uisum, apud Antium metentibus cruentas spicas in corbem decidisse.² igitur Hannibal sciens Flaminium consulem solum in castris esse, quo celerius imparatum obrueret primo uere progressus arripuit propiorem sed palustrem uiam et cum forte Sarnus late redundans pendulos et dissolutos campos reliquerat, de quibus dictum est:
et quae rigat aequora Sarnus.

[15] Then also the Romans were terrified by dire prodigies. For both the orb of the sun seemed to be diminished, and at Arpi bucklers were seen in the sky; the sun too was seen to have fought with the moon; at Capena two moons rose in broad daylight; in Sardinia two shields sweated with blood; among the Faliscans the sky seemed to be split, as if by a great hiatus; at Antium, while men were reaping, bloody ears of grain fell into the basket.² Therefore Hannibal, knowing that the consul Flaminius was alone in camp, in order the more quickly to overwhelm the unprepared, having advanced at the beginning of spring seized the nearer but marshy road; and since by chance the Sarnus, overflowing far and wide, had left the fields waterlogged and loosened—about which it has been said:
and the Sarnus which irrigates the level-plains.

³ in quos cum exercitu progressus Hannibal nebulis maxime, quae de palude exhalabantur, prospectum auferentibus magnam partem sociorum iumentorumque perdidit. ipse autem uni elephanto, qui solus superfuerat, supersedens, uix difficultatem itineris euasit ; sed oculum, quo iamdudum aeger erat, uiolentia frigoris uigiliarum ac laboris amisit. ⁴ ubi uero proximus castris Flaminii consulis fuit, uastatione circumiacentium locorum Flaminium in bellum excitauit.

³ into which, when Hannibal advanced with the army, the mists especially, which were exhaled from the marsh and took away visibility, caused him to lose a great part of his allies and of his beasts of burden. He himself, however, seated upon the one elephant which alone had survived, scarcely escaped the difficulty of the journey ; but the eye, in which he had long been ailing, by the violence of cold, of vigils, and of labor he lost. ⁴ But when he was nearest to the camp of the consul Flaminius, by the devastation of the surrounding places he roused Flaminius to war.

⁵ haec pugna ad Trasumennum lacum facta est. ubi exercitus Romanus infelicissime arte circumuentus Hannibalis funditus trucidatus est; ipse quoque consul occisus; XXV milia Romanorum in eo proelio caesa, sex milia capta referuntur. de exercitu Hannibalis duo milia ceciderunt.

⁵ This battle was fought at Lake Trasimene. There the Roman army, most unhappily, having been surrounded by Hannibal’s artifice, was utterly butchered; the consul himself also was slain; 25,000 Romans in that battle are reported to have been killed, and 6,000 captured. Of Hannibal’s army 2,000 fell.

⁶ famosum hoc apud Trasumennum lacum certamen fuit tanta clade Romana, maxime cum ita intentus pugnantum ardor extiterit, ut grauissimum terrae motum, qui tunc forte tam uehemens factus est, ut urbes diruisse, montes transtulisse, discidisse rupes et flumina retrorsum coegisse referatur, pugnantes omnino non senserint. ⁷ factam ad Trasumennum ruinam sequitur pugna Cannensis, quamuis Fabii Maximi dictatoris tempus medium fuerit, qui impetum Hannibalis cunctando tardauit.

⁶ This contest by Lake Trasimene was notorious for so great a Roman calamity, especially since the ardor of the combatants stood forth so intent that they did not sense at all the very grievous earthquake, which then by chance became so vehement that it is reported to have torn down cities, transported mountains, split cliffs, and driven rivers backward. ⁷ The ruin wrought at Trasimene is followed by the battle of Cannae, although the interval was the time of the dictator Fabius Maximus, who by delaying slowed the onrush of Hannibal.

[16] Anno ab urbe condita DXL L. Aemilius Paulus et P. Terentius Varro consules contra Hannibalem missi inpatientia Varronis consulis infelicissime apud Cannas Apuliae uicum omnes paene Romanae spei uires perdiderunt.² nam in ea pugna XLIIII milia Romanorum interfecta sunt, quamquam et de exercitu Hannibalis magna pars caesa est. nullo tamen Punico bello Romani adeo ad extrema internecionis adducti sunt.

[16] In the year from the founding of the City 540, L. Aemilius Paulus and P. Terentius Varro, consuls, sent against Hannibal, through the impatience of the consul Varro, most disastrously at Cannae, a vicus of Apulia, lost almost all the forces of Rome’s hope.² For in that battle 44 thousand Romans were slain, although also a great part of Hannibal’s army was cut down. Yet in no Punic war were the Romans brought so far to the brink of extermination.

³ periit enim in eo consul Aemilius Paulus, consulares aut praetorii uiri uiginti interfecti sunt, senatores uel capti uel occisi sunt triginta, nobiles uiri trecenti, pedestrium militum XL milia, equitum tria milia quingenti. Varro consul cum quinquaginta equitibus Venusium fugit. ⁴ nec dubium est ultimum illum diem Romani status futurum fuisse, si Hannibal mox post uictoriam ad peruadendam urbem contendisset.

³ for in it the consul Aemilius Paulus perished; men of consular or praetorian rank to the number of 20 were killed; 30 senators were either captured or slain; 300 noble men; 40 thousand foot soldiers; 3,500 horsemen. The consul Varro fled to Venusia with 50 horsemen. ⁴ nor is it doubtful that that day would have been the last of the Roman state, if Hannibal had immediately after the victory hastened to force his way into the city.

⁵ Hannibal in testimonium uictoriae suae tres modios anulorum aureorum Carthaginem misit, quos ex manibus interfectorum equitum Romanorum senatorumque detraxerat. ⁶ usque adeo autem ultima desperatio reipublicae apud residuos Romanos fuit, ut senatores de relinquenda Italia sedibusque quaerendis consilium ineundum putarint. quod auctore Caecilio Metello confirmatum fuisset, nisi Cornelius Scipio tribunus tunc militum, idem qui post Africanus, destricto gladio deterruisset ac potius pro patriae defensione in sua uerba iurare coegisset.

⁵ Hannibal, as testimony of his victory, sent to Carthage three modii of golden rings, which he had stripped from the hands of the slain Roman equestrians and senators. ⁶ And so far did the last desperation of the republic prevail among the remaining Romans, that the senators thought a plan must be undertaken for abandoning Italy and seeking new seats; which would have been ratified, with Caecilius Metellus as promoter, had not Cornelius Scipio, then tribune of the soldiers—the same who afterward was Africanus—with sword drawn deterred them and rather compelled them to swear to his words for the defense of their fatherland.

⁷ Romani ad spem uitae quasi ab inferis respirare ausi dictatorem Decimum Iunium creant: qui dilectu habito ab annis decem et septem immaturae inordinataeque militiae quattuor legiones undecumque contraxit. ⁸ tunc etiam seruos spectati roboris ac uoluntatis uel oblatos uel, si ita opus fuit, publico pretio emptos sub titulo libertatis sacramento militiae adegit. arma, quae deerant, templis detraxerunt, egenti aerario priuatae opes refusae sunt.

⁷ The Romans, daring to breathe again to a hope of life as if from the underworld, appoint Decimus Junius as dictator: he, a levy having been held, mustered four legions from wherever, drawing even from those of the age of seventeen, unripe and ill-ordered for military service. ⁸ Then also slaves of proven robustness and will, either those offered or, if thus there was need, those bought at public price, under the title of liberty he compelled to the oath of military service. The arms which were lacking they took down from the temples; to the needy treasury private resources were refunded.

ita equester ordo, ita plebs trepida oblita studiorum in commune consuluit. ⁹ Iunius quoque dictator antiquum Romanae miseriae factum recolens, pro supplemento exercitus edicto uelut asylo patefacto homines quicumque sceleribus ac debitis obnoxii essent impunitate promissa militiae mancipauit; quorum numerus ad sex milia uirorum fuit. ¹⁰ Campania uero uel potius omnis Italia ad Hannibalem desperata penitus Romani status reparatione defecit.

thus the equestrian order, thus the trembling plebs, forgetful of their partisanships, consulted in common. ⁹ Junius also, the dictator, recalling an ancient act of Roman misery, for the reinforcement of the army, with an edict thrown open as if an asylum, consigned to military service whatever men were liable for crimes and debts, impunity having been promised; whose number came to six thousand men. ¹⁰ Campania indeed, or rather all Italy, defected to Hannibal, the restoration of the Roman state being utterly despaired of.

¹¹ post hoc L. Postumius praetor aduersus Gallos pugnare missus cum exercitu caesus est.

¹¹ After this, the praetor L. Postumius, sent to fight against the Gauls, was cut down with his army.

¹² Deinde Sempronio Graccho Q. Fabio Maximo consulibus Claudius Marcellus ex praetore proconsule designatus Hannibalis exercitum proelio fudit primusque post tantas reipublicae ruinas spem fecit Hannibalem posse superari. ¹³ Scipiones autem in Hispania Hasdrubalem Poenorum imperatorem ad Italiam exercitum conparantem grauissimo bello oppresserunt; nam XXXV milia militum de exercitu eius uel caede uel captione minuerunt. ¹⁴ Celtiberos milites, quam primam externam manum Romani in castris habere coeperunt, pretio sollicitatos ab hostium societate in sua castra duxerunt.

¹² Then, with Sempronius Gracchus and Q. Fabius Maximus as consuls, Claudius Marcellus, designated proconsul from the praetorship, routed Hannibal’s army in battle and, first after such great ruins of the republic, gave hope that Hannibal could be overcome. ¹³ The Scipios, moreover, in Spain crushed Hasdrubal, commander of the Carthaginians, as he was preparing an army for Italy, in a most grievous war; for they diminished his forces by 35 thousand soldiers, either by slaughter or by capture. ¹⁴ The Celtiberian soldiers, the first foreign band which the Romans began to have in their camps, they led into their own camp, enticed by a price, from alliance with the enemies.

¹⁵ Sempronius Gracchus proconsule ab hospite suo Lucano quodam in insidias inductus occisus est. ¹⁶ Centenius Paenula centurio decerni sibi ultro bellum aduersum Hannibalem petiit: a quo cum octo milibus militum, quos in aciem eduxerat, caesus est. ¹⁷ post hunc Cn. Fuluius praetor ab Hannibale uictus amisso exercitu uix euasit.

¹⁵ Sempronius Gracchus, as proconsul, was led into an ambush by a certain Lucanian, his host, and was killed. ¹⁶ Centenius Paenula, a centurion, of his own accord petitioned that a war be decreed to himself against Hannibal; by him, with 8 thousand soldiers whom he had led out into the battle-line, he was cut down. ¹⁷ after him Gnaeus Fulvius, praetor, defeated by Hannibal, with his army lost, scarcely escaped.

¹⁸ Pudet recordationis. quid enim dicam improbitatem magis an miseriam Romanorum ? immo uerius uel improbam miseriam uel miseram improbitatem. ¹⁹ quis credat eo tempore, quo aerarium populi Romani egenam stipem priuata conlatione poscebat, miles in castris non nisi aut puer aut seruus aut sceleratus aut debitor et ne sic quidem numero idoneus erat, senatus in curia omnis paene nouicius uidebatur, postremo cum ita inminutis fractisque omnibus desperabatur, ut consilium de relinquenda Italia subiretur: - ²⁰ eo tempore, cum unum domesticum, ut diximus, bellum ferri nullo modo posset, tria insuper transmarina bella fuisse suscepta?

¹⁸ I am ashamed at the recollection. For what, indeed, shall I call it more—the improbity or the misery of the Romans? Nay, more truly, either an impudent misery or a miserable improbity. ¹⁹ Who would believe that at the time when the treasury of the Roman people was begging a needy pittance by private contribution, the soldier in the camps was none other than either a boy or a slave or a criminal or a debtor—and not even thus was he adequate in number—the senate in the curia seemed almost wholly novice; finally, when there was despair, with all things thus diminished and broken, to such a degree that a plan about abandoning Italy was being entertained: - ²⁰ at that very time, when a single domestic war, as we have said, could in no way be borne, three transmarine wars besides were undertaken?

unum in Macedonia contra Philippum potentissimum Macedoniae regem, alterum in Hispania contra Hasdrubalem Hannibalis fratrem, tertium in Sardinia contra Sardos et alterum Hasdrubalem Carthaginiensium ducem; extra hoc quartum Hannibalis, quo in Italia premebantur. ²¹ et tamen fortis in alterutrum desperatio in meliora profecit, nam in his omnibus desperando pugnarunt, pugnando uicerunt. ex quo euidenter ostenditur non tempora tunc fuisse tranquilliora otiis, sed homines miseriis fortiores.

one in Macedonia against Philip, the most potent king of Macedonia, another in Hispania against Hasdrubal, Hannibal’s brother, a third in Sardinia against the Sardinians and another Hasdrubal, commander of the Carthaginians; besides this, a fourth of Hannibal, by which they were pressed in Italy. ²¹ and yet stout despair either way advanced to better things, for in all these, by despairing they fought, and by fighting they conquered. whence it is clearly shown that it was not that the times then were more tranquil with leisures, but that men were stronger through miseries.

[17] Anno ab urbe condita DXLIII Claudius Marcellus Syracusas opulentissimam urbem Siciliae secunda oppugnatione uix cepit, quam cum iam pridem obsedisset, Archimedis Syracusani ciuis admirabili ingenio praediti machinis repulsus expugnare non potuit.² decimo anno post quam Hannibal in Italiam uenerat, Cn. Fuluio P. Sulpicio consulibus Hannibal de Campania mouit exercitum et cum ingenti clade omnium per Sedicinum Suessanumque agrum uia Latina profectus ad Anienem fluuium tribus milibus ab urbe consedit incredibili totius ciuitatis metu, ³ cum senatu populoque diuersis curis trepido matronae quoque amentes pauore per propugnacula currerent et conuehere in muros saxa primaeque pro muris pugnare gestirent. ⁴ ipse autem cum expeditis equitibus usque ad portam Collinam infestus accessit, deinde omnes copias in aciem direxit, sed et consules Fuluiusque proconsule non detrectauere pugnam.

[17] In the year from the founding of the City 543, Claudius Marcellus, with a second assault, scarcely took Syracuse, the most opulent city of Sicily; although he had long since besieged it, repelled by the machines of Archimedes, a Syracusan citizen endowed with admirable ingenuity, he was not able to storm it.² In the tenth year after Hannibal had come into Italy, under the consulship of Cn. Fulvius and P. Sulpicius, Hannibal moved his army from Campania and, with immense devastation to all, through the Sidicinian and Suessan countryside, having set out by the Via Latina, he encamped at the river Anio, three miles from the city, with an incredible fear seizing the whole citizenry, ³ while the senate and people were alarmed with diverse anxieties, and the matrons too, frenzied with terror, were running along the battlements and conveying stones onto the walls and were eager to be the first to fight in front of the walls. ⁴ He himself moreover, with light-armed horsemen, approached in hostile fashion up to the Colline Gate; then he drew up all the forces in battle line, but the consuls too, and Fulvius the proconsul, did not decline the fight.

⁵ at ubi expositae utrimque acies constiterunt, in conspectu Romae praemium uictoris futurae tantus se subito imber e nubibus grandine mixtus effudit, ut turbata agmina uix armis retentis in sua se castra colligerent. ⁶ deinde cum serenitate reddita in campum copiae atque in aciem redissent, rursum uiolentior fusa tempestas maiore metu mortalium audaciam cohercuit territosque exercitus refugere in tentoria coegit. ⁷ tunc conuersus in religionem Hannibal dixisse fertur, potiundae sibi Romae modo uoluntatem non dari, modo potestatem.

⁵ but when the battle-lines, set out on both sides, stood fast, with Rome in sight, the prize of the future victor, so great a sudden downpour, mixed with hail, poured itself from the clouds, that the ranks, thrown into confusion, could scarcely, keeping hold of their arms, gather themselves into their own camp. ⁶ then, when fair weather was restored and the troops had returned to the plain and into battle-order, again a more violent storm, having been poured forth, with greater dread among mortals checked audacity and drove the terrified armies to take refuge in their tents. ⁷ then, turning to religious scruple, Hannibal is said to have declared that, for winning Rome for himself, now the will was not being granted, now the power.

⁸ Respondeant nunc mihi obtrectatores ueri Dei hoc loco: Hannibalem a capessenda subruendaque Roma utrum Romana abstinuit fortitudo an diuina miseratio ? aut forsitan conseruati isti dedignantur fateri, quod Hannibal et uictor extimuit et cedens probauit ac - ⁹ si istam diuinam tutelam per pluuiam de caelo uenisse manifestum est, ipsam autem pluuiam opportunis et necessariis temporibus non nisi per Christum, qui est uerus Deus, ministrari - etiam ab huiusmodi satis certo sciri nec negari posse existimo: ¹⁰ maxime nunc - quando ad documentum potentiae eius, cum siccitate turbante pluuiam poscere adsidue contingit, et alternis uicibus nunc gentiles nunc Christiani rogant nec umquam etiam ipsis testibus factum est, ut optati imbres superueniant nisi in die, quo rogari Christum et Christianis rogare permittitur - ¹¹ procul dubio constat, urbem Romam per hunc eundem uerum Deum, qui est Christus Iesus, ordinantem secundum placitum ineffabilis iudicii sui, et tunc ad futurae fidei credulitatem seruatam fuisse et nunc pro parte sui incredula castigatam.

⁸ Let the detractors of the true God answer me here now: was Hannibal held back from undertaking and overthrowing Rome by Roman fortitude, or by divine compassion? Or perhaps those who were preserved disdain to confess what Hannibal both as victor feared and, in yielding, proved; and - ⁹ if it is manifest that that divine guardianship came through rain from heaven, and that the rain itself at opportune and necessary times is ministered only through Christ, who is the true God - I judge that even by such men it can be known with sufficient certainty and cannot be denied: ¹⁰ especially now - when, as a document of His power, with drought troubling, it continually happens that rain is asked for, and in alternating turns now Gentiles now Christians beg, and never, even with they themselves as witnesses, has it come to pass that the desired showers arrive except on the day on which it is permitted to invoke Christ and for Christians to ask - ¹¹ without doubt it stands that the city of Rome, by this same true God, who is Christ Jesus, ordering according to the good-pleasure of His ineffable judgment, both then was preserved for the credence of future faith and now has been chastised with respect to that part of itself which is unbelieving.

¹² At uero in Hispania ambo Scipiones a fratre Hasdrubalis interfecti sunt. in Campania Capua capta est a Q. Fuluio proconsule; principes Campanorum ueneno mortem sibi consciuerunt; senatum omnem Capuae etiam prohibente senatu Romano Fuluius suppliciis necauit. ¹³ interfectis in Hispania Scipionibus cum, omnibus incusso pauore cunctantibus, Scipio se admodum adulescens ultro obtulisset et pudenda penuria esset aerarii, ¹⁴ Claudio Marcello et Valerio Laeuino auctoribus qui tunc consules erant aurum argentumque signatum ad quaestores palam omnes senatores in publicum contulerunt, ita ut nihil praeter anulos singulos bullasque sibi ac filiis et deinde per filias uxoresque suas singulas tantum auri uncias et argenti non amplius quam singulas libras relinquerent.

¹² But indeed in Spain both the Scipios were slain by Hasdrubal’s brother. In Campania, Capua was captured by Q. Fulvius, proconsul; the chiefs of the Campanians procured death for themselves by poison; Fulvius put to death by capital punishments the entire senate of Capua, even with the Roman senate forbidding it. ¹³ With the Scipios slain in Spain, when, fear having been struck into all, they were hesitating, Scipio, a very young man, of his own accord offered himself, and there was a shameful penury of the treasury, ¹⁴ with Claudius Marcellus and Valerius Laevinus as authorities, who then were consuls, all the senators openly contributed gold and coined silver to the quaestors into the public treasury, in such a way that they left nothing except single rings and bullae for themselves and their sons, and then, for their daughters and wives, only single ounces of gold and of silver not more than single pounds.

[18] Scipio annos natus uiginti et quattuor imperium in Hispaniam proconsulare sortitus, ultionem praecipue patris et patrui animo intendens, Pyrenaeum transgressus primo impetu Carthaginem Nouam cepit, ubi stipendia maxima, praesidia ualida, copiae auri argentique magnae Poenorum habebantur; ibi etiam Magonem fratrem Hannibalis captum cum ceteris Romam misit.² Laeuinus consul ex Macedonia rediens Agrigentum urbem Siciliae expugnauit ibique Hannonem Afrorum ducem cepit, quadraginta ciuitates in deditionem accepit, uiginti et sex expugnauit. ³ Hannibal in Italia Cn. Fuluium proconsulem, XI praeterea tribunos et XVII milia militum interfecit.

[18] Scipio, 24 years old, having drawn by lot the proconsular command in Spain, aiming especially in spirit at the vengeance of his father and uncle, crossed the Pyrenees and at the first onset took New Carthage, where the Carthaginians had very large pay-chests, strong garrisons, and great supplies of gold and silver; there too he sent to Rome Mago, Hannibal’s brother, captured, along with the others.² Laevinus the consul, returning from Macedonia, stormed the city of Agrigentum in Sicily and there captured Hanno, leader of the Africans; he received 40 communities into surrender, and stormed 26. ³ Hannibal in Italy killed the proconsul Gnaeus Fulvius, 11 tribunes besides, and 17 thousand soldiers.

⁴ Marcellus consul, cum Hannibale triduum continuum dimicauit. primo die pari pugna discessum est, sequenti uictus consul, tertio uictor VIII milia hostium interfecit, ipsum Hannibalem cum reliquis fugere in castra conpulit. ⁵ Fabius Maximus consul Tarentum, quae a Romanis desciuerat, iterum expugnauit et cepit ibique ingentes copias Hannibalis cum ipso duce eius Carthalone deleuit, XXX milia hominum captiuorum uendidit, pretia in fiscum rettulit.

⁴ The consul Marcellus fought with Hannibal for three continuous days. On the first day the battle ended on equal terms; on the next the consul was defeated; on the third, as victor, he slew 8 thousand of the enemy and compelled Hannibal himself with the rest to flee into the camp. ⁵ The consul Fabius Maximus stormed and took Tarentum again, which had defected from the Romans, and there he destroyed the huge forces of Hannibal along with his own commander Carthalon; he sold 30 thousand captives and remitted the proceeds to the fisc (treasury).

⁶ Sequenti anno in Italia Claudius Marcellus consul ab Hannibale cum exercitu occisus est. ⁷ Scipio in Hispania Poenorum ducem Hasdrubalem uicit et castris exuit; praeterea LXXX ciuitates aut deditione aut bello in potestatem redegit; Afris sub corona uenditis, sine pretio dimisit Hispanos. ⁸ Hannibal utrumque consulem Marcellum et Crispinum insidiis circumuentos interfecit.

⁶ In the following year in Italy the consul Claudius Marcellus was slain by Hannibal along with his army. ⁷ Scipio in Spain defeated the Punic leader Hasdrubal and stripped him of his camp; moreover, 80 cities, either by surrender or by war, he brought under his power; with the Africans sold sub corona, he let the Spaniards go without price. ⁸ Hannibal killed both consuls, Marcellus and Crispinus, after they had been surrounded by ambush.

⁹ Claudio Nerone et M. Liuio Salinatore consulibus cum Hasdrubal Hannibalis frater ab Hispaniis per Gallias ad Italiam ueniret iussusque a Carthaginiensibus, ut fratri cum copiis iungeretur, magna secum auxilia Hispanorum Gallorumque deduceret, cum maturato aduentu descendisse iam ex Alpibus consulibus proditus fuisset, ab exercitu Romano ignorante Hannibale praeuentus cum omni exercitu suo interfectus est. ¹⁰ diu quidem incertus belli euentus fuit elephantis maxime Romanam infestantibus aciem: qui a militibus Romanis, quos a uolitando uelites uocant - ¹¹ quod genus militiae paulo ante repertum fuerat, ut lecti agilitate iuuenes cum armis suis post terga equitum sederent et mox, cum ad hostem uentum esset, equis desilirent et continuo pedites ipsi, ex alia parte equitibus per quos aduecti fuerant dimicantibus, hostem proturbarent - ¹² ab his ergo uelitibus elephanti retroacti cum regi iam a suis non possent, fabrili scalpro inter aures adacto necabantur. id genus occidendae cum opus esset beluae idem dux Hasdrubal primus inuenerat.

⁹ In the consulship of Claudius Nero and Marcus Livius Salinator, when Hasdrubal, Hannibal’s brother, was coming from the Spains through the Gauls to Italy, and had been ordered by the Carthaginians to be joined to his brother with forces, to bring down with him great auxiliaries of Spaniards and Gauls, when, with his arrival hastened, he had been betrayed to the consuls as having already descended from the Alps, he, forestalled by the Roman army, Hannibal being unaware, was killed with his entire army. ¹⁰ For a long time indeed the outcome of the war was uncertain, the elephants especially infesting the Roman battle line: which by Roman soldiers, whom from their flitting-about they call velites - ¹¹ which kind of soldiery had been devised a little before, such that selected youths for agility might sit with their arms behind the backs of the horsemen and soon, when it had come to the enemy, might leap down from the horses and immediately themselves as infantry, with the horsemen on the other side, by whom they had been conveyed, fighting, might rout the enemy - ¹² by these velites therefore the elephants, driven back, when they could no longer be controlled by their own side, were killed by a smith’s chisel driven between the ears. This method of killing the beast, when there was need, the same leader Hasdrubal had first discovered.

¹³ fuit hoc proelio Poenis Metaurum flumen, ubi Hasdrubal est uictus, quasi Trasumennus lacus et Cesena Piceni ciuitas ut uicus ille Cannensis; ¹⁴ nam L et VIII milia de exercitu Hasdrubalis ibi occisa sunt, capta sunt V CCCC; IIII autem ciuium Romanorum inter eos reperta atque reuocata sunt: quod uictoribus consulibus solacio fuit. nam et ab exercitu eorum VIII ceciderunt. ¹⁵ Hannibali caput fratris sui Hasdrubalis ante castra proiectum est.

¹³ For the Punic side, in this battle the Metaurus river, where Hasdrubal was defeated, was as Lake Trasimene and Cesena, a city of Picenum, as that Cannaean hamlet; ¹⁴ for 58 thousand of Hasdrubal’s army were killed there, 5 400 were captured; moreover, 4 Roman citizens were found among them and brought back: which was a solace to the victorious consuls. For from their army too 8 fell. ¹⁵ The head of his brother Hasdrubal was thrown before Hannibal’s camp.

quo uiso et simul clade Poenorum cognita, anno tertio decimo quam in Italiam uenerat refugit in Bruttios. ¹⁶ post haec anno continuo inter Hannibalem et Romanos quies a tumultu bellorum intercessisse uisa est, quia inquietudo morborum in castris erat et grauissima pestilentia utrique exercitus agebantur. ¹⁷ interea Scipio uniuersa Hispania a Pyrenaeo usque ad Oceanum in prouinciam redacta Romam uenit, consul cum Licinio Crasso creatus in Africam transiit, Hannonem Hamilcaris filium, ducem Poenorum, interfecit, exercitum eius partim caede partim captiuitate disperdidit: nam undecim milia Poenorum eo proelio occidit.

Upon seeing this, and at the same time with the disaster of the Punics learned, in the thirteenth year since he had come into Italy he fled back into Bruttium. ¹⁶ After these things, in the following year, a quiet from the tumult of wars seemed to have intervened between Hannibal and the Romans, because an unrest of diseases was in the camps and both armies were being afflicted by a most grievous pestilence. ¹⁷ Meanwhile Scipio, with the whole of Hispania from the Pyrenees as far as the Ocean reduced into a province, came to Rome; created consul with Licinius Crassus, he crossed into Africa, killed Hanno, the son of Hamilcar, a leader of the Punics, and destroyed his army partly by slaughter, partly by captivity; for in that battle he killed eleven thousand Punics.

¹⁸ Sempronius consul cum Hannibale congressus et uictus Romam refugit. Scipio in Africa adgressus hiberna Poenorum atque alia Numidarum, quae utraque haud procul ab Utica erant, nocte concubia fecit incendi. ¹⁹ Poeni trepidi cum casu accidisse ignem putarent, inermes ad extinguendum concurrerunt: quare facile ab armatis oppressi sunt.

¹⁸ Sempronius the consul, having engaged with Hannibal and being defeated, fled back to Rome. Scipio in Africa, having attacked the winter quarters of the Carthaginians and other (quarters) of the Numidians, which both were not far from Utica, in the dead of night caused them to be set on fire. ¹⁹ The Carthaginians, panic-stricken, since they thought the fire had happened by chance, unarmed ran together to extinguish it: wherefore they were easily overwhelmed by men under arms.

in utrisque castris quadraginta milia hominum igni ferroque consumpta sunt, capta quinque milia, duces ipsi miserabiliter ambusti aegre effugerunt. ²⁰ Hasdrubal imperator Carthaginem profugus uenit; itaque Syphax et Hasdrubal mox plurimum reparauere exercitum atque iterum cum Scipione congressi sunt, uictique fugerunt. ²¹ Syphacem fugientem Laelius et Masinissa ceperunt, cetera multitudo Cirtam confugit, quam Masinissa oppugnatam in deditionem recepit, Syphacem ad Scipionem catenis uinctum deduxit; quem Scipio cum ingentibus spoliis plurimisque captiuis perducendum Laelio tradidit.

in both camps forty thousand men were consumed by fire and iron, five thousand were taken, the leaders themselves, miserably scorched, scarcely escaped. ²⁰ Hasdrubal the commander came as a fugitive to Carthage; and so Syphax and Hasdrubal soon greatly repaired the army and, having met again with Scipio, defeated they fled. ²¹ Laelius and Masinissa captured Syphax as he was fleeing, the rest of the multitude took refuge in Cirta, which, having been besieged, Masinissa received into surrender, he led Syphax bound in chains to Scipio; whom Scipio handed over to Laelius for conducting, together with huge spoils and very many captives.

[19] Hannibal redire in Africam iussus, ut fessis Carthaginiensibus subueniret, flens reliquit Italiam omnibus Italici generis militibus qui sequi nollent interfectis. cui ad Africanum litus propinquanti iussus quidam e nauticis ascendere in arborem nauis atque ipse speculari, quam regionem teneret, sepulchrum dirutum se prospexisse respondit; abominatus dictum Hannibal deflexo cursu ad Leptim oppidum copias exposuit.² qui continuo refecta multitudine Carthaginem uenit, deinde conloquium Scipionis petiit.

[19] Hannibal, ordered to return to Africa so as to succor the wearied Carthaginians, left Italy weeping, after putting to death all soldiers of the Italian race who were unwilling to follow. As he was approaching the African shore, when one of the sailors was ordered to climb the ship’s mast and himself reconnoiter what region he held, he replied that he had looked out upon a tomb laid low; abominating the utterance, Hannibal, with his course deflected, put his forces ashore at the town of Leptis.² He, his multitude at once refitted, came to Carthage, and then sought a colloquy with Scipio.

ubi cum se diu attoniti admiratione mutua duo clarissimi duces suspexissent, infecto pacis negotio proelium consertum est: ³ quod diu magnis ducum artibus dispositum, magnis copiarum molibus gestum, magnis militum uiribus consummatum Romanis uictoriam contulit. octoginta ibi elephanti uel capti uel occisi sunt, Carthaginiensium interfecta sunt XX milia quingenti. Hannibal omnia et ante proelium et in proelio expertus, cum paucis, hoc est uix quattuor equitibus, inter tumultum elapsus Hadrumetum confugit.

where, when for a long time the two most illustrious leaders had gazed upon one another, stunned with mutual admiration, with the business of peace left unfinished, battle was joined: ³ which, long arranged by the great arts of the commanders, carried on by great masses of troops, and consummated by the great strength of the soldiers, conferred victory on the Romans. Eighty elephants there were either captured or killed; of the Carthaginians, 20,500 were slain. Hannibal, having tried everything both before the battle and in the battle, with a few—that is, scarcely with four horsemen—slipping away amid the tumult, fled for refuge to Hadrumetum.

⁴ postea Carthaginem post sex et triginta annos, quam inde paruus cum patre exierat, uenit consultantique senatui nullam esse residuam spem nisi in petenda pace persuasit.

⁴ afterwards he came to Carthage, after 36 years since he had gone out from there as a small boy with his father, and he persuaded the senate, as it was taking counsel, that there was no remaining hope except in seeking peace.

⁵ C. Cornelio Lentulo P. Aelio Paeto consulibus Carthaginiensibus pax per Scipionem uoluntate senatus populique concessa est. naues tamen plus quam quingentae in altum productae in conspectu ciuitatis incensae sunt. ⁶ Scipio, iam tum cognomento Africanus, triumphans urbem ingressus est; quem Terentius, qui postea comicus, ex nobilibus Carthaginiensium captiuis pilleatus - quod insigne indultae sibi libertatis fuit - triumphantem post currum secutus est.

⁵ In the consulship of C. Cornelius Lentulus and P. Aelius Paetus, peace was conceded to the Carthaginians through Scipio by the will of the senate and the people. The ships, however, more than 500, brought out to the deep, were burned in the sight of the city. ⁶ Scipio, already then with the cognomen Africanus, entered the city in triumph; him Terentius—who later was a comic poet—out of the nobles among the Carthaginian captives, wearing a pileus (the insignia of liberty bestowed upon him), followed, behind the chariot of the triumphator.

[20] Anno ab urbe condita DXLVI bellum Punicum secundum finitum est, quod gestum est annis decem et septem. cui Macedonicum continuo successit, quod Quintius Flamininus consul sortitus post multa et grauissima proelia, quibus Macedones uicti sunt, pacem Philippo dedit.² deinde cum Lacedaemoniis pugnauit, uicto Nauide duce ipsorum nobilissimos obsides Demetrium Philippi filium et Armenen Nauidis filium ante currum duxit.

[20] In the year 546 from the founding of the City the Second Punic War was finished, which had been waged for 17 years. To it the Macedonian [war] immediately succeeded, which the consul Quintius Flamininus, having obtained by lot, after many and very grave battles, in which the Macedonians were defeated, granted peace to Philip.² Then he fought with the Lacedaemonians, and with Nabis, their leader, defeated, he led before his chariot as most noble hostages Demetrius, the son of Philip, and Armenes, the son of Nabis.

³ Romani captiui, qui sub Hannibale per Graeciam uenditi fuerant, uniuersi recepti, capitibus rasis ob detersam seruitutem currum triumphantis secuti sunt. ⁴ eodem tempore Insubres Boi atque Cenomanni contractis in unum uiribus Hamilcare Poeno duce, qui in Italia remanserat, Cremonam Placentiamque uastantes, difficillimo bello a L. Fuluio praetore superati sunt. ⁵ postea Flamininus proconsule Philippum regem et cum eo Thracas Macedonas Illyrios multasque praeterea gentes, quae in auxilium ei uenerant, bello subegit.

³ The Roman captives, who under Hannibal had been sold through Greece, were all received back; with heads shaven, on account of servitude having been wiped away, they followed the chariot of the triumphing general. ⁴ At the same time the Insubres, the Boii, and the Cenomanni, their forces gathered into one under Hamilcar the Carthaginian as leader, who had remained in Italy, while devastating Cremona and Placentia, were overcome in a most difficult war by the praetor Lucius Fulvius. ⁵ Afterwards, with Flamininus as proconsul, King Philip and with him the Thracians, Macedonians, Illyrians, and many nations besides, which had come to his aid, were subdued in war.

⁶ uicti Macedones castra amiserunt, VIII milia hostium eo die caesa, V milia capta Polybius scribit; Valerius dicit XL milia trucidata; Claudius uero XXXII milia interfecta commemorat.

⁶ the Macedonians, defeated, lost their camp; Polybius writes that on that day 8 thousand of the enemy were cut down, 5 thousand captured; Valerius says 40 thousand were butchered; but Claudius indeed records 32 thousand killed.

⁷ Sed haec uarietas scriptorum utique fallacia est; fallaciae autem causa profecto adulatio est, dum uictoris laudes accumulare uirtutemque patriae extollere uel praesentibus uel posteris student: alioquin, si inquisitus non fuisset numerus, nec qualiscumque fuisset expressus. ⁸ quodsi gloriosum est duci et patriae plurimos hostium peremisse, quanto magis laetum patriae et duci beatum potest uideri suorum uel nullos uel paucissimos perdidisse. ⁹ ita lucidissime patet, quia simili impudentia mentiendi, qua occisorum hostium numero adiicitur, sociorum quoque amissorum damna minuuntur uel etiam omnino reticentur.

⁷ But this variety of the writers is assuredly a fallacy; and the cause of the fallacy, to be sure, is adulation, while they strive to accumulate the praises of the victor and to exalt the virtue of the fatherland to the present and to posterity: otherwise, if the number had not been inquired into, neither would it have been expressed, of whatever sort it might have been. ⁸ But if it is glorious for the leader and the fatherland to have slain very many of the enemy, how much more gladsome for the fatherland and blessed for the leader can it seem to have lost either none or very few of their own. ⁹ Thus it is most lucidly evident that, by a similar impudence of lying, by which the number of enemies slain is increased, the losses too of allies who have been lost are diminished, or even wholly kept silent.

¹⁰ Igitur Sempronius Tuditanus in Hispania citeriore bello oppressus cum omni exercitu Romano interfectus est; ¹¹ consul Marcellus in Etruria a Bois oppressus magnam partem exercitus perdidit; cui postea Furius alter consul auxilio accessit: atque ita uniuersam Boiorum gentem igni ferroque uastantes propemodum usque ad nihilum deleuerunt.

¹⁰ Therefore Sempronius Tuditanus, overwhelmed in war in Hither Hispania, was slain with the entire Roman army; ¹¹ the consul Marcellus in Etruria was overwhelmed by the Boii and lost a great part of his army; to whose aid thereafter Furius, the other consul, came: and thus, devastating the whole nation of the Boii with fire and iron, they destroyed it almost down to nothing.

¹² L. Valerio Flacco M. Porcio Catone consulibus Antiochus rex Syriae bellum contra populum Romanum struens in Europam transiit ex Asia. ¹³ tunc etiam Hannibal propter excitandi belli rumores, qui de eo apud Romanos serebantur, exhiberi Romam a senatu iussus, clam ex Africa profectus ad Antiochum migrauit: quem cum apud Ephesum inuenisset cunctantem, mox in bellum inpulit. ¹⁴ tunc etiam lex, quae ab Oppio tribuno plebi lata fuerat, ne qua mulier plus quam semunciam auri haberet neue uersicolori uestimento nec uehiculo per urbem uteretur, post uiginti annos abrogata est.

¹² With L. Valerius Flaccus and M. Porcius Cato as consuls, Antiochus, king of Syria, constructing war against the Roman people, crossed over into Europe from Asia. ¹³ Then also Hannibal, on account of rumors of a war being stirred up, which were being sown about him among the Romans, having been ordered by the senate to be produced at Rome, secretly set out from Africa and migrated to Antiochus; and when he had found him lingering at Ephesus, he soon impelled him into war. ¹⁴ Then also the law which had been carried by Oppius, tribune of the plebs, that no woman should have more than a half-ounce of gold, nor use a varicolored garment nor a vehicle through the city, after 20 years was abrogated.

¹⁵ P. Scipione Africano iterum T. Sempronio Longo consulibus apud Mediolanium decem milia Gallorum caesa, sequenti autem proelio undecim milia Gallorum, Romanorum uero quinque milia occisa sunt. ¹⁶ Publius Digitius praetor in Hispania citeriore paene omnem amisit exercitum. M. Fuluius praetor Celtiberos cum proximis gentibus uicit regemque eorum cepit.

¹⁵ with Publius Scipio Africanus for the second time and Tiberius Sempronius Longus as consuls, at Mediolanum 10,000 Gauls were cut down; but in the following battle 11,000 Gauls, and indeed 5,000 Romans, were killed. ¹⁶ Publius Digitius, praetor in Hither Spain, lost almost his whole army. Marcus Fulvius, praetor, defeated the Celtiberians with the neighboring tribes and captured their king.

¹⁷ Minucius a Liguribus in extremum periculi adductus et insidiis hostium circumuentus uix Numidarum equitum industria liberatus est. ¹⁸ Scipio Africanus inter ceteros legatos ad Antiochum missus, etiam cum Hannibale conloquium familiare habuit. ¹⁹ sed infecto pacis negotio ab Antiocho discessit.

¹⁷ Minucius, brought into the utmost peril by the Ligurians and surrounded by the ambushes of the enemy, was scarcely freed by the industry of the Numidian horsemen. ¹⁸ Scipio Africanus, sent among the other legates to Antiochus, even had a familiar colloquy with Hannibal. ¹⁹ But, the business of peace left unfinished, he departed from Antiochus.

in utraque Hispania per Flaminium Fuluiumque praetores bella multum horrida cruentaque utrisque populis gesta sunt.

in both Spains, through the praetors Flaminius and Fulvius, very horrid and bloody wars were waged for both peoples.

²⁰ P. Cornelio Scipione M. Acilio Glabrione consulibus Antiochus quamuis Thermopylas occupasset, quarum munimine tutior propter dubios belli euentus fieret, tamen commisso bello a consule Glabrione superatus uix cum paucis fugit e proelio Ephesumque peruenit. ²¹ is habuisse fertur armatorum LX milia, ex quibus XL milia caesa, capta plus quam V milia fuisse referuntur. alter consul Scipio cum Boiorum gente conflixit, in quo proelio XX milia hostium interfecit.

²⁰ With P. Cornelius Scipio and M. Acilius Glabrio as consuls, Antiochus, although he had occupied Thermopylae, by the bulwark of which he might become safer on account of the doubtful outcomes of the war, nevertheless, when battle was joined, was overcome by the consul Glabrio, and scarcely fled from the battle with a few, and reached Ephesus. ²¹ He is said to have had 60 thousand armed men, of whom 40 thousand were cut down; more than 5 thousand are reported to have been captured. The other consul, Scipio, clashed with the nation of the Boii, and in that battle he slew 20 thousand of the enemy.

²² Sequenti anno Scipio Africanus, habens in auxilio Eumenem Attali filium, aduersus Hannibalem, qui tunc Antiochi classi praeerat, bellum nauale gessit; Antiochus uicto Hannibale atque in fugam acto simulque omni exercitu amisso pacem rogauit filiumque Africani, quem utrum explorantem an in proelio cepisset incertum est, ultro remisit. ²³ in Hispania ulteriore L. Aemilius proconsule a Lusitanis cum uniuerso exercitu caesus interiit. ²⁴ L. Baebius in Hispaniam proficiscens, a Liguribus circumuentus cum uniuerso exercitu occisus est; unde adeo ne nuntium quidem superfuisse constat, ut internecionem ipsam Romae Massilienses nuntiare curauerint.

²² In the following year Scipio Africanus, having in auxiliary support Eumenes, son of Attalus, waged a naval war against Hannibal, who then was commanding Antiochus’s fleet; Antiochus, with Hannibal defeated and put to flight and his whole army lost, sued for peace and of his own accord sent back Africanus’s son, whom—whether he had captured him while reconnoitering or in battle is uncertain. ²³ In Farther Spain, Lucius Aemilius, proconsul, was cut down by the Lusitanians together with the entire army and perished. ²⁴ Lucius Baebius, setting out to Spain, surrounded by the Ligurians, was killed with the entire army; whence it is established that not even a messenger survived, to such a degree that the Massilians took care to report the very extermination at Rome.

²⁵ Fuluius consul de Graecia in Gallograeciam, quae nunc est Galatia, transuectus, ad Olympum montem peruenit, ad quem uniuersi Gallograeci cum coniugibus et liberis confugerant, ibique acerbissimum bellum gessit; namque de superioribus locis sagittis glandibus saxis ceterisque telis Romani grauiter contriti, tandem usque ad congressum hostium perruperunt: quadraginta milia Gallograecorum eo proelio interfecta referuntur. ²⁶ Marcius consul aduersus Ligures profectus superatusque IIII milia militum amisit et, nisi uictus celeriter refugisset in castra, eandem internecionis cladem, quam Baebius dudum ab isdem hostibus acceperat, pertulisset.

²⁵ Fulvius the consul, transported from Greece into Gallo-Graecia, which is now Galatia, arrived at Mount Olympus, to which all the Gallo-Greeks with their wives and children had fled, and there he waged a most bitter war; for from the higher positions the Romans, grievously crushed by arrows, bullets, rocks, and the other missiles, at length broke through even to an engagement with the enemy: 40,000 Gallo-Greeks are reported to have been slain in that battle. ²⁶ Marcius the consul set out against the Ligurians and, being overcome, lost 4,000 soldiers, and, unless, defeated, he had quickly taken refuge in the camp, he would have suffered the same disaster of extermination which Baebius not long before had received from those same enemies.

²⁷M. Claudio Marcello Q. Fabio Labeone consulibus Philippus rex, qui legatos populi Romani interfecerat, propter Demetrii filii sui, quem legatum miserat, uerecundissimas preces ueniam meruit,²⁸ eundemque continuo uelut Romanis amicum suique proditorem, fratre quoque ipsius ad parricidium patris ministro, nihil de utroque miserum mali suspicantem ueneno necauit. ²⁹ eodem anno Scipio Africanus ab ingrata sibi urbe diu exulans apud Amiternum oppidum morbo periit. isdem etiam diebus Hannibal apud Prusiam Bithyniae regem, cum a Romanis reposceretur, ueneno se necauit, Philopoemenes, dux Achiuorum a Messanis captus occisusque est.

²⁷ In the consulate of M. Claudius Marcellus and Q. Fabius Labeo, King Philip, who had slain the legates of the Roman people, by reason of the most modest entreaties of his son Demetrius, whom he had sent as a legate, merited pardon, ²⁸ and the same son, forthwith, as though a friend to the Romans and a betrayer of himself—his own brother also as the agent in the parricide of their father—he killed with poison, suspecting nothing of any wretched evil from either. ²⁹ In the same year Scipio Africanus, long exiling himself from the city ungrateful to him, perished of disease at the town of Amiternum. In those same days Hannibal, at the court of Prusias, king of Bithynia, when he was demanded back by the Romans, killed himself with poison; Philopoemen, leader of the Achaeans, was captured by the Messenians and slain.

³⁰ in Sicilia tunc Vulcani insula, quae ante non fuerat, repente mari edita cum miraculo omnium usque ad nunc manet. ³¹ Q. Fuluius Flaccus praetor in citeriore Hispania maximo proelio XXIII milia hominum fudit, IIII milia cepit. ³² Ti. Sempronius Gracchus in Hispania ulteriore centum quinque oppida uacuata quassataque bellis ad deditionem coegit.

³⁰ in Sicily then the island of Vulcan, which had not been before, suddenly brought forth by the sea remains, to the wonder of all, up to now. ³¹ Q. Fulvius Flaccus, praetor, in Hither Spain, in a very great battle routed 23 thousand men, 4 thousand he captured. ³² Ti. Sempronius Gracchus in Further Spain forced 105 towns, emptied and shattered by wars, to surrender.

³³ eadem aestate etiam L. Postumius in citeriore Hispania quadraginta milia hostium bello interfecit. Gracchus praetor ibidem iterum ducenta oppida expugnauit et cepit.

³³ in the same summer also L. Postumius in Hither Spain slew forty thousand of the enemy in war. Gracchus the praetor there likewise again stormed and captured two hundred towns.

³⁴ Lepido et Mucio consulibus Basternarum gens ferocissima auctore Perseo Philippi filio praedarum spe sollicitata et transeundi Histri fluminis facultate sine una pugna uel aliquo hoste deleta est. nam tunc forte Danuuius, qui et Hister, crassa glacie superstratus pedestrem facile transitum patiebatur. ³⁵ itaque cum inprouide toto et maximo simul agmine inaestimabilis hominum uel equorum multitudo transiret, enormitate ponderis et concussione gradientum concrepans gelu et glacialis crusta dissiluit uniuersumque agmen, quod diu sustinuerat, mediis gurgitibus uicta tandem et conminuta destituit atque eadem rursus fragmentis inpedientibus superducta summersit.

³⁴ In the consulship of Lepidus and Mucius, the very ferocious nation of the Basternae, incited by Perseus, son of Philip, by the hope of spoils and by the facility of crossing the river Hister, was destroyed without a single battle or any enemy. For then by chance the Danube, which is also the Hister, being overlaid with thick ice, allowed an easy pedestrian crossing. ³⁵ And so, when, imprudently, with the whole and very greatest column at once, an inestimable multitude of men or horses was crossing, by the enormousness of the weight and the concussion of those stepping, the creaking frost and the glacial crust split, and the entire column, which it had long sustained, at last overcome and shattered, it abandoned in the mid-whirlpools; and the same, again, drawn over with fragments that impeded, sank them.

pauci ex omni populo per utramque ripam uix concisis uisceribus euaserunt.

a few from the entire people along both banks scarcely escaped, with their viscera cut to pieces.

³⁶ P. Licinio Crasso C. Cassio Longino consulibus Macedonicum bellum gestum est, merito inter maxima bella referendum. nam in auxilio Romanorum tota primum Italia, deinde Ptolemaeus rex Aegypti et Ariarathes Cappadociae, Eumenes Asiae, Masinissa Numidiae fuerunt. Perseum et Macedonas secuti sunt Thraces cum rege Cotye et uniuersi cum rege Gentio Illyrii.

³⁶ In the consulship of P. Licinius Crassus and C. Cassius Longinus, the Macedonian war was waged, deservedly to be counted among the greatest wars. For in support of the Romans were first the whole of Italy, then Ptolemy king of Egypt and Ariarathes of Cappadocia, Eumenes of Asia, Masinissa of Numidia. Perseus and the Macedonians were followed by the Thracians with King Cotys and all the Illyrians with King Gentius.

³⁷ itaque aduenienti Crasso consuli Perseus occurrit, commissoque proelio miserabiliter uicti fugere Romani. sequenti pugna paene pari clade partis utriusque in hiberna discessum est. ³⁸ deinde Perseus profligato multis proeliis exercitu Romano in Illyricum transgressus Sulcamum oppidum defensum a praesidiis Romanis pugnando cepit: ubi magnam Romanorum praesidiorum multitudinem partim occidit partim sub corona uendidit partim secum in Macedoniam duxit.

³⁷ and so, as the consul Crassus arrived, Perseus went to meet him, and with battle joined the Romans, miserably beaten, fled. In the following fight, with nearly equal slaughter on both sides, they withdrew into winter quarters. ³⁸ Then Perseus, with the Roman army shattered in many battles, having crossed into Illyricum, took by fighting the town Sulcamum, defended by Roman garrisons: where a great multitude of the Roman garrison he partly slew, partly sold under the crown, and partly led with him into Macedonia.

³⁹ Postea cum eo L. Aemilius Paulus consul dimicauit et uicit: nam XX milia peditum in eo bello interfecit; rex cum equitatu subterfugit, sed continuo captus atque in triumpho cum filiis ante currum actus est et post apud Albam in custodia defecit. ⁴⁰ filius eius iunior fabricam aerariam ob tolerandam inopiam Romae didicit ibique consumptus est. plurima praeterea et satis diuersis prouentibus bella multarum ubique gentium gesta sunt, quae breuitatis causa praetermisi.

³⁹ Afterwards the consul L. Aemilius Paulus fought with him and won: for he killed 20 thousand infantry in that war; the king with the cavalry slipped away, but was immediately captured and in triumph, with his sons, was driven before the chariot, and afterwards at Alba, in custody, he expired. ⁴⁰ His younger son learned the bronze-working craft to endure poverty at Rome and there was consumed. Besides, very many wars of many nations everywhere, and with quite diverse outcomes, were waged, which I have omitted for the sake of brevity.

[21] Anno ab urbe condita DC L. Licinio Lucullo A. Postumio Albino consulibus cum omnes Romanos ingens Celtiberorum metus inuasisset et ex omnibus non esset, qui ire in Hispaniam uel tribunus uel legatus auderet, P. Scipio, qui postea Africanus erit, ultro sese militaturum in Hispaniam obtulit, cum tamen in Macedoniam sorte iam deputatus esset.² itaque profectus in Hispaniam magnas strages gentium dedit, saepius etiam militis quam ducis usus officio; nam et barbarum prouocantem singulariter congressus occidit. ³ Sergius autem Galba praetor a Lusitanis magno proelio uictus est uniuersoque exercitu amisso ipse cum paucis uix elapsus euasit.

[21] In the year from the founding of the City 600, with Lucius Licinius Lucullus and Aulus Postumius Albinus as consuls, when a huge fear of the Celtiberians had seized all the Romans and, out of everyone, there was not one who would dare to go into Spain either as tribune or as legate, Publius Scipio, who afterwards will be Africanus, of his own accord offered himself to serve as a soldier in Spain, although he had already been assigned by lot to Macedonia.² And so, having set out into Spain, he dealt great slaughters of nations, making use more often of a soldier’s than of a leader’s office; for even, meeting a barbarian who was challenging, he slew him in single combat. ³ Sergius Galba, however, the praetor, was defeated by the Lusitanians in a great battle, and, his entire army lost, he himself with a few men scarcely slipped away and escaped.

⁴ eodem tempore censores theatrum lapideum in urbe construi censuerunt. quod ne tunc fieret, Scipio Nasica grauissima oratione obstitit dicens, inimicissimum hoc fore bellatori populo ad nutriendam desidiam lasciuiamque commentum, adeoque mouit senatum, ut non solum uendi omnia theatro conparata iusserit, sed etiam subsellia ludis poni prohibuerit.

⁴ at the same time the censors decreed that a stone theater be constructed in the city. Lest this be done then, Scipio Nasica opposed with a most weighty oration, saying that this would be most inimical to a warlike people, a contrivance for nurturing idleness and lasciviousness; and he so moved the senate that it not only ordered all things procured for the theater to be sold, but also forbade benches to be set at the games.

⁵ Quamobrem intellegant nostri - quibus quidquid extra oblectamentum libidinis occurrit offensio est - propter hoc, quod se infirmiores esse hostibus suis ipsi sentiunt et fatentur, theatra incusanda non tempora, ⁶ nec blasphemandum Deum uerum, qui usque ad nunc ea prohibet, sed abominandos deos uel daemones suos, qui ista petierunt, profundo quidem satis magnitatis suae argumento tale sacrificium flagitantes, quoniam non magis fuso cruore pecudum quam profligata uirtute hominum pascerentur. ⁷ nam utique tunc nec hostes nec fames nec morbi nec prodigia deerant, immo tunc plurima erant; sed theatra non erant, in quibus - quod incredibile dictu est - ad aram luxuriae uirtutum uictimae trucidantur. ⁸ Carthaginiensibus aliquando uisum est homines immolare, sed male praesumpta persuasio breui praetermissa est; a Romanis uero exactum est, ut semet ipsos perditioni impenderent.

⁵ Therefore let our people understand - for whom whatever meets them outside the delectation of lust is an offense - for this reason, that they themselves feel and confess that they are weaker than their enemies, that the theaters are to be accused, not the times, ⁶ nor is the true God to be blasphemed, who up to now forbids these things, but their gods or their demons are to be abominated, who requested those things, indeed, with a sufficiently profound sign of their own greatness demanding such a sacrifice, since they were fed not so much by the poured-out gore of cattle as by the overthrown virtue of human beings. ⁷ For surely then neither enemies nor famine nor diseases nor prodigies were lacking—nay, then they were very many; but there were no theaters, in which - which is incredible to say - at the altar of luxury the victims—virtues—are butchered. ⁸ To the Carthaginians it once seemed right to immolate human beings, but the ill-assumed persuasion was shortly passed over; but from the Romans it was exacted, that they should expend themselves to perdition.

⁹ factum est, fit, amatur et clamatur ut fiat: qui pro mactanda gregis sui pecude fortasse offenderentur, pro interficienda cordis sui uirtute laetantur. quin potius Nasicae erubescant, qui Christianis exprobrandum putant, et non nobis de hostibus, quos semper habuerunt, sed illi de theatro, quod haberi prohibuerat, conquerantur.

⁹ it has been done, it is done, it is loved and there is clamor that it be done: those who would perhaps be offended at a sheep of their own flock being sacrificed, rejoice at the virtue of their own heart being slain. nay rather let them blush before Nasica, who think there is something to cast in the teeth of Christians, and let them complain not to us about enemies, whom they have always had, but to him about the theater, which he had prohibited to be had.

¹⁰ Igitur in Hispania Sergius Galba praetor Lusitanos citra Tagum flumen habitantes cum uoluntarios in deditionem recepisset, per scelus interfecit; simulans enim de commodis eorum se acturum fore, circumpositis militibus cunctos inermes incautosque prostrauit. quae res postea uniuersae Hispaniae propter Romanorum perfidiam causa maximi tumultus fuit.

¹⁰ Therefore in Spain Sergius Galba, praetor, after he had received the Lusitanians dwelling on this side of the river Tagus as volunteers into surrender, slew them through a crime; for, feigning that he would deal with their interests, with soldiers stationed around he prostrated them all, unarmed and unsuspecting. This matter afterwards, for the whole of Spain, on account of the Romans’ perfidy, was the cause of a very great tumult.

[22] Anno ab urbe condita DCII L. Censorino et M. Manilio consulibus tertium Punicum bellum exortum est. igitur cum senatus delendam Carthaginem censuisset, profecti in Africam consules et Scipio tunc tribunus militum prope Uticam maioris Africani castra tenuerunt.² ibi Carthaginiensibus euocatis iussisque ut arma et naues traderent nec moratis, tanta uis armorum repente tradita est, ut facile tota ex his Africa potuisset armari.

[22] In the year from the founding of the City 602, with L. Censorinus and M. Manilius as consuls, the Third Punic War broke out. Therefore, since the senate had decreed that Carthage be destroyed, the consuls set out into Africa, and Scipio, then a military tribune, held the camp of the elder Africanus near Utica.² There, the Carthaginians having been summoned and ordered to hand over arms and ships—and they not delaying—so great a quantity of arms was suddenly surrendered that easily the whole of Africa could have been armed from these.

³ sed Carthaginienses postquam arma tradiderunt et relicta urbe recedere procul a mari decem milibus passuum iussi sunt, dolorem ad desperationem contulerunt aut defensuri ciuitatem aut cum ipsa per ipsam sepeliendi, ducesque sibi duos Hasdrubales creauerunt. ⁴ arma primum facere adgressi aeris ferrique inopiam auri argentique metallis suppleuerunt. consules oppugnare Carthaginem statuunt, cuius situs fuisse huiusmodi dicitur: ⁵ uiginti duo milia passuum muro amplexa, tota paene mari cingebatur absque faucibus, quae tribus milibus passuum aperiebantur.

³ but the Carthaginians, after they had handed over their arms and were ordered, with the city left, to withdraw far from the sea by 10 miles, turned their grief into desperation—either to defend the commonwealth, or to be buried with it in its very ruin—and they appointed for themselves two leaders, both named Hasdrubal. ⁴ having first set about making arms, they supplied the lack of bronze and iron with the metals of gold and silver. the consuls resolve to besiege Carthage, whose site is said to have been of this kind: ⁵ encompassed by a wall for 22 miles, it was almost entirely girdled by the sea, save for the isthmus, which was open for 3 miles.

is locus murum triginta pedes latum habuit saxo quadrato in altitudinem cubitorum quadraginta. ⁶ arx, cui Byrsae nomen erat, paulo amplius quam duo milia passuum tenebat. ex una parte murus communis erat urbis et Byrsae imminens mari, quod mare Stagnum uocant, quoniam obiectu protentae linguae tranquillatur.

that place had a wall 30 feet wide, of squared stone, to a height of 40 cubits. ⁶ the citadel, whose name was Byrsa, occupied a little more than 2 miles. on one side a wall was common to the city and to Byrsa, overhanging the sea, which sea they call the Stagnum, since by the projection of a stretched-out tongue (of land) it is made tranquil.

⁷ consules igitur quamuis aliquantam muri partem quassatam machinis diruissent, tamen a Carthaginiensibus uicti ac repulsi sunt: quos fugientes Scipio repulso intra muros hoste defendit. Censorinus in urbem rediit. Manilius omissa Carthagine ad Hasdrubalem arma conuertit.

⁷ therefore the consuls, although they had overthrown by machines some portion of the wall, shaken, nevertheless were conquered and repulsed by the Carthaginians: Scipio defended them as they fled, the enemy having been driven back within the walls. Censorinus returned into the city. Manilius, Carthage having been omitted, turned his arms toward Hasdrubal.

⁸ Scipio Masinissa mortuo inter Masinissae filios tres Numidiae regnum diuisit. quo circa Carthaginem reuerso Manilius Tezagam urbem expugnauit atque diripuit; duodecim milia ibi Afrorum caesa, sex milia capta sunt. Hasdrubal Poenorum imperator, Masinissae nepos, subselliorum fragmentis in curia a suis propter suspicionem proditionis occisus est.

⁸ Scipio, with Masinissa dead, divided the kingdom of Numidia among Masinissa’s three sons. when he had returned to the vicinity of Carthage, Manilius took the city Tezaga by storm and despoiled it; twelve thousand Africans were cut down there, six thousand were captured. Hasdrubal, commander of the Carthaginians (the Punic people), grandson of Masinissa, was slain by his own men in the curia with fragments of the benches, on account of suspicion of treachery.

⁹ Iuuentius praetor in Macedonia aduersus Pseudophilippum congressus cum maxima clade totius Romani exercitus interfectus est.

⁹ The praetor Juventius in Macedonia, having engaged against Pseudophilippus, was slain, with the greatest disaster of the entire Roman army.

[23] Anno ab urbe condita DCVI id est anno quinquagensimo post bellum Punicum secundum Cn. Cornelio Lentulo L. Mummio consulibus P. Scipio, superioris anni consul, delere Carthaginem suprema sorte molitus Gothonem ingreditur.² ubi dum sex continuis diebus noctibusque pugnatur, ultima Carthaginienses desperatio ad deditionem traxit petentes, ut quos belli clades reliquos fecit, saltem seruire liceat. ³ primum agmen mulierum satis miserabile, post uirorum magis deforme descendit.

[23] In the year from the founding of the City 606, that is, in the fiftieth year after the Second Punic War, with Cn. Cornelius Lentulus and L. Mummius as consuls, P. Scipio, consul of the previous year, having undertaken by the final lot to destroy Carthage, enters the Cothon.² There, while for six continuous days and nights fighting goes on, ultimate desperation drew the Carthaginians to surrender, begging that those whom the disasters of war left remaining might at least be permitted to serve in slavery. ³ The first column of women, quite miserable, then of men, more deformed, came down.

nam fuisse mulierum XXV milia, uirorum XXX milia memoriae traditum est. ⁴ rex Hasdrubal se ultro dedit. transfugae, qui Aesculapii templum occupauerant, uoluntario praecipitio dati igne consumpti sunt.

for it has been handed down to memory that there were 25 thousand women, 30 thousand men. ⁴ King Hasdrubal surrendered himself of his own accord. The deserters, who had occupied the temple of Aesculapius, threw themselves headlong of their own will and were consumed by fire.

uxor Hasdrubalis se duosque filios secum uirili dolore et furore femineo in medium iecit incendium, eundem nunc mortis exitum faciens nouissima regina Carthaginis, quem quondam prima fecisset. ⁵ ipsa autem ciuitas decem et septem continuis diebus arsit miserumque spectaculum de uarietate condicionis humanae uictoribus suis praebuit. ⁶ diruta est autem Carthago omni murali lapide in puluerem conminuto septingentensimo post anno quam condita erat.

the wife of Hasdrubal, with manly grief and feminine fury, threw herself and her two sons with her into the midst of the conflagration, now making the same manner of death as the latest queen of Carthage, which once the first had made. ⁵ but the city itself burned for seventeen continuous days and offered to its victors a miserable spectacle of the variety of the human condition. ⁶ moreover Carthage was razed, with every mural stone comminuted into powder, in the seven-hundredth year after it had been founded.

⁷ multitudo omnis captiuorum exceptis paucis principibus uenundata est. ita quarto quam coeptum fuit anno bellum Punicum tertium terminatum est.

⁷ The whole multitude of captives, except for a few principal men, was sold. Thus, in the fourth year from when it had been begun, the Third Punic War was terminated.

⁸ Sed mihi quamlibet studiose quaerenti uerumtamen homini tardioris ingenii nusquam omnino causa tertii belli Punici, quam in tantum Carthago accenderit, ut iuste euerti decerneretur, eluxit, illudque me uel maxime mouet, quod, si ita ut in superioribus bellis euidens in adsurgentem causa et dolor accendebat, consultatione non opus erat. ⁹ at uero, cum alii Romanorum propter perpetuam Romae securitatem delendam esse decernerent, alii uero propter perpetuam Romanae uirtutis curam, quam sibi semper ex suspicione aemulae urbis inpenderent, ne uigor Romanus bellis semper exercitus in languidam segnitiem securitate atque otio solueretur, incolumem Carthaginem statui suo permittendam esse censerent: causam non ex iniuria lacessentum Carthaginiensium sed ex inconstantia torpescentium Romanorum ortam inuenio. ¹⁰ quod cum ita sit, cur Christianis temporibus imputant hebetationem ac robiginem suam, qua foris crassi, intus exesi sunt?

⁸ But for me, however zealously I inquire—yet a man of slower ingenium—the cause of the Third Punic War has nowhere at all come to light, the cause which Carthage so kindled that it was decreed that she be justly overturned; and this moves me most of all, that, if, as in the earlier wars, an evident causa and grievance were igniting the party rising to arms, there would have been no need of consultation. ⁹ But in fact, since some of the Romans, for the perpetual security of Rome, were decreeing that she must be destroyed, while others, out of a perpetual care for Roman virtus—which they always expended upon themselves because of suspicion of a rival city—lest Roman vigor, always exercised by wars, be dissolved by security and leisure into languid sloth, judged that Carthage, unharmed, ought to be permitted to remain in her own status: I find the causa arose not from the iniuria of assailing Carthaginians but from the inconstantia of Romans growing torpid. ¹⁰ Since this is so, why do they impute to Christian times their hebetation and rust, whereby outwardly they are gross, inwardly eaten away?

qui porro ante sescentos fere annos, sicut sui prudentes timentesque praedixerant, cotem illam magnam splendoris et acuminis sui Carthaginem perdiderunt.

who moreover almost six hundred years earlier, as their own prudent and timorous men had predicted, lost that great whetstone of their splendor and acumen, Carthage.

¹¹ Itaque finem uolumini faciam, ne forsitan conlidendo uehementius discussa ad tempus robigine ubi necessarium acumen elicere non possum, superuacuam asperitatem inueniam. quamquam obuiantem asperitatem nequaquam expauescerem, si interioris spem acuminis inuenirem.

¹¹ Therefore I will bring the volume to an end, lest perhaps, by clashing, with the rust for the time more vehemently shaken off, where I cannot elicit the necessary acumen, I find a superfluous asperity. although I should by no means be terrified by the opposing asperity, if I were to find the hope of an inner acumen.