Orosius: HISTORIARUM ADVERSUM PAGANOS LIBRI VII

[1] Scio aliquantos post haec deinceps permoueri posse, quod uictoriae Romanae multarum gentium et ciuitatum strage crebrescunt. quamquam, si diligenter appendant, plus damni inuenient accidisse quam commodi. neque enim parui pendenda sunt tot bella seruilia, socialia, ciuilia, fugitiuorum, nullorum utique fructuum et magnarum tamen miseriarum.

[1] I know that some, thereafter after these things, can be stirred, because Roman victories multiply through the slaughter of many nations and cities. Although, if they weigh diligently, they will find that more damage has happened than benefit. For indeed so many wars are not to be weighed as of little account: servile, Social, civil, of fugitives—surely of no fruits, and yet of great miseries.

² sed coniueo, ut quemadmodum uolunt ita fuisse uideatur; unde arbitror esse dicturos: ecquid his temporibus beatius, quibus continui triumphi, celebres uictoriae, diuites praedae, nobiles pompae, magni ante currum reges et longo ordine uictae gentes agebantur? ³ quibus breuiter respondebitur et ipsos de temporibus solere causari et nos pro isdem temporibus instituisse sermonem, quae tempora non uni tantum urbi adtributa sed orbi uniuerso constat esse communia. ecce quam feliciter Roma uincit tam infeliciter quidquid extra Romam est uincitur.

² but I shut my eyes, so that it may seem to have been as they wish; whence I suppose they will be ready to say: is anything more beauteous than these times, in which there are continuous triumphs, celebrated victories, rich spoils, noble pomps, great kings were led before the chariot, and in a long order conquered peoples were driven? ³ to whom it will be briefly answered that they themselves are wont to complain about the times, and that we have instituted our discourse on account of these same times—times which are agreed to be common not assigned to one city only but to the whole world. Behold: as happily as Rome conquers, so unhappily whatever is outside Rome is conquered.

⁴ quanti igitur pendenda est gutta haec laboriosae felicitatis, cui adscribitur unius urbis beatitudo in tanta mole infelicitatis, per quam agitur totius orbis euersio? aut si ideo felicia putantur, quia unius ciuitatis opes auctae sunt, cur non potius infelicissima iudicentur, quibus miserabili uastatione multarum ac bene institutarum gentium potentissima regna ceciderunt?

⁴ of what value, therefore, must this drop of laborious felicity be weighed, to which the beatitude of a single city is ascribed amid so great a mass of infelicity, through which the overthrow of the whole world is brought about? or if for that reason they are thought fortunate, because the wealth of one city has been augmented, why should they not rather be judged most unfortunate, by which, through the pitiable devastation of many and well-instituted nations, the most powerful kingdoms have fallen?

⁵ An forte aliud tunc Carthagini uidebatur, cum post annos centum uiginti, quibus modo bellorum clades modo pacis condiciones perhorrescens, nunc rebelli intentione nunc supplici bellis pacem, pace bella mutabat, nouissime miseris ciuibus passim se in ignem ultima desperatione iacientibus unus rogus tota ciuitas fuit? cui etiam nunc, situ paruae, moenibus destitutae, pars miseriarum est audire quid fuerit. ⁶ edat Hispania sententiam suam: cum per annos ducentos ubique agros suos sanguine suo rigabat inportunumque hostem ultro ostiatim inquietantem nec repellere poterat nec sustinere, cum se suis diuersis urbibus ac locis, fracti caede bellorum, obsidionum fame exinaniti, interfectis coniugibus ac liberis suis ob remedia miseriarum concursu misero ac mutua caede iugulabant, - quid tunc de suis temporibus sentiebat?

⁵ Or perchance something else then seemed to Carthage, when after 120 years—during which, now shuddering at the disasters of wars, now at the conditions of peace, now with rebellious intention, now in supplication, she was exchanging wars for peace and peace for wars—at the last, with her wretched citizens everywhere, in final desperation, hurling themselves into the fire, the whole city was one pyre? To which even now, small by decay, bereft of walls, a part of her miseries is to hear what she once was. ⁶ Let Spain put forth her judgment: when for 200 years she was everywhere watering her fields with her own blood, and could neither repel nor endure the importunate enemy who, moreover, was harassing door-to-door; when, in their several cities and places, broken by the slaughter of wars, emptied by the famine of sieges, with their wives and children slain, they, in a wretched concourse for remedies of their miseries, were slaughtering one another by mutual butchery, - what did she then think of her own times?

⁷ ipsa postremo dicat Italia: cur per annos quadringentos Romanis utique suis contradixit obstitit repugnauit, si eorum felicitas sua infelicitas non erat Romanosque fieri rerum dominos bonis communibus non obstabat? ⁸ non requiro de innumeris diuersarum gentium populis diu ante liberis, tunc bello uictis, patria abductis, pretio uenditis, seruitute dispersis, quid tunc sibi maluerint, quid de Romanis opinati sint, quid de temporibus iudicarint. ⁹ omitto de regibus magnarum opum, magnarum uirium, magnae gloriae, diu potentissimis, aliquando captis, seruiliter catenatis, sub iugum missis, ante currum actis, in carcere trucidatis: quorum tam stultum est exquirere sententiam, quam durum non dolere miseriam.

⁷ Let Italy herself, finally, speak: why for 400 years did she contradict, withstand, and repugn the Romans—her very own—if their felicity was not her infelicity, and if the Romans’ becoming masters of affairs was not an obstacle to the common goods? ⁸ I do not inquire about the innumerable peoples of diverse nations, long before free, then conquered in war, led away from their fatherland, sold for a price, scattered in servitude—what at that time they would have preferred for themselves, what they thought about the Romans, what they judged about the times. ⁹ I omit the kings of great resources, great forces, great glory, long most powerful, at some time captured, servilely chained, sent under the yoke, driven before the chariot, butchered in prison: to seek out their verdict is as foolish as it is hard not to grieve at their misery.

¹⁰ Nos, nos inquam ipsos uitaeque nostrae electionem, cui adquieuimus, consulamus. maiores nostri bella gesserunt, bellis fatigati pacem petentes tributa obtulerunt: tributum pretium pacis est. ¹¹ nos tributa dependimus, ne bella patiamur, ac per hoc in portu, ad quem illi tandem pro euadendis malorum tempestatibus confugerunt, nos consistimus et manemus.

¹⁰ We, we, I say, let us consult ourselves and the election of our life, to which we have acquiesced. our ancestors waged wars; wearied by wars, seeking peace, they offered tributes: tribute is the price of peace. ¹¹ we pay tributes, lest we suffer wars, and through this, in the port to which they at last fled for the sake of escaping the tempests of evils, we take our stand and remain.

igitur nostra tempora uiderim utrum felicia; certe feliciora illis ducimus, qui quod illi ultime delegerunt nos continue possidemus. ¹² inquietudo enim bellorum, qua illi attriti sunt, nobis ignota est. in otio autem, quod illi post imperium Caesaris natiuitatemque Christi tenuiter gustauerunt, nos nascimur et senescimus; quod illis erat debita pensio seruitutis nobis est libera conlatio defensionis, ¹³ tantumque interest inter praeterita praesentiaque tempora, ut quod Roma in usum luxuriae suae ferro extorquebat a nostris, nunc in usum communis reipublicae conferat ipsa nobiscum.

Therefore I would see whether our times are happy; certainly we deem them happier than theirs, we who continuously possess that which they at last chose. ¹² For the disquiet of wars, by which they were worn down, is unknown to us. In leisure, however, which they, after the imperium of Caesar and the nativity of Christ, tasted but lightly, we are born and grow old; what for them was a due payment of servitude is for us a free contribution of defense, ¹³ and so great is the difference between past and present times, that what Rome, for the use of her luxury, used to extort by iron from our people, now she herself contributes with us for the use of the common republic.

aut si ab aliquo dicitur tolerabiliores parentibus nostris Romanos hostes fuisse, quam nobis Gothos esse, audiat et intellegat, quanto aliter quam circa se ipsum agitur sibi esse uideatur.

or if by someone it is said that the Romans were more tolerable enemies to our forefathers than the Goths are to us, let him hear and understand how much otherwise matters are managed than, with respect to himself, they seem to be.

¹⁴ Olim cum bella toto orbe feruebant, quaeque prouincia suis regibus suis legibus suisque moribus utebatur, nec erat societas adfectionum, ubi dissidebat diuersitas potestatum; postremo solutas et barbaras gentes quid tandem ad societatem adduceret, quas diuersis sacrorum ritibus institutas etiam religio separabat? ¹⁵ si quis igitur tunc acerbitate malorum uictus patriam cum hoste deseruit, quem tandem ignotum locum ignotus adiit? quam gentem generaliter hostem hostis orauit?

¹⁴ Formerly, when wars were seething throughout the whole world, and each province made use of its own kings, its own laws, and its own mores, nor was there a society of affections where the diversity of powers was at variance; finally, what, at length, would bring loose and barbarous peoples into a society, whom religion also separated, being trained by diverse rites of sacred things? ¹⁵ If therefore at that time someone, conquered by the bitterness of evils, deserted his fatherland together with the enemy, what, at length, unknown place did he, unknown, approach? what nation, generally an enemy, did an enemy implore?

cui se congressu primo credidit, non societate nominis inuitatus, non communione iuris adductus, non religionis unitate securus ? ¹⁶ an parum exempli dederunt Busiris in Aegypto peregrinorum infeliciter incurrentium impiissimus immolator, crudelissima circa aduenas Dianae Tauricae litora sed magis sacra crudelia, Thracia cum Polymestore suo usque ad propinquos hospites scelerata ? et ne antiquitatibus uidear immorari, testis est Roma de Pompeio interfecto, testis Aegyptus de interfectore Ptolemaeo.

To whom did he entrust himself at the first encounter, not invited by the society of the name, not led by the communion of law, not made secure by the unity of religion ? ¹⁶ Or did they give too little example—Busiris in Egypt, the most impious immolator of foreigners who unhappily rushed in; the most cruel shores of Tauric Diana toward newcomers, or rather her sacred rites more cruel; Thrace, with its Polymestor, criminal even toward kin-guests? And lest I seem to linger on antiquities, Rome is witness concerning Pompey slain, Egypt is witness concerning his slayer Ptolemy.

[2] Mihi autem prima qualiscumque motus perturbatione fugienti, quia de confugiendi statione securo, ubique patria, ubique lex et religio mea est.² nunc me Africa tam libenter excepit quam confidenter accessi; nunc me, inquam, ista Africa excepit pace simplici, sinu proprio, iure communi, de qua aliquando dictum et uere dictum est
hospitio prohibemur harenae,
Bella cient primaque uetant consistere terra;
nunc ultro ad suscipiendos socios religionis et pacis suae beniuolum late gremium pandit atque ultro fessos, quos foueat, inuitat. ³ latitudo orientis, septentrionis copiositas, meridiana diffusio, magnarum insularum largissimae tutissimaeque sedes mei iuris et nominis sunt, quia ad Christianos et Romanos Romanus et Christianus accedo.

[2] For me, however, fleeing at the first, whatever, movement of perturbation, since I am secure about a station of refuge, everywhere is my fatherland, everywhere my law and my religion.² Now Africa has received me as gladly as I approached confidently; now, I say, that Africa has received me with simple peace, in its own bosom, under common right, about which it was once said—and truly said—
we are barred from hospitality by the sands,
they stir wars and forbid us to stand on the very first land;
now, of its own accord, for receiving associates of its religion and its peace, it widely opens its benevolent lap and, moreover, invites the weary, whom it may cherish. ³ The breadth of the East, the abundance of the North, the southern diffusion, the most ample and safest seats of the great islands are of my right and name, because as a Roman and a Christian I come to Christians and Romans.

⁴ non timeo deos hospitis mei, non timeo religionem eius necem meam, non habeo talem quem pertimescam locum, ubi et possessori liceat perpetrare quod uelit et peregrino non liceat adhibere quod conuenit, ubi sit ius hospitis quod meum non sit; ⁵ unus Deus, qui temporibus, quibus ipse innotescere uoluit, hanc regni statuit unitatem, ab omnibus et diligitur et timetur; eaedem leges, quae uni Deo subiectae sunt, ubique dominantur; ubicumque ignotus accessero, repentinam uim tamquam destitutus non pertimesco. ⁶ inter Romanos, ut dixi, Romanus, inter Christianos Christianus, inter homines homo legibus inploro rempublicam, religione conscientiam, communione naturam. utor temporarie omni terra quasi patria, quia quae uera est et illa quam amo patria in terra penitus non est.

⁴ I do not fear the gods of my host, I do not fear his religion as my death; I do not have such a place to dread, where both it is permitted to the possessor to perpetrate what he wills and it is not permitted to the pilgrim/stranger to apply what is fitting, where there may be a right of the host which is not mine; ⁵ one God, who at the times at which he himself willed to become known, established this unity of the realm, is by all both loved and feared; the same laws, which are subjected to the one God, everywhere dominate; wherever I shall have approached unknown, I do not fear sudden violence as though abandoned. ⁶ among Romans, as I said, a Roman; among Christians, a Christian; among human beings, a human being: by laws I implore the commonwealth, by religion conscience, by communion nature. I use for a time every land as if a fatherland, because the true one, and that fatherland which I love, is not at all on earth.

⁷ nihil perdidi, ubi nihil amaui, totumque habeo, quando quem diligo mecum est, maxime quia et apud omnes idem est, qui me non modo notum omnibus uerum et proximum facit, nec egentem deserit, quia ipsius est terra et plenitudo eius, ex qua omnibus omnia iussit esse communia. ⁸ haec sunt nostrorum temporum bona: quae in totum uel in tranquillitate praesentium uel in spe futurorum uel in perfugio communi non habuere maiores, ac per hoc incessabilia bella gesserunt, quia, mutandarum sedium communione non libera, persistendo in sedibus suis aut infeliciter necati sunt aut turpiter seruierunt. quod clarius promptiusque ipsis ueterum gestis per ordinem explicitis aperietur.

⁷ I have lost nothing, where I loved nothing, and I have the whole, since the one whom I love is with me, especially because he is the same among all, who makes me not only known to all but also a neighbor, nor does he desert me as indigent, because the earth is his and its fullness, from which he has ordered that all things be common to all. ⁸ These are the goods of our times: which, in sum, our elders did not have either in the tranquility of present things or in the hope of future things or in a common refuge; and through this they waged incessant wars, because, the sharing for the changing of abodes being not free, by persisting in their seats they were either unhappily slain or shamefully served. Which will be made clearer and more readily apparent by the deeds of the ancients themselves unfolded in order.

[3] Anno ab urbe condita DCVI, hoc est eodem anno, quo et Carthago deleta est, Cn. Cornelio Lentulo L. Mummio consulibus ruinam Carthaginis euersio Corinthi subsecuta est, duarumque potentissimarum urbium paruo unius temporis interuallo per diuersas mundi partes miserabile conluxit incendium.² nam cum Metellus praetor Achaeos Boeotiosque coniunctos duobus bellis, hoc est primum apud Thermopylas, ³ iterum in Phocide uicisset - quorum priore bello occisa esse XX milia, secundo VII milia caesa Claudius historicus refert, Valerius et Antias in Achaia pugnatum et XX milia Achaeorum cum duce suo Diaeo cecidisse confirmant, Polybius Achiuus quamuis tunc in Africa cum Scipione fuerit, tamen, quia domesticam cladem ignorare non potuit, semel in Achaia pugnatum Critolao duce adserit Diaeum uero adducentem ex Arcadia militem ab eodem Metello praetore oppressum cum exercitu docet; ⁴ sed de uarietate discordantium historicorum aliquanta iam diximus, quorum sufficiat detecta haec et male nota mendaciorum nota, quia parum credendum esse in ceteris euidenter ostendunt qui in his quoque, quae ipsi uidere, diuersi sunt - ⁵ igitur post extincta totius Achaiae praesidia destitutarum euersionem urbium Metello praetore meditante consul Mummius repentinus cum paucis uenit in castra. qui dimisso statim Metello Corinthum sine mora expugnauit, urbem toto tunc orbe longe omnium opulentissimam, quippe quae uelut officina omnium artificum atque artificiorum et emporium commune Asiae atque Europae per multa retro saecula fuit.

[3] In the year from the founding of the City 606, that is, in the same year in which Carthage too was destroyed, under the consuls Gnaeus Cornelius Lentulus and Lucius Mummius, the overthrow of Corinth followed the ruin of Carthage, and the pitiable conflagration of two most powerful cities, within a small interval of one time and through different parts of the world, blazed together.² For when Metellus the praetor had defeated the Achaeans and Boeotians joined together in two wars, that is, first at Thermopylae, ³ again in Phocis - of which, in the earlier war, 20 thousand were slain, in the second 7 thousand cut down, as Claudius the historian reports; Valerius and Antias confirm that the fighting was in Achaia and that 20 thousand Achaeans with their leader Diaeus fell; Polybius the Achaean, although then in Africa with Scipio, nevertheless, because he could not be ignorant of a domestic disaster, asserts that there was a single battle in Achaia under the leader Critolaus, and shows that Diaeus, however, bringing up soldiery from Arcadia, was crushed with his army by the same praetor Metellus; ⁴ but about the variety of disagreeing historians we have already said somewhat, and let this brand of their lies, uncovered and ill-noted, suffice, since they plainly show that too little credence is to be given in the rest, who are at variance even in these things which they themselves saw - ⁵ therefore, after the garrisons of all Achaia had been extinguished, with the praetor Metellus contemplating the overthrow of the cities left desolate, the consul Mummius, unexpected, came with a few into the camp. He, with Metellus immediately dismissed, without delay stormed Corinth, a city then by far the most opulent of all in the whole world, inasmuch as it had been, as it were, a workshop of all artisans and artifices and a common emporium of Asia and Europe for many ages back.

⁶ permissa crudeliter etiam captiuis praedandi licentia sic omnia caedibus ignibusque conpleta sunt, ut de murorum ambitu quasi e camino in unum apicem coartatum exundaret incendium. itaque plurima parte populi ferro flammisque consumpta reliqua sub corona uendita est; urbe incensa muri funditus diruti sunt; muralis lapis in puluerem redactus, praeda ingens erepta est. ⁷ sane cum propter multitudinem et uarietatem statuarum simulacrorumque in illo ciuitatis incendio permixta in unum auri argenti atque aeris omniaque simul metalla fluxissent, nouum genus metalli factum est, unde usque in hodiernum diem siue ex ipso siue ex imitatione eius aes Corinthium, sicut memoriae traditum est, et Corinthia uasa dicuntur.

⁶ with the license of plundering even for the captives cruelly permitted, thus all things were filled with slaughters and fires, so that from the circumference of the walls the conflagration, as if from a furnace, compressed into a single apex, overflowed. and so, with a very large part of the people consumed by sword and flames, the rest was sold “under the crown” at auction; the city having been burned, the walls were torn down to the foundations; the wall-stone was reduced to powder; immense booty was seized. ⁷ indeed, on account of the multitude and variety of statues and simulacra, in that conflagration of the city, the gold, silver, and bronze, and all the metals together, having been mixed into one, had melted, a new kind of metal was made, whence even to the present day, whether from it itself or from imitation of it, Corinthian bronze, as has been handed down to memory, and Corinthian vessels are so called.

[4] Isdem consulibus Viriatus in Hispania genere Lusitanus, homo pastoralis et latro, primum infestando uias deinde uastando prouincias postremo exercitus praetorum et consulum Romanorum uincendo fugando subigendo maximo terrori Romanis omnibus fuit.² siquidem Hiberum et Tagum, maxima et diuersissimorum locorum flumina, late transgredienti et peruaganti C. Vecilius praetor occurrit: qui continuo caeso usque ad internecionem paene omni exercitu suo uix ipse praetor cum paucis fuga lapsus euasit. ³ deinde C. Plautium praetorem idem Viriatus multis proeliis fractum fugauit.

[4] In the same consulship, Viriatus in Spain, of the Lusitanian stock, a pastoral man and a brigand, first by infesting the roads, then by devastating the provinces, and at last by conquering, routing, and subjugating the armies of Roman praetors and consuls, was a very great terror to all the Romans.² Indeed, as he was widely crossing and ranging through the Hiberus and the Tagus, the greatest rivers and of very diverse regions, the praetor C. Vecilius met him; and forthwith, with almost his entire army cut down to extermination, the praetor himself scarcely escaped, slipping away in flight with a few. ³ Then the same Viriatus routed the praetor C. Plautius, shattered in many battles.

post etiam Claudius Unimammus cum magno instructu belli contra Viriatum missus quasi pro abolenda superiore macula turpiorem ipse auxit infamiam. ⁴ nam congressus cum Viriato uniuersas quas secum deduxerat copias maximasque uires Romani amisit exercitus. Viriatus trabeas fasces ceteraque insignia Romana in montibus suis tropaea praefixit.

afterwards also Claudius Unimammus, sent with a great equipment of war against Viriatus, as if for abolishing the previous blot, himself increased a more shameful infamy. ⁴ for, having engaged with Viriatus, the Roman army lost all the forces which he had led with him and its greatest strength. Viriatus affixed on his mountains as trophies the trabeae, the fasces, and the other Roman insignia.

⁵ Eodem tempore CCC Lusitani cum mille Romanis in quodam saltu contraxere pugnam, in qua LXX Lusitanos, Romanos autem CCCXX cecidisse Claudius refert; ⁶ et cum uictores Lusitani sparsi ac securi abirent, unus ex his longe a ceteris segregatus cum, circumfusis equitibus pedes ipse deprehensus unius eorum equo lancea perfosso ipsius equitis ad unum gladii ictum caput desecuisset, ita omnes metu perculit, ut prospectantibus cunctis ipse contemptim atque otiosus abscederet.

⁵ At the same time 300 Lusitanians with 1,000 Romans in a certain mountain pass engaged battle, in which 70 Lusitanians, but 320 Romans, fell, Claudius reports; ⁶ and when the victorious Lusitanians, scattered and secure, were going away, one of them, far separated from the rest—when, with horsemen surrounding, he himself, on foot, had been seized—having with a lance perforated the horse of one of them, and with a single stroke of the sword cut off the very rider’s head, so struck all with fear that, while all were looking on, he himself departed contemptuously and at leisure.

⁷ Appio Claudio Q. Caecilio Metello consulibus Appius Claudius aduersus Salassos Gallos congressus et uictus quinque milia militum perdidit. reparata pugna, quinque milia hostium occidit. sed cum iuxta legem, qua constitutum erat, ut quisque quinque milia hostium peremisset triumphandi haberet potestatem, iste quoque triumphum expetisset, propter superiora uero damna non impetrauisset, infami impudentia atque ambitione usus priuatis sumptibus triumphauit.

⁷ In the consulship of Appius Claudius and Q. Caecilius Metellus, Appius Claudius, having engaged against the Salassian Gauls and being defeated, lost five thousand soldiers. The battle having been renewed, he killed five thousand of the enemy. But when, according to the law by which it had been constituted that whoever had slain five thousand of the enemy should have the power of triumphing, this man too had sought a triumph, but on account of the earlier losses he had not obtained it, using infamous impudence and ambition he celebrated a triumph at his own private expense.

⁸ L. Caecilio Metello Q. Fabio Maximo Seruiliano consulibus inter cetera prodigia androgynus Romae uisus iussu haruspicum in mare mersus est. sed nihil impiae expiationis procuratio profecit; nam tanta subito pestilentia exorta est, ut ministri quoque faciendorum funerum primum non sufficerent deinde non essent; iamque etiam magnae domus uacuae uiuis plenae mortuis remanserunt: largissimae introrsum hereditates et nulli penitus heredes. ⁹ denique iam non solum in urbe uiuendi sed etiam adpropinquandi ad urbem negabatur facultas, tam saeui per totam urbem tabescentium sub tectis atque in stratis suis cadauerum putores exhalabantur.

⁸ In the consulship of L. Caecilius Metellus and Q. Fabius Maximus Servilianus, among the other prodigies an androgynous being was seen at Rome and, by order of the haruspices, was plunged into the sea. But the procuration of that impious expiation accomplished nothing; for so great a pestilence suddenly arose, that the ministers even of performing funerals at first were not sufficient and then did not exist; and now even great houses, empty of the living, remained full of the dead: most lavish inheritances within, and no heirs at all. ⁹ Finally, now the faculty was denied not only of living in the city but even of approaching the city, so savage were the putrid odors of corpses wasting away throughout the whole city, under roofs and on their own couches, being exhaled.

¹⁰ Expiatio illa crudelis et uiam mortibus hominum morte hominis struens tandem Romanis inter miserias suas erubescentibus, quam misera et uana esset, innotuit. ante enim in suffragium praeueniendae cladis est habita, et sic pestilentia consecuta est; quae tamen sine ullis sacrificiorum satisfactionibus tantummodo secundum mensuram arcani iudicii expleta correptione sedata est. ¹¹ quam si artifices illi circumuentionum haruspices sub ipsa ut adsolent declinatione morborum forte celebrassent, procul dubio sibi dis et ritibus suis reductae sanitatis gloriam uindicassent.

¹⁰ That cruel expiation, constructing a way for the deaths of men by the death of a man, at last, as the Romans blushed amid their own miseries, became known for how wretched and vain it was. For previously it had been held as a suffrage in favor of forestalling the calamity, and thus the pestilence followed; which, however, without any satisfactions of sacrifices, was quieted merely according to the measure of the arcane judgment, the correction having been fulfilled. ¹¹ Which, if those craftsmen of circumventions, the haruspices, had by chance celebrated right at the very decline of the diseases, as they are wont, without doubt they would have claimed for themselves—for their gods and their rites—the glory of restored health.

ita misera et ad sacrilegia male religiosa ciuitas mendaciis, quibus liberari non poterat, ludebatur.

thus the city, wretched and ill-religious for sacrileges, was being played with by mendacities, by which it could not be liberated.

¹² Igitur Fabius consul contra Lusitanos et Viriatum dimicans Bucciam oppidum, quod Viriatus obsidebat, depulsis hostibus liberauit et in deditionem cum plurimis aliis castellis recepit. fecit facinus etiam ultimis barbaris Scythiae, non dicam Romanae fidei et moderationi, exsecrabile. quingentis enim principibus eorum, quos societate inuitatos deditionis iure susceperat, manus praecidit.

¹² Therefore Fabius, consul, fighting against the Lusitanians and Viriatus, freed the town of Buccia, which Viriatus was besieging, the enemies having been driven off, and received it into surrender along with very many other forts. He also did a deed execrable even to the farthest barbarians of Scythia, not to say to Roman faith and moderation. For he cut off the hands of five hundred of their chiefs, whom, invited into alliance, he had received under the right of surrender.

¹³ Pompeius sequentis anni consul fines Numantinorum ingressus accepta maxima clade discessit, non solum exercitu paene omni profligato uerum etiam plurimis nobilium, qui ei militiae aderant, interemptis.

¹³ Pompey, consul of the following year, having entered the borders of the Numantines, withdrew after suffering a very great calamity, not only with almost the entire army routed but also with very many of the nobles, who were present with him in the military service, slain.

¹⁴ Viriatus autem cum per quattuordecim annos Romanos duces atque exercitus protriuisset, insidiis suorum interfectus est, in hoc solo Romanis circa eum fortiter agentibus, quod percussores eius indignos praemio iudicarunt.

¹⁴ Viriathus, however, after he had for fourteen years worn down Roman generals and armies, was slain by the treachery of his own men; in this alone did the Romans act bravely with respect to him, that they judged his assassins unworthy of a reward.

¹⁵ At ego non modo nunc, uerum etiam saepe intertexere orientis illa inextricabilia bella poteram, quae raro umquam nisi sceleribus aut incipiunt aut terminantur; sed Romanorum, cum quibus nobis actio est, tanta sunt, ut iure fastidiantur aliena.

¹⁵ But I not only now, but even often could interweave those inextricable wars of the Orient, which rarely ever either begin or are terminated except by crimes; but the affairs of the Romans, with whom our action lies, are so great that alien matters are rightly disdained.

¹⁶ Mithridates tunc siquidem, rex Parthorum sextus ab Arsace, uicto Demetrii praefecto Babylonam urbem finesque eius uniuersos uictor inuasit. omnes praeterea gentes, quae inter Hydaspen fluuium et Indum iacent, subegit. ad Indiam quoque cruentum extendit imperium.

¹⁶ Mithridates then indeed, king of the Parthians, the sixth from Arsaces, with the prefect of Demetrius defeated, as victor invaded the city of Babylon and all its borders in their entirety. Moreover, he subdued all the nations which lie between the river Hydaspes and the Indus. He extended his bloody imperium to India as well.

¹⁷ Demetrium ipsum secundo sibi bello occurrentem uicit et cepit: quo capto Diodotus quidam cum Alexandro filio regnum eius et regium nomen usurpauit. ¹⁸ qui postea ipsum Alexandrum filium, quem participem periculi in peruadendo regno habuerat, ne in obtinendo consortem haberet, occidit.

¹⁷ He defeated and captured Demetrius himself, who met him in a second war: with him captured, a certain Diodotus, together with his son Alexander, usurped his kingdom and the royal name. ¹⁸ who afterwards killed Alexander, his son, whom he had had as a participant in the peril in overrunning the kingdom, so that he might not have him as a consort in holding it.

¹⁹M. Aemilio Lepido C. Hostilio Mancino consulibus prodigia apparuere diuersa et, quantum in ipsis fuit, ex more curata sunt. sed non semper aucupatoribus euentuum et structoribus fallaciarum haruspicibus opportuni casus suffragantur.²⁰ namque Mancinus consul postquam a Popilio apud Numantiam suscepit exercitum, adeo infeliciter proelia cuncta gessit atque in id suprema desperatione perductus est, ut turpissimum foedus cum Numantinis facere cogeretur.

¹⁹ In the consulship of M. Aemilius Lepidus and C. Hostilius Mancinus, prodigies appeared diverse, and, as far as was in them, were cared for according to custom. But not always do favorable chances lend support to the haruspices, hunters of outcomes and constructors of fallacies. ²⁰ For the consul Mancinus, after he took over the army from Popilius near Numantia, conducted all the battles with such ill fortune, and was brought to such a pitch of ultimate desperation, that he was compelled to make a most disgraceful treaty with the Numantines.

²¹ quamuis et Pompeius iam aliud aeque infame foedus cum isdem Numantinis paulo ante pepigisset, senatus dissolui foedus et Mancinum dedi Numantinis praecepit, qui nudato corpore manibusque post tergum reuinctis ante portas Numantinorum expositus ibique usque in noctem manens, a suis desertus, ab hostibus autem non susceptus lacrimabile utrisque spectaculum praebuit.

²¹ although Pompeius too had a little before struck another equally infamous treaty with the same Numantines, the senate ordered the treaty to be dissolved and that Mancinus be given over to the Numantines; he, with his body stripped and his hands bound behind his back, having been set before the gates of the Numantines and remaining there until night, deserted by his own men but not received by the enemies, offered to both a lamentable spectacle.

[5] Exclamare hoc loco dolor exigit. cur falso uobis, Romani, magna illa nomina iustitiae fidei fortitudinis et misericordiae uindicatis? a Numantinis haec uerius discite.

[5] At this point pain demands an outcry. Why do you, Romans, falsely claim as yours those great names of justice, faith, fortitude, and mercy? From the Numantines learn these more truly.

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

² was there need of fortitude ? by fighting they conquered. was good faith being demanded? trusting others according to themselves, those whom they could have killed, they let go under a pacted treaty.

³ iustitia probanda erat? probauit eam uel tacitus senatus, cum idem Numantini per legatos suos aut inuiolatam pacem solam aut omnes, quos pignore pacis accepto uiuos dimiserant, reposcebant. ⁴ misericordia examinanda uidebatur?

³ Was justice to be proved? Even the Senate, silent, approved it, when these same Numantines through their legates were demanding either only an inviolate peace, or all those whom, a pledge of peace having been received, they had sent away alive. ⁴ Did mercy seem to need to be examined?

satis documenti dederunt uel emittendo ad uitam inimicum exercitum uel ad poenam non recipiendo Mancinum. ⁵ Mancinusne rogo dedendus fuit, qui uicti exercitus inpendentem trucidationem praetento umbone pacti foederis dispulit, qui periclitantes patriae uires in meliora tempora reseruauit? ⁶ aut, si displicuit foedus quod pactum est, cur miles hoc pignore redemptus aut, cum reuerteretur, receptus est aut, cum repeteretur, redditus non est?

they gave enough proof either by releasing the enemy army to life, or by not taking Mancinus back for punishment. ⁵ was Mancinus, I ask, to be surrendered—he who with the shield held forth of the pact of the treaty drove off the impending slaughter of the defeated army, who reserved the imperiled forces of the fatherland for better times? ⁶ or, if the treaty that was pacted displeased, why was the soldiery, redeemed by this pledge, either received when it returned, or, when it was demanded back, not handed back?

aut, si placuit seruati militis qualiscumque prouisio, cur Mancinus, qui hoc pepigit, solus deditus fuit?

or, if the provision for the preserved soldier, of whatever kind, was approved, why was Mancinus, who stipulated this, alone delivered up?

⁷ Nuper Varro, ut praepropera pugna iniretur, collegam Paulum obluctantem impulit, trepidantem praecipitauit exercitum, infelices copias apud infames illas Romanis cladibus Cannas non disposuit certamini sed opposuit morti; plus quam XL milia ibi militum Romanorum sola inpatientia sua, de qua sibi uictoriam iam dudum Hannibal praesumebat, amisit. ⁸ collega etiam Paulo - quo tandem uiro! - perdito, nouissime in urbem paene solus impudentissime redire ausus est meruitque impudentiae suae praemium.

⁷ Recently Varro, in order that an over-hasty battle be entered upon, pushed his colleague Paulus, who was resisting, forced the army, trembling, headlong; he did not array the unhappy forces at those Cannae infamous to the Romans for disasters for combat but set them against death; there he lost more than 40 thousand Roman soldiers by his sole impatience, on account of which Hannibal had long since been presuming victory for himself. ⁸ with his colleague Paulus also — what a man, indeed! — lost, at last he dared most shamelessly to return into the city almost alone, and he earned the reward of his impudence.

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

⁹ for thanks were publicly offered in the senate to him, because he had not despaired of the republic, which, however, he himself had made desperate.

¹⁰ Porro autem Mancinus, qui sorte bellica circumuentum exercitum ne perderet laborauit, ab eodem senatu deditione damnatus est. ¹¹ scio, Romani, et illud in Varrone displicuit, sed tempori concessum est, et hoc in Mancino placuit, sed secundum tempus praesumptum est; atque ideo ab initio perfecistis, ut nec ciuis consulat conuenienter ingratis nec hostis fideliter credat infidis.

¹⁰ Moreover, however, Mancinus, who labored not to lose the army surrounded by the lot of war, was by that same senate condemned on account of surrender. ¹¹ I know, Romans, that that too in Varro was displeasing, yet it was conceded to the moment; and this in Mancinus was pleasing, yet it was presumed with reference to the subsequent time; and thus from the beginning you have brought it to pass, that neither does a citizen, in fitting fashion, take counsel for the ungrateful, nor does an enemy trust faithfully the unfaithful.

¹² Interea Brutus in ulteriore Hispania LX milia Gallaecorum, qui Lusitanis auxilio uenerant, asperrimo bello et difficili quamuis incautos circumuenisset, oppressit: quorum in eo proelio L milia occisa, sex milia capta referuntur, pauci fuga euaserunt. ¹³ in citeriore Hispania Lepidus proconsule Vaccaeos, innoxiam gentem et supplicem, etiam senatu prohibente pertinaciter expugnare temptauit. sed mox accepta clade grauissima improbae pertinaciae poenas luit.

¹² Meanwhile Brutus in Further Spain crushed 60 thousand Gallaecians, who had come as aid to the Lusitanians, in a most harsh and difficult war, although he had surrounded them when off their guard: of whom in that battle 50 thousand are reported slain, six thousand captured, few escaped by flight. ¹³ in Nearer Spain, with Lepidus as proconsul, he stubbornly attempted to storm the Vaccaei, a harmless and suppliant nation, even with the senate forbidding it. But soon, having received a most serious defeat, he paid the penalties of his wicked pertinacity.

sex milia quippe Romanorum in hoc iniusto bello iustissime caesa sunt, reliqui exuti castris, armis etiam perditis, euaserunt.

for indeed six thousand Romans in this unjust war were most justly cut down, the rest, stripped of their camp, with their arms also lost, escaped.

¹⁴ Nec minus turpis haec sub Lepido clades quam sub Mancino fuit. ita nunc sibi haec tempora loco felicitatis adscribant ut non dixerim Hispani tot pulsati fatigatique bellis, sed uel ipsi saltem Romani tam continuis subacti cladibus totiensque superati; ¹⁵ ut non exprobrem, quot praetores eorum, quot legati, quot consules, quot legiones quantique exercitus consumpti sint, illud solum reuoluo, quanta fuerit timoris amentia miles Romanus hebetatus, ut iam ne ad experimentum quidem belli cohibere pedem atque offirmare animum posset, sed mox conspecto Hispano specialiter hoste diffugiens uinci se paene prius crederet quam uideri. ¹⁶ quo argumento patet apud utrosque misera illa tempora iudicata, cum et Hispani etsi uincere poterant, inuiti tamen desererent dulcia otia sua et bella externa tolerarent, et Romani quanto inpudentius alienae quieti sese ingererent, tanto turpius uincerentur.

¹⁴ This disaster under Lepidus was no less disgraceful than under Mancinus. So now let these times write themselves down as in the place of felicity in such wise that I would not say the Spaniards, so often beaten back and wearied by wars, but even the Romans themselves at least, subdued by such continual disasters and so often overcome; ¹⁵ so that I do not upbraid how many of their praetors, how many legates, how many consuls, how many legions and how great armies were consumed, this alone I turn over: how great was the madness of fear, the Roman soldier dulled, such that now he could not even for a trial of war hold his ground and brace his spirit, but, once the Spaniard was seen, specifically as the enemy, scattering in flight he would believe himself conquered almost before being seen. ¹⁶ By which argument it is plain that among both parties those times were judged wretched: since both the Spaniards, even if they were able to conquer, nevertheless unwillingly deserted their sweet leisures and endured foreign wars, and the Romans, the more impudently they thrust themselves upon another’s quiet, so much the more shamefully they were conquered.

[6] Seruio Fuluio Flacco Q. Calpurnio Pisone consulibus Romae puer ex ancilla natus quadripes quadrimanus, oculis quattuor, auribus totidem, natura uirili duplex.² in Sicilia mons Aetna uastos ignes eructauit ac fudit, qui torrentum modo per prona praecipites proxima quaeque corripientibus exussere flammis, longinquiora autem fauillis calidis cum uapore graui late uolitantibus torruerunt: quod Siciliae semper uernaculum genus monstri non portendere malum adsolet sed inferre. in Bononiensi agro fruges in arboribus enatae sunt.

[6] Under the consulship of Servius Fulvius Flaccus and Quintus Calpurnius Piso, at Rome a boy was born from a handmaid, quadrupedal and quadrimanous, with four eyes, just as many ears, a double virile nature.² In Sicily Mount Aetna belched forth and poured out vast fires, which, in the manner of torrents rushing headlong down the slopes, burned up with flames whatever was nearest, but the more distant things they parched with hot cinders flying far and wide with heavy vapor: a kind of monster vernacular to Sicily that is wont not to portend evil, but to inflict it. In the Bolognese territory crops sprang up on trees.

³ igitur in Sicilia bellum seruile ortum est, quod adeo graue et atrox multitudine seruorum, instructu copiarum, magnitudine uirium fuit, ⁴ ut, non dicam praetores Romanos, quos penitus profligauit, sed consules quoque terruerit. nam LXX milia seruorum tunc in arma conspirantium fuisse referuntur, excepta urbe Messana, quae seruos liberaliter habitos in pace continuit. ⁵ ceterum Sicilia in hoc quoque miserior, quia insula et numquam erga statum suum iuris idonei nunc tyrannis subiecta nunc seruis, uel illis dominatu improbo exigentibus seruitutem uel istis praesumptione peruersa conmutantibus libertatem, maxime quia clausa undique mari egerere foras non facile potest intestinum malum.

³ therefore in Sicily a servile war arose, which was so grave and atrocious by the multitude of slaves, by the array of forces, by the magnitude of their strength, ⁴ that—I will not say the Roman praetors, whom it utterly overthrew, but even the consuls—it terrified. For 70,000 slaves are reported then to have conspired into arms, except for the city of Messana, which kept in peace slaves who had been treated liberally. ⁵ moreover, Sicily was in this too the more wretched, because it is an island, and never, with respect to its own condition, furnished with law suitable to it, now subjected to tyrants, now to slaves—either those by a wicked dominion exacting servitude, or these by a perverse presumption exchanging liberty—especially because, enclosed on all sides by the sea, it cannot easily cast outside an internal evil.

⁶ uiperinam quippe conceptionem perditioni suae aluit sua libidine auctam, sua morte uicturam. in hoc autem seruilis tumultus excitatio quanto rarior ceteris tanto truculentior est, quia intentione commouetur libera multitudo ut patriam augeat, seruilis ut perdat.

⁶ indeed he nourished a viperine conception for his own perdition, augmented by his own lust, destined to outlive his own death. but in this matter the excitation of a servile tumult, the rarer it is than the others, the more truculent it is, because a free multitude is moved by its intention to augment the fatherland, a servile one to destroy it.

[7] Anno ab urbe condita DCXX cum maior paene infamia de foedere apud Numantiam pacto quam apud Caudinas quondam furculas pudorem Romanae frontis oneraret, Scipio Africanus consensu omnium tribuum consul creatus atque ad expugnandam Numantiam cum exercitu missus est.² Numantia autem citerioris Hispaniae, haud procul a Vaccaeis et Cantabris in capite Gallaeciae sita, ultima Celtiberorum fuit. ³ haec per annos quattuordecim cum solis quattuor milibus suorum quadraginta milia Romanorum non solum sustinuit sed etiam uicit pudendisque foederibus adfecit.

[7] In the year from the city’s founding 620, when almost a greater infamy from the treaty (pact) made at Numantia than once at the Caudine Forks burdened the shame of the Roman brow, Scipio Africanus, by the consensus of all the tribes, was created consul and was sent with an army to storm Numantia.² Now Numantia, of Nearer Spain, situated not far from the Vaccaei and the Cantabri at the head of Gallaecia, was the last of the Celtiberians. ³ This city, for fourteen years, with only four thousand of its own, not only withstood forty thousand Romans but even conquered them and afflicted them with shameful treaties.

⁴ igitur Scipio Africanus Hispaniam ingressus non se ilico ingessit hostibus, ut quasi incautos circumueniret, sciens numquam hoc genus hominum adeo in otium corpore atque animo resolui, ut non ipsa qualitate habitudinis suae apparatus aliorum praecelleret, sed aliquamdiu militem suum in castris uelut in scholis exercuit. ⁵ et cum partem aestatis totamque hiemem ne adtemptata quidem pugna transegisset, sic quoque parum propemodum hac profecit industria. ⁶ namque ubi copia pugnandi facta est, exercitus Romanus oppressus impetu Numantinorum terga conuertit; sed increpatione et minis obiectantis sese consulis manuque retinentis tandem indignatus in hostem rediit et quem fugiebat fugere conpulit.

⁴ therefore Scipio Africanus, having entered Spain, did not immediately thrust himself upon the enemies, as if to surround the unwary, knowing that this kind of men never relax into leisure in body and mind to such a degree that the very quality of their habit/condition does not excel the apparatus of others; but for some time he trained his soldier in the camp as if in schools. ⁵ and when he had spent part of the summer and the whole winter with not even a battle attempted, even thus he made scarcely, well‑nigh too little, progress by this industry. ⁶ for when an opportunity of fighting was afforded, the Roman army, overwhelmed by the onrush of the Numantines, turned their backs; but at the increpation and threats of the consul, who was throwing himself in their way and holding them back with his hand, at length, indignant, they returned against the enemy and compelled to flee those whom they were fleeing.

difficilis tunc in relatu fides: Numantinos et fugauere et fugientes uidere Romani. ⁷ unde quamuis Scipio, quia praeter spem acciderat, laetatus et gloriatus esset, tamen ultra bello aduersum eos audendum non esse professus est. ⁸ itaque Scipio insistendum inopinatis prouentibus censuit, urbem ipsam obsidione conclusit, fossa etiam circumdedit, cuius latitudo pedibus decem, altitudo uiginti fuit.

then belief is difficult in the relating: the Romans both routed the Numantines and saw themselves fleeing. ⁷ whence, although Scipio, because it had happened beyond hope, rejoiced and boasted, nevertheless he declared that it should not be dared to go further in war against them. ⁸ and so Scipio judged that the unexpected successes must be pressed; he enclosed the city itself with a siege, and even surrounded it with a ditch, whose width was ten feet, and its depth twenty.

⁹ ipsum deinde uallum sudibus praestructum crebris turribus conmuniuit, ut, si qua ab erumpente hoste in eum temptaretur inruptio, iam non quasi obsessor cum obsesso sed uersa uice obsessus cum obsessore pugnaret. ¹⁰ Numantia autem in tumulo sita haud procul a flumine Durio tria milia passuum ambitu muri amplexabatur; quamuis aliqui adserant eam et paruo situ et sine muro fuisse: ¹¹ unde credibile est, quia hoc spatii cura alendorum custodiendorumque pecorum uel etiam exercendi ruris commodo cum bello premerentur incluserint, ipsi arcem paruam natura munitam obtinentes; alioquin tantam paucitatem hominum tam amplum urbis spatium non munire magis quam prodere uidebatur. ¹² igitur conclusi diu Numantini et fame trucidati deditionem sui obtulerunt, si tolerabilia iuberentur, saepe etiam orantes iustae pugnae facultatem, ut tamquam uiris mori liceret.

⁹ he then fortified the rampart itself, palisaded with stakes and with frequent towers, so that, if any incursion were attempted upon it by an enemy breaking out, he would fight now, with the role reversed, not as a besieger with the besieged but, the other way around, as the besieged with the besieger. ¹⁰ Numantia, however, situated on a mound not far from the river Durius, was encompassed by a wall with a circumference of three miles; although some assert that it was both of small extent and without a wall: ¹¹ whence it is credible that, because this space was convenient for the care and keeping of herds and even for cultivating the countryside, when they were pressed by war they enclosed it, they themselves holding a small citadel fortified by nature; otherwise, with so small a number of men, to hold so wide an expanse of city seemed not so much to fortify as to betray it. ¹² therefore, the Numantines, long enclosed and slaughtered by famine, offered their own surrender, if tolerable terms should be ordered, often also begging for the opportunity of a just fight, that it might be permitted to die as men.

¹³ ultime omnes duabus subito portis eruperunt, larga prius potione usi non uini, cuius ferax is locus non est, sed suco tritici per artem confecto, quem sucum a calefaciendo caeliam uocant. ¹⁴ suscitatur enim igne illa uis germinis madefactae frugis ac deinde siccatur et post in farinam redacta molli suco admiscetur, quo fermento sapor austeritatis et calor ebrietatis adicitur. hac igitur potione post longam famem recalescentes bello sese obtulerunt.

¹³ finally they all erupted suddenly by two gates, having first used a copious potion, not of wine—for that place is not fertile in it—but of the juice of wheat prepared by art, which juice, from heating, they call caelia. ¹⁴ for the power of the sprout of the moistened grain is roused by fire and then it is dried, and afterward, reduced into flour, it is mixed with a mild juice, by which ferment the savor of austerity and the heat of inebriation are added. therefore, by this potion, after long hunger, warming up again, they offered themselves to battle.

¹⁵ atrox diu certamen et usque ad periculum Romanorum fuit, iterumque Romani pugnare se aduersum Numantinos fugiendo probauissent, nisi sub Scipione pugnassent. Numantini interfectis suorum fortissimis bello cedunt, conpositis tamen ordinibus nec sicut fugientes in urbem reuertuntur, corpora interfectorum ad sepulturam oblata accipere noluerunt. ¹⁶ nouissima spe desperationis in mortem omnes destinati clausam urbem ipsi introrsum succenderunt cunctique pariter ferro ueneno atque igne consumpti sunt.

¹⁵ the contest was atrocious for a long time and even to the peril of the Romans, and the Romans would again have proved that they fight against the Numantines by fleeing, had they not fought under Scipio. The Numantines, with their bravest men slain, yield in war, yet with their ranks composed, and they do not return into the city like fugitives; they refused to receive the bodies of the slain, offered for burial. ¹⁶ with the latest hope of desperation, all destined for death, they themselves set the closed city ablaze from within, and all alike were consumed by iron, poison, and fire.

¹⁷ Romani nihil ex his penitus habuere uictis praeter securitatem suam; neque enim euersa Numantia uicisse se magis Numantinos quam euasisse duxerunt. ¹⁸ unum Numantinum uictoris catena non tenuit; unde triumphum dederit, Roma non uidit; aurum uel argentum, quod igni superesse potuisset, apud pauperes non fuit; arma et uestem ignis absumpsit.

¹⁷ The Romans had nothing at all from these utterly vanquished save their own security; for with Numantia overthrown they judged that they had escaped rather than conquered the Numantines. ¹⁸ Not a single Numantine did the victor’s chain hold; whence he might grant a triumph, Rome did not see; gold or silver, which could have survived the fire, was not among the poor; the fire consumed arms and clothing.

[8] Igitur ea tempestate, cum haec apud Numantiam gesta sunt, apud Romam Gracchorum seditiones agitabantur. Scipio autem cum deleta Numantia ceteras Hispaniae gentes pace conponeret, Thyresum quendam, Celticum principem, consuluit, qua ope res Numantina aut prius inuicta durasset aut post fuisset euersa. Thyresus respondit: concordia inuicta, discordia exitio fuit.

[8] Therefore, at that time when these things were done at Numantia, at Rome the seditions of the Gracchi were being agitated. But Scipio, when, Numantia having been destroyed, he was settling the other peoples of Spain by peace, consulted a certain Thyresus, a Celtic chieftain, by what aid the Numantine cause had either earlier endured unconquered or later had been overturned. Thyresus replied: concord made them unconquered; discord was their destruction.

² quod Romani tamquam sibi ac de se dictum exempli loco acceperunt, quippe quibus iam de seditionibus discordantis totius urbis nuntiabatur. Carthagine Numantiaque deleta moritur apud Romanos utilis de prouisione conlatio et oritur infamis de ambitione contentio. ³ Gracchus tribunus plebi iratus nobilitati, cur inter auctores Numantini foederis notatus esset, agrum a priuatis eatenus possessum populo diuidi statuit.

² which the Romans took as said as if for themselves and about themselves, by way of example, since to them news was already being reported of the seditions of the whole city in discord. With Carthage and Numantia destroyed, among the Romans a useful colloquy about provision dies, and an infamous contention about ambition arises. ³ Gracchus, tribune of the plebs, angered at the nobility because he had been marked among the authors of the Numantine treaty, decreed that land hitherto possessed by privates be divided to the people.

Octauio tribuno plebi obsistenti ademit imperium et successorem Minucium dedit. his causis senatum ira, populum superbia inuasit. ⁴ ac tunc forte Attalus, Eumenis filius, moriens testamento populum Romanum imperio Asiae succedere heredem iusserat.

From Octavius, the tribune of the plebs, who was resisting, he removed authority and appointed Minucius as successor. For these causes anger seized the Senate, pride the people. ⁴ And then by chance Attalus, son of Eumenes, as he was dying, by his testament had ordered that the Roman people should succeed as heir to the sovereignty of Asia.

Gracchus gratiam populi pretio adpetens legem tulit, uti pecunia, quae fuisset Attali, populo distribueretur. obsistente Nasica etiam Pompeius spopondit se Gracchum, cum primum magistratu abisset, accusaturum.

Gracchus, seeking the favor of the people at a price, proposed a law that the money which had been Attalus’s be distributed to the people. with Nasica opposing, even Pompeius pledged that he would prosecute Gracchus as soon as he had departed from his magistracy.

[9] Gracchus cum eniteretur, ut ipse tribunus plebi subsequenti anno permaneret, cumque comitiorum die seditiones populi accenderet, auctore Nasica inflammata nobilitas fragmentis subselliorum plebem fugauit.² Gracchus per gradus, qui sunt super Calpurnium fornicem, detracto amiculo fugiens ictus fragmento subsellii conruit rursusque adsurgens alio ictu clauae cerebro inpactae exanimatus est. ³ ducenti praeterea in ea seditione interfecti eorumque corpora in Tiberim proiecta sunt; ipsius quoque Gracchi inhumatum cadauer extabuit.

[9] Gracchus, when he was striving that he himself should remain tribune of the plebs for the following year, and when on the day of the comitia he was kindling popular seditions, with Nasica as instigator the nobility, inflamed, routed the plebs with fragments of the benches.² Gracchus, fleeing by the steps which are above the Calpurnian arch, his cloak dragged off, struck by a fragment of a bench collapsed, and rising again, by another blow—with a club driven into his brain—was rendered lifeless. ³ Two hundred moreover were killed in that sedition, and their bodies were thrown into the Tiber; the unburied corpse of Gracchus himself too putrefied.

⁴ orta praeterea in Sicilia belli seruilis contagio multas late infecit prouincias. nam et Minturnis CCCCL serui in crucem acti et Sinuessae ad quattuor milia seruorum a Q. Metello et Cn. Seruilio Caepione oppressa sunt; ⁵ in metallis quoque Atheniensium idem tumultus seruilis ab Heraclito praetore discussus est; apud Delon etiam serui nouo motu intumescentes oppidanis praeuenientibus pressi sunt, absque illo primo Siciliensis mali fomite, a quo istae uelut scintillae emicantes, diuersa haec incendia seminarunt. ⁶ in Sicilia enim post Fuluium consulem Piso consul Mamertium oppidum expugnauit, ubi octo milia fugitiuorum interfecit, quos autem capere potuit, patibulo suffixit.

⁴ Moreover, the contagion of the Servile War arising in Sicily infected many provinces far and wide. For at Minturnae 450 slaves were driven to the cross, and at Sinuessa about 4,000 slaves were suppressed by Q. Metellus and Cn. Servilius Caepio; ⁵ likewise in the mines of the Athenians the same servile tumult was dispersed by the praetor Heraclitus; at Delos too, slaves, swelling with a new uprising, were crushed by the townspeople forestalling them—apart from that first tinder of the Sicilian evil, from which, as if sparks leaping forth, these diverse conflagrations were sown. ⁶ For in Sicily, after the consul Fulvius, the consul Piso stormed the town of Mamertium, where he slew 8,000 fugitives, and those whom he was able to capture he fastened to the gibbet.

⁷ cui cum Rutilius consul successisset, idem quoque Tauromenium et Hennam, firmissima fugitiuorum refugia, bello recepit: amplius quam XX milia tunc seruorum trucidata referuntur.

⁷ when the consul Rutilius had succeeded him, he likewise recovered Tauromenium and Henna, the strongest refuges of the fugitives, by war: more than 20 thousand slaves are reported to have been butchered at that time.

⁸ Misera profecto talis belli et inextricabilis causa. pereundum utique dominis erat, nisi insolescentibus seruis ferro obuiam iretur. sed tamen in ipsis quoque infelicissimis damnis pugnae et infelicioribus lucris uictoriae quanti periere uicti tantum perdidere uictores.

⁸ Wretched indeed was the cause of such a war, and inextricable. The masters were of course bound to perish, unless the insolent slaves were met with iron. But yet, even in the most unhappy losses of battle and the more unhappy lucre of victory, as much as the vanquished perished, so much did the victors lose.

[10] Anno ab urbe condita DCXXII P. Licinius Crassus consul et pontifex maximus aduersus Aristonicum Attali fratrem, qui traditam per testamentum Romanis Asiam peruaserat, cum instructissimo missus exercitu,² praeterea a magnis regibus hoc est Nicomede Bithyniae, Mithridate Ponti et Armeniae, Ariarathe Cappadociae, Pylaemene Paphlagoniae eorumque maximis copiis adiutus, conserto tamen bello uictus est; ³ et cum, exercitu post plurimam caedem in fugam acto, ipse iam circumuentus ab hostibus et paene captus esset, uirgam, qua erat usus ad equum, in oculum Thraecis inpegit; barbarus autem cum ira et dolore exarsisset, latus Crassi gladio transuerberauit. ita ille excogitato genere mortis effugit et dedecus et seruitutem. ⁴ Perpenna consul, qui Crasso successerat, audita morte Crassi et clade exercitus Romani raptim in Asiam peruolauit, Aristonicum recenti uictoria feriatum inprouiso bello adortus nudatumque omnibus copiis in fugam uertit; ⁵ cumque Stratonicen urbem, ad quam ille confugerat, obsidione cinxisset, trucidatum fame ad deditionem coegit.

[10] In the year from the founding of the city 622 P. Licinius Crassus, consul and pontifex maximus, against Aristonicus, the brother of Attalus, who had overrun Asia bequeathed to the Romans by will, sent with a most well-appointed army,² and, moreover, aided by great kings—that is, by Nicomedes of Bithynia, Mithridates of Pontus and Armenia, Ariarathes of Cappadocia, Pylamenes of Paphlagonia—and by their very great forces, yet, battle having been joined, was defeated; ³ and when, his army driven into flight after very great slaughter, he himself was now surrounded by the enemies and was nearly captured, he drove the rod, which he had used for his horse, into the eye of a Thracian; but the barbarian, blazing with anger and pain, pierced through the side of Crassus with his sword. Thus he, by a devised kind of death, escaped both disgrace and servitude. ⁴ Perpenna, the consul, who had succeeded Crassus, upon hearing of the death of Crassus and the disaster of the Roman army, flew swiftly into Asia, attacked Aristonicus—idling in the leisure of a recent victory—with an unexpected war, and, stripped of all his forces, turned him to flight; ⁵ and when he had encircled with a siege the city Stratonicé, to which he had fled, he forced him, ravaged by hunger, to surrender.

Perpenna consul apud Pergamum correptus morbo diem obiit; Aristonicus Romae iussu senatus in carcere strangulatus est.

Perpenna, the consul, at Pergamum, seized by illness, met his death; Aristonicus at Rome, by order of the senate, was strangled in prison.

⁶ Eodem anno Ptolemaei Alexandrinorum regis misera uita miseriorem uitae exitum dedit. is enim sororem suam stupro cognitam ac deinde in matrimonium receptam nouissime turpius quam duxit abiecit. ⁷ priuignam uero suam, hoc est filiam sororis et coniugis, coniugem adsciuit, filium suum, quem ex sorore susceperat, nec non et filium fratris occidit.

⁶ In the same year the miserable life of Ptolemy, king of the Alexandrians, gave a more miserable exit of life. For he, having known his own sister in debauch and thereafter received her into matrimony, at the last cast her off more shamefully than he had married her. ⁷ His own stepdaughter, that is, the daughter of his sister and consort, he admitted as a spouse; his own son, whom he had begotten from his sister, and likewise also his brother’s son, he killed.

quamobrem tantis incestis parricidiisque exsecrabilis ab Alexandrinis regno pulsus est.

wherefore, execrable for such great incests and parricides, he was expelled from the kingdom by the Alexandrians.

⁸ Isdem temporibus Antiochus, non contentus Babylona atque Ecbatana totoque Mediae imperio, aduersus Phrahatem Parthorum regem congressus et uictus est. qui cum in exercitu suo centum milia armatorum habere uideretur, ducenta milia amplius calonum atque lixarum inmixta scortis et histrionibus trahebat. itaque facile cum uniuerso exercitu suo Parthorum uiribus oppressus interiit.

⁸ In the same period Antiochus, not content with Babylon and Ecbatana and the whole empire of Media, engaged against Phraates, king of the Parthians, and was defeated. Although he seemed to have 100,000 armed men in his army, he was dragging along 200,000 more camp-servants and sutlers, mingled with harlots and histrions. And so, easily, overwhelmed by the forces of the Parthians together with his entire army, he perished.

⁹ C. Sempronio Tuditano et M. Acilio consulibus P. Scipionem Africanum pridie pro contione de periculo salutis suae contestatum, quod sibi pro patria laboranti ab improbis et ingratis denuntiari cognouisset, alio mane exanimem in cubiculo suo repertum non temere inter maxima Romanorum mala recensuerim, praesertim cum tantum in ea urbe Africani uigor et modestia ualeret, ut facile uiuo eo neque sociale neque ciuile bellum posse exsistere crederetur. ¹⁰ hunc quidam uxoris suae Semproniae, Gracchorum autem sororis, dolo necatum ferunt, ne scelerata ut credo familia ad perniciem patriae suae nata inter impias seditiones uirorum non etiam facinoribus mulierum esset immanior.

⁹ In the consulship of C. Sempronius Tuditanus and M. Acilius, I would not lightly reckon among the greatest evils of the Romans that P. Scipio Africanus—who, the day before, before the assembly, had protested concerning the danger to his safety, because he had learned that, while he labored for his fatherland, summons had been issued against him by wicked and ungrateful men—was found the next morning lifeless in his bedroom; especially since such was Africanus’s vigor and modesty prevailing in that city, that, while he lived, it was easily believed that neither a Social nor a Civil war could arise. ¹⁰ Some report that he was killed by the deceit of his wife Sempronia, the sister of the Gracchi; lest that criminal—as I believe—family, born for the destruction of their fatherland, amid the impious seditions of the men, should become yet more monstrous by the crimes of the women as well.

¹¹M. Aemilio L. Oreste consulibus Aetna uasto tremore concussa exundauit igneis globis, rursusque alio die Lipara insula et uicinum circa eam mare in tantum efferbuit, ut adustas quoque rupes dissoluerit, tabulata nauium liquefactis ceris extorruerit, exanimatos pisces supernatantesque excoxerit, homines quoque, nisi qui longius potuere diffugere, reciprocato anhelitu calidi aeris adustis introrsum uitalibus suffocarit.

¹¹ In the consulship of Marcus Aemilius and Lucius Orestes, Etna, shaken by a vast tremor, overflowed with fiery globes; and again on another day the island Lipara and the neighboring sea around it seethed to such an extent that it dissolved even the scorched cliffs, shriveled the planking of ships with their waxes liquefied, cooked fish lifeless and floating, and even suffocated human beings—except those who were able to flee farther off—by the reciprocating pant of hot air, their vital organs scorched inwardly.

[11] M. Plautio Hypsaeo M. Fuluio Flacco consulibus uixdum Africam a bellorum excidiis quiescentem horribilis et inusitata perditio consecuta est.² namque cum per totam Africam inmensae lucustarum multitudines coaluissent et non modo iam cunctam spem frugum abrasissent herbasque omnes cum parte radicum, folia arborum cum teneritudine ramorum consumpsissent, uerum etiam amaras cortices atque arida ligna praeroderent, repentino abreptae uento atque in globos coactae portataeque diu per aerem, Africano pelago inmersae sunt. ³ harum cum inmensos aceruos longe undis urguentibus fluctus per extenta late litora propulissent, taetrum nimis atque ultra opinionem pestiferum odorem tabida et putrefacta congeries exhalauit, unde omnium pariter animantum tanta pestilentia consecuta est, ut auium pecudum ac bestiarum corruptione aeris dissolutarum putrefacta passim cadauera uitium corruptionis augerent.

[11] Under the consulship of M. Plautius Hypsaeus and M. Fulvius Flaccus, when Africa was scarcely resting from the ruins of wars, a horrible and unusual destruction ensued.² For when throughout all Africa immense multitudes of locusts had coalesced and had not only by now abraded all hope of crops and consumed all the grasses together with part of the roots, and the leaves of the trees together with the tenderness of the branches, but even were gnawing the bitter barks and dry woods, suddenly, snatched up by a wind and compacted into globes and carried for a long time through the air, they were immersed in the African sea. ³ When the waves, with the swells pressing, had driven far along the widely extended shores immense heaps of these, the sodden and putrefied mass exhaled a stench too foul and, beyond expectation, pestiferous, whence so great a pestilence of all living creatures alike followed that the putrefied cadavers of birds, flocks, and wild beasts, dissolved by the corruption of the air, everywhere increased the taint of corruption.

⁴ at uero quanta fuerit hominum lues, ego ipse, dum refero, toto corpore perhorresco: siquidem in Numidia, in qua tunc Micipsa rex erat, octingenta milia hominum, circa oram uero maritimam, quae maxime Carthaginiensi atque Uticensi litori adiacet, plus quam ducenta milia perisse traditum est, apud ipsam uero Uticam ciuitatem triginta milia militum, quae ad praesidium totius Africae ordinata fuerant, extincta atque abrasa sunt. ⁵ quae clades tam repentina ac tam uiolenta institit, ut tunc apud Uticam sub una die per unam portam ex illis iunioribus plus quam mille quingentos mortuos elatos fuisse narretur.

⁴ But indeed how great the pestilence of human beings was, I myself, while I recount it, shudder through my whole body: for in Numidia, in which at that time King Micipsa was reigning, 800,000 people, and along the sea-coast, which lies most adjacent to the Carthaginian and Utican littoral, more than 200,000 are handed down to have perished; at Utica itself, moreover, in the city, 30,000 soldiers, who had been arrayed for the garrison of all Africa, were extinguished and abraded. ⁵ So sudden and so violent was the disaster that then at Utica, within a single day, through a single gate, it is told that out of those younger men more than 1,500 dead were carried out.

⁶ Verumtamen pace et gratia omnipotentis Dei dixerim, de cuius misericordia et in cuius fiducia haec loquor: quamuis et temporibus nostris exoriantur aliquando et hoc diuersis partibus lucustae et plerumque etiam sed tolerabiliter laedant, numquam tamen temporibus Christianis tanta uis inextricabilis mali accidit, ut pernicies lucustarum, quae nullo modo ferri uiua potuisset, mortua plus noceret et qua diu uiuente peritura erant omnia, ea perdita pereuntibus magis omnibus optandum fuerit, ne perisset.

⁶ Nevertheless, by the peace and grace of Almighty God I would say—of whose mercy, and in whose trust, I speak these things: although in our times too locusts sometimes arise, and in various regions, and for the most part also harm, yet tolerably, never, however, in Christian times has so great a force of inextricable evil occurred, that the plague of locusts, which alive could in no way have been borne, did more harm when dead; and that, while it lived, all things were about to perish, yet, once it had perished, it would rather have been to be wished by all who were perishing that it had not perished.

[12] Anno ab urbe condita DCXXVII L. Caecilio Metello et Q. Titio Flaminino coss. Carthago in Africa restitui iussa uicensimo secundo demum anno quam fuerat euersa deductis ciuium Romanorum familiis, quae eam incolerent, restituta et repleta est, magno ante prodigio praecedente.² nam cum mensores ad limitandum Carthaginiensem agrum missi stipites, terminorum indices, fixos nocte a lupis reuulsos mordicus conrososque reperissent, aliquamdiu haesitatum est, utrum Romanae paci expediret Carthaginem reformari.

[12] In the year 627 from the founding of the city, with Lucius Caecilius Metellus and Quintus Titius Flamininus as consuls, Carthage in Africa, ordered to be restored, only in the twenty-second year after it had been overthrown, was restored and replenished, the families of Roman citizens having been led down to inhabit it, with a great prodigy preceding.² For when the surveyors sent to delimit the Carthaginian territory found the stakes, indicators of the boundaries, which had been fixed, torn out by wolves in the night and gnawed with their teeth, it was for some time in doubt whether it would be expedient for the Roman peace for Carthage to be refounded.

³ Eodem anno C. Gracchus, Gracchi illius qui iam occisus in seditione fuerat frater, tribunus plebi per tumultum creatus magna reipublicae pernicies fuit. ⁴ nam cum saepe populum Romanum largitionibus promissisque nimiis in acerbissimas seditiones excitauisset, maxime legis agrariae causa, pro qua etiam frater eius Gracchus fuerat occisus, tandem a tribunatu Minucio successore decessit. ⁵ Minucius tribunus plebi cum maxima ex parte decessoris sui Gracchi statuta conuulsisset legesque abrogasset, C. Gracchus cum Fuluio Flacco ingenti stipatus agmine Capitolium, ubi contio agitabatur, ascendit: ibi maximo tumultu excitato quidam praeco a Gracchanis interfectus uelut signum belli fuit.

³ In the same year Gaius Gracchus, brother of that Gracchus who had already been killed in a sedition, having been created tribune of the plebs amid a tumult, was a great perdition to the commonwealth. ⁴ For since he had often aroused the Roman people into most bitter seditions by largesses and excessive promises, chiefly for the sake of the agrarian law, for which his brother Gracchus too had been slain, at length he departed from the tribunate, Minucius as successor. ⁵ When the tribune of the plebs Minucius had torn apart the enactments of his predecessor Gracchus for the greatest part and had abrogated the laws, Gaius Gracchus with Fulvius Flaccus, packed with a huge throng, ascended the Capitol, where an assembly was being held: there, with a very great tumult stirred up, a certain herald, slain by the Gracchan party, was as it were the signal of war.

⁶ Flaccus duobus filiis armatis cinctus, comitante etiam Graccho togato breuemque gladium sub sinistra occultante, quamuis et praeconem frustra praemisisset, qui seruos ad libertatem uocaret Dianium tamquam arcem occupauit. ⁷ contra D. Brutus uir consularis a cliuo Publicio cum ingenti certamine inruit. ibi Flaccus diu obstinatissime dimicauit; Gracchus, postquam in templum Mineruae secesserat, gladio incumbere uolens, interuentu Laetorii retentus est.

⁶ Flaccus, girded with two armed sons, with Gracchus also accompanying, wearing the toga and concealing a short sword under his left side, although he had even sent ahead a herald in vain to call the slaves to liberty, seized the Dianium as if a citadel. ⁷ In response, Decimus Brutus, a man of consular rank, rushed in from the Clivus Publicius with a mighty struggle. There Flaccus fought for a long time most obstinately; Gracchus, after he had withdrawn into the temple of Minerva, wishing to fall upon the sword, was restrained by the intervention of Laetorius.

itaque cum diu anceps bellum agitaretur, tandem sagittarii ab Opimio missi consertam multitudinem disturbauerunt. ⁸ duo Flacci pater filiusque cum per aedem Lunae in priuatam domum desiluissent foresque obiecissent, rescisso craticio pariete confossi sunt. Gracchus diu pro se amicis pugnantibus ac pereuntibus aegre ad pontem sublicium peruenit ibique, ne uiuus caperetur, ceruicem seruo suo praebuit.

and so, when for a long time the battle hung in the balance, at length the archers, sent by Opimius, disrupted the tightly packed multitude. ⁸ the two Flacci, father and son, when they had leapt down through the temple of Luna into a private house and had barred the doors, with the lattice-work wall torn open, were run through. Gracchus, while his friends for a long time were fighting and dying on his behalf, with difficulty reached the Sublician Bridge; and there, lest he be captured alive, he offered his neck to his slave.

⁹ caput Gracchi excisum consuli adlatum est, corpus ad Corneliam matrem Misenum oppidum deuectum est. haec autem Cornelia, Africani maioris filia, Misenum, ut dixi, prioris filii morte secesserat. bona Gracchi publicata sunt; Flaccus adulescens in robore necatus est; ex factione Gracchi ducenti quinquaginta in Auentino caesi fuisse referuntur.

⁹ the head of Gracchus, cut off, was brought to the consul; the body was conveyed to his mother Cornelia at the town of Misenum. But this Cornelia, daughter of Scipio Africanus the Elder, had withdrawn to Misenum, as I said, at the death of her earlier son. The goods of Gracchus were made public (confiscated); the younger Flaccus was executed on the gibbet; it is reported that two hundred fifty of Gracchus’s faction were cut down on the Aventine.

¹⁰ Opimius consul sicut in bello fortis fuit ita in quaestione crudelis. nam amplius tria milia hominum suppliciis necauit, ex quibus plurimi ne dicta quidem causa innocentes interfecti sunt.

¹⁰ The consul Opimius, just as he was brave in war, so in the inquisition was cruel. For by punishments he put to death more than three thousand men, of whom very many, with not even a case having been stated, being innocent, were slain.

[13] Isdem temporibus Metellus Baleares insulas bello peruagatus edomuit et piraticam infestationem, quae ab isdem tunc exoriebatur, plurima incolarum caede conpressit.² Gnaeus quoque Domitius proconsule Allobrogas Gallos iuxta oppidum Vindalium grauissimo bello uicit, maxime cum elephantorum noua forma equi hostium hostesque conterriti diffugissent: XX milia ibi Allobrogum caesa referuntur, tria milia capta sunt.

[13] At the same time Metellus, having thoroughly traversed the Balearic islands by war, subdued them and suppressed the piratical infestation, which was then arising from those same people, by a very great slaughter of the inhabitants.² Gnaeus Domitius also, as proconsul, conquered the Allobrogian Gauls near the town of Vindalium in a most grievous war, especially when, at the new form of the elephants, the horses of the enemy and the enemies themselves, terrified, scattered in flight: 20 thousand of the Allobroges are reported to have been cut down there, 3 thousand were taken captive.

³ Eodem tempore Aetna mons ultra solitum exarsit et torrentibus igneis superfusis lateque circumfluentibus Cadinam urbem finesque eius oppressit ita ut tecta aedium calidis cineribus praeusta et praegrauata conruerent: cuius leuandae cladis causa senatus decem annorum uectigalia Catinensibus remisit.

³ At the same time Mount Aetna flared up beyond the usual, and with fiery torrents poured over and flowing widely around, it overwhelmed the city of Catina and its boundaries, so that the roofs of houses, pre-scorched and weighed down by hot ashes, collapsed: for the alleviation of this disaster the senate remitted to the Catanians the taxes for 10 years.

[14] Anno ab urbe condita DCXXVIII Fabius consul Bituito regi Aruernorum Galliae ciuitatis bellum maximo instructu conparanti adeo cum paruo exercitu occurrit, ut Bituitus paucitatem Romanorum uix ad escam canibus, quos in agmine habebat, sufficere posse iactaret.² qui cum sibi ad transferendas copias unum pontem Rhodani fluminis parum esse intellegeret, alium conpactis lintribus catenisque conexum superstratis confixisque tabulis instruxit. ³ conserta pugna et diu grauiter agitata, uicti Galli conuersique in fugam, dum quisque sibi timet, coaceruatis inconsulte agminibus et praepropero transitu pontis uincula ruperunt ac mox cum ipsis lintribus mersi sunt.

[14] In the year from the founding of the city 628 Fabius, consul, met King Bituitus of the Arverni, a civitas of Gaul, as he was preparing war with the greatest equipment, with so small an army that Bituitus boasted the paucity of Romans could scarcely suffice as food for the dogs which he had in the line of march.² Since he understood that one bridge of the river Rhone was too little for transferring his forces, he constructed another, made of boats compacted and linked with chains, with planks laid over and nailed fast. ³ The battle joined and long grievously contested, the Gauls were beaten and turned to flight; while each feared for himself, with their columns piled up without counsel, in an over-hasty crossing they broke the bridge’s fastenings and soon were submerged along with the boats themselves.

⁴ centum octoginta milia armatorum in exercitu Bituiti fuisse traduntur, ex quibus centum quinquaginta milia uel caesa uel mersa sunt.

⁴ 180,000 armed men are reported to have been in the army of Bituitus, of whom 150,000 were either cut down or drowned.

⁵ Q. Marcius consul Gallorum gentem sub radice Alpium sitam bello adgressus est. qui cum se Romanis copiis circumsaeptos uiderent belloque inpares fore intellegerent, occisis coniugibus ac liberis in flammas sese proiecerunt. ⁶ qui uero praeoccupantibus Romanis peragendae tunc mortis suae copiam non habuerant captique fuerant, alii ferro, alii suspendio, alii abnegato cibo sese consumpserunt, nullusque omnino uel paruulus superfuit, qui seruitutis condicionem uitae amore toleraret.

⁵ Q. Marcius, consul, attacked in war the nation of the Gauls situated under the root of the Alps. And when they saw themselves encircled by Roman forces and understood that they would be unequal in war, with their spouses and children slain, they hurled themselves into the flames. ⁶ But those who, the Romans forestalling them, had not then had the opportunity of carrying through their own death and had been captured, some with the sword, others by hanging, others with food denied consumed themselves, and absolutely not even a very little one survived who would endure the condition of servitude for love of life.

[15] Anno ab urbe condita DCXXXV P. Scipione Nasica et L. Calpurnio Bestia consulibus Iugurthae Numidarum regi bellum consensu populi Romani senatus indixit.

[15] In the year 635 from the founding of the City, with Publius Scipio Nasica and Lucius Calpurnius Bestia as consuls, the Senate, with the consensus of the Roman People, declared war upon Jugurtha, king of the Numidians.

² Sed ego de Iugurtha ordinis tantum loco et causa commemorationis breuiter perstrinxerim, quia ut de natura eius uaria atque intolerabili ita et de rebus tam dolose quam strenue gestis propter opimam scriptorum luculentiam satis sufficiens apud omnes notitia est.

² But I, concerning Jugurtha, only in the place of order and for the cause of commemoration, shall briefly sketch him, because, just as about his nature, variable and intolerable, so also about his deeds carried on as deceitfully as strenuously, there is among all a knowledge sufficiently sufficient by reason of the opulent lucidity of the writings.

³ Igitur Iugurtha, Micipsae Numidarum regis adoptiuus heresque inter naturales eius filios factus, primum coheredes suos, id est Hiempsalem occidit, Adherbalem bello uictum Africa expulit. ⁴ Calpurnium deinde consulem aduersum se missum pecunia corrupit atque ad turpissimas condiciones pacis adduxit. ⁵ praeterea cum Romam ipse uenisset, omnibus pecunia aut corruptis aut adtemptatis seditiones dissensionesque permiscuit; quam cum egrederetur infami satis notauit elogio dicens: O urbem uenalem et mature perituram, si emptorem inuenerit!

³ Therefore Jugurtha, the adoptive heir of Micipsa, king of the Numidians, and made among his natural sons, first killed his coheirs, that is, Hiempsal, and drove Adherbal, defeated in war, out of Africa. ⁴ Then he corrupted with money Calpurnius the consul, sent against him, and brought him to the most turpitudinous conditions of peace. ⁵ Moreover, when he himself had come to Rome, with everyone either corrupted by money or tampered with, he commingled seditions and dissensions; and as he was departing from it, he quite sufficiently branded it with an infamous epigram, saying: O city for sale and destined soon to perish, if it finds a buyer!

⁶ Insequenti anno A. Postumium, Postumii consulis fratrem, quem is quadraginta milium armatorum exercitui praefecerat, apud Calamam urbem thesauris regiis conditis inhiantem bello oppressit adque uicto ignominiosissimum foedus exegit. uniuersam paene Africam a Romanis deficientem regno suo iunxit. ⁷ postea tamen Metelli consulis integritate et disciplina coercitus, duobus etiam proeliis uictus uidit praesente se et uastari Numidiam suam et non posse defendi: a quo ad deditionem coactus trecentos obsides dedit, frumentum atque alios commeatus persoluturum sese spopondit, tria milia amplius perfugarum reddidit.

⁶ In the following year he crushed A. Postumius, the brother of the consul Postumius, whom that man had placed over an army of forty thousand armed men, at the city of Calama, as he was gaping after the hoarded royal treasures; and, when he had been defeated, he exacted a most ignominious treaty. He joined to his own kingdom almost all Africa, defecting from the Romans. ⁷ Afterwards, however, restrained by the integrity and discipline of the consul Metellus, and defeated in two battles as well, he saw, before his very eyes, both his Numidia being ravaged and that it could not be defended: by whom forced to surrender, he gave three hundred hostages, pledged that he would pay grain and other supplies, and returned more than three thousand deserters.

⁸ exim cum incertus in pace improbos non cohiberet excursus, C. Marii consulis non minore paene, quam ipse praeditus erat, astutia Romanisque uiribus fractus est, maxime postquam Marius urbem Capsam, ab Hercule Phoenice ut ferunt conditam, regiis tunc thesauris confertissimam dolo circumuenit et cepit. ⁹ diffidens deinde propriis rebus et uiribus Iugurtha societatem cum Boccho Maurorum rege fecit, cuius equitatu in immensum auctus Marianum exercitum creberrimis incursionibus fatigauit. ¹⁰ postremo apud Cirtam, urbem antiquam, Masinissae regiam, aduersum Romanos expugnationem eius parantes sexaginta milibus equitum instructus occurrit.

⁸ Then, since, being uncertain in peace, he did not restrain lawless excursions, he was broken by the cunning of the consul Gaius Marius—almost no less than that with which he himself was endowed—and by Roman forces, especially after Marius by stratagem encircled and took the city of Capsa, said to have been founded by Hercules the Phoenician, at that time crammed with royal treasures. ⁹ Then, distrusting his own affairs and forces, Jugurtha made an alliance with Bocchus, king of the Mauri, and, augmented to an immense degree by his cavalry, he wearied Marius’s army with very frequent incursions. ¹⁰ Finally, at Cirta, an ancient city, the royal seat of Masinissa, against the Romans as they were preparing its storming, he met them drawn up with sixty thousand cavalry.

¹¹ numquam ulla Romano militi tumultuosior pugna et terribilior fuit, adeo ut discursu et fremitu circumcursantium et impetentium equitum suscitatus puluis caelum subtexuerit, diem ademerit noctemque obduxerit, tantus autem telorum nimbus ingruerit, ut nulla pars corporis ab ictu tuta esset, quippe quibus et uisus ad prospiciendum impedimento caliginis et expeditio ad cauendum compressione multitudinis deerat. ¹² nec laborabat eques Maurus ac Numida, ut bene conlocatum hostem opportuno teli impetu rimaretur, sed potius in incertum pila mittebant certi quod uulnera incerta non essent. ita coacti in unum Romani pedites densabantur.

¹¹ Never was any battle more tumultuous and more terrible to the Roman soldier, to such a degree that, the dust roused by the running about and the roar of the horsemen who were coursing around and charging, covered the sky, took away the day, and drew a shroud of night; and such a storm-cloud of missiles burst upon them that no part of the body was safe from a blow—indeed, for them both sight for looking ahead was lacking by the impediment of caliginous gloom, and freedom of movement for dodging was lacking by the compression of the multitude. ¹² Nor did the Moorish and Numidian cavalry trouble themselves to search out a well-posted enemy with a timely thrust of the weapon, but rather they were hurling javelins into the uncertain, assured that the wounds would not be uncertain; thus the Roman infantry, forced into one mass, were being packed together.

intercapedinem tanti periculi nox interueniens dedit. ¹³ eadem postera die et belli et periculi facies: erumpere in hostem quamuis stricto miles gladio non ualebat, eminus enim iaculis repellebatur; fugere non poterant, undique enim uelocior ad persequendum eques incluserat. ¹⁴ iam tertia dies et nullum undecumque suffragium, dira undique mortis facies obiciebatur: tandem Marius consul forti desperatione spei uiam fecit, uniuerso simul agmine prorupit e uallo campoque sese simul et proelio dedit.

The intervening night gave an interstice of so great peril. ¹³ The next day the same face both of war and of danger: the soldier, though with sword drawn, was not able to break out against the enemy, for at a distance he was driven back by javelins; they were not able to flee, for on all sides the cavalry, swifter for pursuing, had enclosed them. ¹⁴ Now the third day, and no aid from anywhere; the dire visage of death on every side was being thrust before them: at last Marius the consul, by stout desperation, made a way for hope; with the whole column at once he burst forth from the rampart and gave himself at once both to the field and to the battle.

¹⁵ et cum iterum circumfusi hostes non solum agminis extrema laniarent, uerum etiam media excussis procul telis caederent turbatosque Romanos insuper etiam aestus solis, intolerantia sitis, mortis circumstantia usque ad extremum desperationis defetigaret, subito notum illud Romanorum aduersus Afros tempestatum imbriumque suffragium caelo missum insperatae saluti fuit. ¹⁶ siquidem repentina pluuia sitientibus Romanis et aestuantibus refrigerium potumque praebuit, porro autem Numidis hastilia telorum, quae manu intorquere sine ammentis solent, lubrica ac per hoc inutilia reddidit; ¹⁷ scuta etiam, quae elephanti corio extento atque durato habilia et tuta gestabant - cuius ea natura est, ut acceptum imbrem tamquam spongia ebibat ac per hoc intractabile repentino pondere fiat - quia circumferri non poterant, defendere nequiuerunt. ita ex insperato conturbatis destitutisque Mauris ac Numidis Bocchus ac Iugurtha fugerunt.

¹⁵ and when the enemies, again surrounding them, were not only mangling the extremities of the column but were even cutting down those in the middle by missiles shaken and cast from afar, and the Romans, thrown into confusion, were moreover being worn out to the very limit of desperation by the heat of the sun, the intolerability of thirst, the circumstance of death hemming them in, suddenly that well-known support of tempests and showers, sent from heaven to the Romans against the Africans, was an unhoped-for salvation. ¹⁶ for the sudden rain gave to the thirsty and sweltering Romans both coolness and drink, but for the Numidians it rendered the spear-shafts of their weapons— which they are accustomed to hurl by hand without throwing-thongs— slippery and through this useless; ¹⁷ their shields also, which they carried serviceable and safe, of elephant hide stretched and hardened— whose nature is this, that, once it has received rain, it drinks it in like a sponge and through this by sudden weight becomes unmanageable— because they could not be swung around, were unable to protect. thus, beyond expectation, with the Moors and Numidians thrown into confusion and left without support, Bocchus and Jugurtha fled.

¹⁸ post hoc nonaginta milia armatorum nouissimo bello ab isdem regibus obiecta; haec quoque usque ad internecionem Romanis uincentibus caesa referuntur. ex eo Bocchus spem belli abiciens, pacem petiuit atque in pretium pacis Iugurtham dolo captum catenisque obrutum per Syllam legatum misit ad Marium. ¹⁹ qui in triumpho ante currum cum duobus filiis suis actus et mox in carcere strangulatus est.

¹⁸ after this, ninety thousand armed men were thrown forward in the most recent war by the same kings; these too are reported to have been cut down to the point of extermination, the Romans being the victors. from that point Bocchus, abandoning hope of war, sought peace and, as the price of peace, sent Jugurtha—taken by guile and buried under chains—through Sulla the legate to Marius. ¹⁹ he was led in a triumph before the chariot with his two sons, and soon was strangled in prison.

²⁰ Isdem diebus obscenum prodigium ac triste uisum est. L. Heluius eques Romanus cum uxore et filia de Roma in Apuliam rediens, tempestate correptus cum filiam consternatam uideret, ut citius propioribus tectis succederent, relictis uehiculis arreptisque equis filiam uirginem equo insidentem in medium agmen accepit. ²¹ puella continuo ictu fulminis exanimata est, sed omnibus sine scissura aliqua uestimentis ademptis ac pectoris pedumque uinculis dissolutis, monilibus etiam anulisque discussis, ipso quoque corpore inlaeso, nisi quod obscenum in modum nuda et lingua paululum exerta iacuit; equus quoque ipse, quo utebatur, straturis frenis et cingulis dissolutis passim ac dispersis exanimis procul iacuit.

²⁰ In those same days an obscene and sad prodigy was seen. L. Helvius, a Roman equestrian, returning from Rome into Apulia with his wife and daughter, when he was caught by a tempest and saw his daughter consternated, so that they might more quickly come under nearer roofs, with the vehicles left and the horses seized, took his maiden daughter, seated on a horse, into the middle of the column. ²¹ The girl was immediately struck exanimate by a stroke of lightning, but with all her garments taken away without any tearing and the fastenings of chest and feet loosened, with the necklaces and rings too shaken off, while her body itself was unharmed, except that she lay naked in an obscene fashion and with her tongue a little protruded; the horse itself too, which she was using, with the saddle-cloths, reins, and girths loosened and scattered everywhere, lay lifeless far off.

²² Paruo post hoc intercessu temporis L. Veturius eques Romanus Aemiliam uirginem Vestalem furtiuo stupro polluit. duas praeterea uirgines Vestales eadem Aemilia ad participationem incesti sollicitatas contubernalibus sui corruptoris exposuit ac tradidit. indicio per seruum facto supplicium de omnibus sumptum est.

²² After a small interval of time following this, Lucius Veturius, a Roman eques, defiled Aemilia, a Vestal virgin, with furtive illicit intercourse. Moreover, the same Aemilia, having solicited two Vestal virgins to the participation of unchastity, exposed and handed them over to the companions-in-quarters of her corrupter. With information given through a slave, punishment was exacted of all.

²³ Isdem praeterea Iugurthini belli temporibus L. Cassius consul in Gallia Tigurinos usque Oceanum persecutus rursusque ab isdem insidiis circumuentus occisus est; ²⁴ Lucius quoque Piso uir consularis, legatus Cassii consulis, interfectus. C. Publius alter legatus, ne residua exercitus portio, quae in castra confugerat, deleretur, obsides et dimidiam partem rerum omnium Tigurinis turpissimo foedere dedit: qui Romam reuersus, a Caelio tribuno plebi die dicta eo quod Tigurinis obsides dederat, in exilium profugit. ²⁵ Caepio proconsule capta urbe Gallorum, cui nomen est Tolosae, centum milia pondo auri et argenti centum decem milia e templo Apollinis sustulit: quod cum ad Massiliam, amicam populo Romano urbem, cum praesidiis misisset, interfectis clam - sicut quidam contestantur - quibus ea custodienda et peruehenda commiserat, cuncta per scelus furatus fuisse narratur.

²³ Moreover, in the same times of the Jugurthine War, Lucius Cassius, consul, in Gaul pursued the Tigurini as far as the Ocean, and again, having been surrounded by ambush by those same, was slain; ²⁴ Lucius also Piso, a man of consular rank, legate of the consul Cassius, was killed. Gaius Publius, the other legate, so that the remaining portion of the army which had fled into the camp might not be annihilated, gave hostages and half of all things to the Tigurini by a most disgraceful treaty; who, having returned to Rome, with a day appointed by Caelius, tribune of the plebs, on the charge that he had given hostages to the Tigurini, fled into exile. ²⁵ With Caepio as proconsul, the city of the Gauls, whose name is Tolosa, having been taken, he removed one hundred thousand pounds of gold and one hundred ten thousand (pounds) of silver from the temple of Apollo; and when he had sent it to Massilia, a city friendly to the Roman people, with escorts, with those to whom he had entrusted these things to be guarded and conveyed secretly slain — as certain persons attest — it is related that he by crime stole the whole.

unde etiam magna quaestio post Romae acta est.

whence also afterwards a great inquest was held at Rome.

[16] Anno ab urbe condita DCXLII C. Manlius consul et Q. Caepio proconsule aduersus Cimbros et Teutonas et Tigurinos et Ambronas, Gallorum Germanorum gentes, quae tunc ut imperium Romanum extinguerent conspirauerant, missi prouincias sibi Rhodano flumine medio diuiserunt.² ubi dum inter se grauissima inuidia et contentione disceptant, cum magna ignominia et periculo Romani nominis uicti sunt. siquidem in ea pugna M. Aemilius consularis captus atque interfectus est, duo filii consulis caesi; ³ LXXX milia Romanorum sociorumque ea tempestate trucidata, XL milia calonum atque lixarum interfecta Antias scribit.

[16] In the year from the city’s founding 642, C. Manlius as consul and Q. Caepio as proconsul, sent against the Cimbri and Teutones and Tigurini and Ambrones, peoples of the Gauls and Germans who had then conspired to extinguish the Roman empire, divided the provinces between themselves with the Rhône River as the middle boundary.² There, while they disputed among themselves with very grave envy and contention, they were defeated with great ignominy and with peril to the Roman name. Indeed, in that battle M. Aemilius, a man of consular rank, was captured and killed, and the consul’s two sons were cut down; ³ 80 thousand Romans and allies at that time were massacred, and Antias writes that 40 thousand camp-servants and sutlers were slain.

⁴ ita ex omni penitus exercitu decem tantummodo homines, qui miserum nuntium ad augendas miserias reportarent, superfuisse referuntur. ⁵ hostes binis castris atque ingenti praeda potiti noua quadam atque insolita exsecratione cuncta quae ceperant pessum dederunt; ⁶ uestis discissa et proiecta est, aurum argentumque in flumen abiectum, loricae uirorum concisae, phalerae equorum disperditae, equi ipsi gurgitibus inmersi, homines laqueis collo inditis ex arboribus suspensi sunt, ita ut nihil praedae uictor, nihil misericordiae uictus adgnosceret. ⁷ maximus tunc Romae non solum luctus, uerum etiam metus fuit, ne confestim Cimbri Alpes transgrederentur Italiamque delerent.

⁴ thus, out of the whole army to the very last, only ten men are reported to have survived, to carry back a miserable message to augment miseries. ⁵ the enemies, having gotten possession of two camps and immense booty, by a certain new and unusual execration cast to ruin all the things they had taken; ⁶ clothing was torn and thrown away, gold and silver were cast into the river, the cuirasses of men cut to pieces, the phalerae of the horses squandered, the horses themselves plunged into the whirlpools, men, with nooses put on their necks, were hanged from trees, so that the victor acknowledged nothing of booty, the vanquished nothing of mercy. ⁷ then at Rome there was not only very great mourning, but even fear, lest forthwith the Cimbri should cross the Alps and annihilate Italy.

⁸ Isdem temporibus Q. Fabius Maximus filium suum adulescentem, rus relegatum, cum duobus seruis parricidii ministris interfecit ipsosque continuo seruos in pretium sceleris manumisit. die dicta Cn. Pompeio accusante damnatus est.

⁸ In the same times Q. Fabius Maximus killed his own adolescent son, relegated to the countryside, with two slaves as ministers of the parricide, and immediately manumitted those very slaves as the price of the crime. With the day appointed for trial, with Cn. Pompeius prosecuting, he was condemned.

⁹ Igitur Marius quarto consul cum iuxta Isarae Rhodanique flumina, ubi in sese confluunt, castra posuisset, Teutones Cimbri et Tigurini et Ambrones postquam continuo triduo circa Romanorum castra pugnarunt, si quo pacto eos excuterent uallo atque in aequor effunderent, tribus agminibus Italiam petere destinarunt. ¹⁰ Marius, post digressum hostium castra mouit et collem occupauit, qui campo et fluuio, ubi hostes sese diffuderant, imminebat. cumque exercitui eius aqua ad potandum deesset, querellisque omnium coargueretur, aquam quidem in conspectu esse respondit, sed eam ferro uindicandam.

⁹ Therefore Marius, consul for the fourth time, when he had pitched camp near the rivers Isara and the Rhone, where they flow together into one, the Teutones, Cimbri, Tigurini, and Ambrones, after for three days continuously they fought around the Romans’ camp, to see if by any means they might shake them out from the rampart and pour them onto the plain, resolved to make for Italy in three columns. ¹⁰ Marius, after the withdrawal of the enemy, moved the camp and occupied a hill, which overhung the plain and the river where the enemy had spread themselves out. And when water for drinking was lacking for his army, and he was reproved by the complaints of all, he answered that the water indeed was in sight, but that it had to be claimed by steel.

primis itaque calonibus cum clamore in pugnam ruentibus subsecutus exercitus, mox iusto certamine conpositis ordinibus bellum gestum et uicere Romani. ¹¹ quarto die rursus productae utrimque in campum acies usque ad meridiem paene pari pugnauere discrimine. post ubi incalescente sole fluxa Gallorum corpora in modum niuium distabuerunt, usque in noctem caedes potius quam pugna protracta est.

Therefore, with the camp-servants first, rushing with a clamor into battle, the army following after, soon, with the ranks set in order, the war was conducted in a regular engagement, and the Romans prevailed. ¹¹ On the fourth day, again the battle-lines on both sides, drawn out into the plain, fought down to midday with almost equal hazard. Afterwards, when, as the sun grew hot, the slack bodies of the Gauls dissolved in the manner of snows, right up to nightfall slaughter rather than battle was prolonged.

¹² ducenta milia armatorum in eo bello interfecta sunt, octoginta milia capta, uix tria milia fugisse referuntur; dux quoque eorum Teutobodus occisus est. ¹³ mulieres eorum constantiore animo quam si uicissent consuluere consulem, ut, si inuiolata castitate uirginibus sacris ac dis seruiendum esset, uitam sibi reseruarent. itaque cum petita non impetrauissent, paruulis suis ad saxa conlisis cunctae sese ferro ac suspendio peremerunt.

¹² Two hundred thousand armed men were slain in that war, eighty thousand were captured, scarcely three thousand are reported to have fled; their leader too, Teutobodus, was killed. ¹³ Their women, with a more steadfast spirit than if they had conquered, consulted the consul, that, if with inviolate chastity it must be served as sacred virgins to the gods, they might reserve life for themselves. And so, when they had not obtained what they sought, their very little ones having been dashed against the rocks, all of them destroyed themselves by iron and by hanging.

haec de Tigurinis et Ambronibus gesta sunt.

These deeds concerning the Tigurini and the Ambrones were done.

¹⁴ Teutones autem et Cimbri integris copiis Alpium niues emensi Italiae plana peruaserant, ibique cum rigidum genus diu blandioribus auris, poculis, cibis ac lauacris emolliretur, Marius V consul et Catulus aduersum eos missi, die ad pugnam et campo dato Hannibalis secuti ingenium in nebula disposuere pugnam, in sole pugnarunt. ¹⁵ prima siquidem perturbatio Gallorum fuit, quod Romanam aciem prius offendere dispositam quam adesse senserunt. cumque ilico uulnerati equites retro in suos cogerentur totamque multitudinem indisposite adhuc aduentantem conturbarent et sol cum uento ortus ex aduerso emicuisset, uisus eorum puluis oppleuit et splendor hebetauit.

¹⁴ The Teutones, however, and the Cimbri, with intact forces, having passed over the snows of the Alps, had penetrated the plains of Italy; and there, as that rigid race for a long time was being softened by gentler breezes, by cups, foods, and baths, Marius, consul for the 5th time, and Catulus, sent against them, with a day and ground given for battle, following the genius of Hannibal, arranged the battle in fog, they fought in sun. ¹⁵ For the first perturbation of the Gauls was this: that they encountered the Roman battle line drawn up before they perceived it to be present. And when the cavalry, wounded straightway, were driven back into their own men and threw into confusion the whole multitude still arriving in disorder, and when the sun, having risen with wind, flashed out opposite, the dust filled their sight and the glare dulled it.

¹⁶ ita factum est, ut tanta ac tam terribilis multitudo minima Romanorum clade, sua autem ultima internecione caederetur. centum quadraginta milia eorum tunc in bello caesa, sexaginta milia capta dicuntur. ¹⁷ mulieres grauiorem paene excitauere pugnam, quae plaustris in modum castrorum circumstructis, ipsae autem desuper propugnantes, diu repulere Romanos.

¹⁶ thus it happened that so great and so terrible a multitude was cut down with the slightest calamity for the Romans, but with their own ultimate extermination. 140,000 of them are said to have been slain then in the war, 60,000 captured. ¹⁷ the women almost stirred up a graver battle, who, with the wagons arranged around in the manner of a camp, and they themselves defending from above, for a long time drove back the Romans.

sed cum ab his nouo caedis genere terrerentur - abscisis enim cum crine uerticibus inhonesto satis uulnere turpes relinquebantur - ferrum, quod in hostes sumpserant, in se suosque uerterunt. ¹⁸ namque aliae concursu mutuo iugulatae, aliae apprehensis inuicem faucibus strangulatae, aliae funibus per equorum crura consertis ipsisque continuo equis exstimulatis, postquam suas isdem funibus, quibus equorum crura nexuerant, indidere ceruices, protractae atque exanimatae sunt, aliae laqueo de subrectis plaustrorum temonibus pependerunt. ¹⁹ inuenta est etiam quaedam, quae duos filios traiectis per colla eorum laqueis ad suos pedes uinxerit et, cum se ipsam suspendio morituram dimisisset, secum traxerit occidendos.

but when they were terrified by this new kind of slaughter — for, with their scalps cut off along with the hair, they were left disfigured by a sufficiently shameful wound — they turned the iron, which they had taken up against the enemies, against themselves and their own. ¹⁸ for some, by a mutual onrush, had their throats cut; others, having seized one another’s throats in turn, were strangled; others, with ropes interlaced through the horses’ legs, and the horses themselves immediately goaded on, after they had put their own necks into the same ropes with which they had bound the horses’ legs, were dragged along and slain; others hung by a noose from the upraised wagon-poles. ¹⁹ there was even found a certain woman who had bound her two sons to her own feet by nooses passed through their necks and who, when she had let herself go to die by hanging, dragged them with her to be killed.

²⁰ inter haec multa ac miserabilia mortis genera reguli quoque duo strictis in se gladiis concurrisse referuntur. Lugius et Boiorix reges in acie ceciderunt; Claodicus et Caesorix capti sunt. ²¹ ita in his duobus proeliis CCCXL milia Gallorum occisa et CXL milia capta sunt, absque innumera mulierum multitudine, quae se suosque paruulos femineo furore, ui autem uirili necauerunt.

²⁰ Amid these many and miserable kinds of death, the two petty kings as well are reported to have clashed against each other with swords drawn. Lugius and Boiorix, kings, fell in the battle line; Claodicus and Caesorix were captured. ²¹ Thus in these two battles 340 thousand Gauls were slain and 140 thousand captured, apart from the innumerable multitude of women, who, with feminine fury yet with virile force, killed themselves and their little little ones.

²² igitur talem Marii triumphum Romanamque uictoriam incredibile facinus et numquam antea Romanis cognitum Romae subito perpetratum uersa in horrorem ac maerorem tota urbe fuscauit. ²³ Publicius siquidem Malleolus seruis adnitentibus matrem suam interfecit; damnatus parricidii insutusque in culleum et in mare proiectus est; ²⁴ inpleueruntque Romani et facinus et poenam, unde et Solon Atheniensis decernere non ausus fuerat, dum fieri posse non credit, et Romani, qui se ortos a Romulo scirent, etiam hoc fieri posse intellegentes supplicium singulare sanxerunt.

²² therefore such a triumph of Marius and a Roman victory an incredible deed, never before known to the Romans, suddenly perpetrated at Rome, darkened, the whole city turned into horror and mourning. ²³ Publicius Malleolus, with his slaves assisting, killed his own mother; condemned for parricide and sewn into a sack, he was thrown into the sea; ²⁴ and the Romans fulfilled both the deed and the penalty, concerning which even Solon the Athenian had not dared to decree, since he did not believe it could happen, and the Romans, who knew themselves sprung from Romulus, understanding that even this could happen, sanctioned a singular punishment.

[17] Anno ab urbe condita DCXLV post Cimbricum et Teutonicum bellum et quintum Marii consulatum, quo status imperii Romani iure conseruatus iudicatur, sexto consulatu eiusdem C. Marii ita labefactatus est, ut paene usque ad extremum intestina clade conciderit.² euoluere ac percurrere mihi discordiarum ambages et inextricabiles seditionum causas incommodum simul ac longum uidetur; ³ sane breuiter strinxisse sufficiat, quia primus L. Apuleius Saturninus excitati tumultus auctor exstiterit, Q. Metello Numidico uiro sane primario acerrimus inimicus, qui eum censorem creatum protractum domo atque in Capitolium confugientem armata multitudine obsedit, unde equitum Romanorum indignatione deiectus est, plurima ante Capitolium caede facta. A. Nunium deinde, conpetitorem suum, Saturninus et Glaucia fraude C. Marii consulis occiderunt.

[17] In the year from the founding of the City 645, after the Cimbrian and Teutonic war and the fifth consulship of Marius, by which the status of the Roman imperium is judged to have been conserved by law, in the sixth consulship of the same C. Marius it was so undermined that it almost collapsed to the utmost through internal slaughter.² To unroll and run through for me the windings of discords and the inextricable causes of seditions seems both inconvenient and long; ³ assuredly let it suffice to have briefly touched this, namely that L. Apuleius Saturninus was the first author of the aroused tumult, a most bitter enemy to Q. Metellus Numidicus, a truly foremost man, whom, when he had been created censor, he dragged from his house and, as he fled for refuge into the Capitol, besieged with an armed multitude, whence he was driven off by the indignation of the Roman equites, very great slaughter having been done before the Capitol. Then A. Nunium, his competitor, Saturninus and Glaucia killed by the fraud of the consul C. Marius.

⁴ subsequente anno Marius sexto consul et Glaucia praetor et Saturninus tribunus plebi conspirauerunt Metellum Numidicum in exilium quacumque ui agere. die dicta a suppositis eiusdem factionis iudicibus per scelus innocens Metellus damnatus in exilium cum totius urbis dolore discessit. ⁵ idem Saturninus Memmium, uirum acrem et integrum, fieri consulem timens, orta subito seditione fugientem per P. Mettium satellitem informi stipite conminutum interfecit.

⁴ in the following year Marius, consul for the 6th time, and Glaucia, praetor, and Saturninus, tribune of the plebs, conspired to drive Metellus Numidicus into exile by whatever force. On the appointed day, by suborned judges of the same faction, through wickedness the innocent Metellus, condemned to exile, departed with the grief of the whole city. ⁵ The same Saturninus, fearing that Memmius, a keen and upright man, would become consul, when a sedition suddenly arose, slew him as he fled, through his henchman P. Mettius, crushed to pieces with a misshapen cudgel.

⁶ fremente pro tantis reipublicae malis senatu populoque Romano, Marius consul accommodato ad tempus ingenio consensui bonorum sese inmiscuit commotamque plebem leni oratione sedauit. Saturninus infamibus ausis contionem domi suae habuit ibique ab aliis rex, ab aliis imperator est appellatus. ⁷ Marius manipulatim plebe descripta alterum consulem cum praesidiis in colle disposuit, ipse portas communiuit.

⁶ with the senate and the Roman people roaring at such great evils of the republic, Marius the consul, with a temperament accommodated to the occasion, insinuated himself into the consensus of the good men and calmed the agitated plebs with a gentle oration. Saturninus, with infamous ventures, held an assembly at his own house, and there by some he was called king, by others imperator. ⁷ Marius, the plebs having been enrolled maniple-wise, stationed the other consul with garrisons on the hill; he himself fortified the gates.

in foro proelium commissum est; Saturninus a Marianis foro pulsus in Capitolium confugit; Marius fistulas, quibus eo aqua deducebatur, incidit. ⁸ bellum deinde in aditu Capitolii horridum satis actum est, multi circa Saufeium et Saturninum caesi. Saturninus palam clamitans, Marium auctorem esse omnium molitionum suarum, contestatus est; ⁹ cum autem ipse Saturninus et Saufeius et Labienus cogente Mario in curiam confugissent, per equites Romanos effractis foribus occisi sunt.

A battle was joined in the Forum; Saturninus, driven from the Forum by the Marians, fled for refuge to the Capitol; Marius cut the pipes by which water was led thither. ⁸ Then war was waged at the entrance of the Capitol, quite horrid; many were cut down around Saufeius and Saturninus. Saturninus, openly shouting, declared that Marius was the author of all his machinations; ⁹ but when Saturninus himself and Saufeius and Labienus, with Marius compelling, had fled for refuge into the Curia, they were slain by the Roman equites, the doors having been broken down.

C. Glaucia extractus e domo Claudii trucidatus est. ¹⁰ Furius, tribunus plebi, bona omnium publicanda decreuit. Cn. Dolabella, Saturnini frater, per forum holitorium fugiens, cum L. Giganio interfectus est.

C. Glaucia, dragged out from the house of Claudius, was butchered. ¹⁰ Furius, tribune of the plebs, decreed that the goods of all be confiscated. Cn. Dolabella, Saturninus’s brother, fleeing through the forum holitorium, was killed together with L. Giganius.

itaque auctoribus tantae seditionis occisis quies populo fuit. ¹¹ tunc Cato atque Pompeius rogationem de reditu Metelli Numidici totius urbis gaudio promulgarunt: quae ne perficeretur, Marii consulis et Furii tribuni plebi factionibus intercessum est. ¹² Rutilius quoque uir integerrimus adeo fidei atque innocentiae constantia usus est, ut die sibi ab accusatoribus dicta, usque ad cognitionem neque capillum barbamue promiserit neque sordida ueste humiliue habitu suffragatores conciliarit, inimicos permulserit, iudices temperarit, orationem quoque a praetore concessam nihilo summissiorem quam animum habuerit.

and so, with the authors of so great a sedition slain, there was quiet for the people. ¹¹ then Cato and Pompey promulgated a rogation concerning the return of Metellus Numidicus, to the joy of the whole city: which, lest it be brought to completion, was met with intercession by the factions of Marius the consul and Furius the tribune of the plebs. ¹² Rutilius too, a most upright man, used such constancy of good faith and innocence, that, on the day appointed him by the accusers, right up to the hearing he let neither his hair nor his beard grow, nor did he win over suffragators by sordid dress or a humble bearing, he soothed enemies, showed moderation toward the judges, and delivered a speech granted by the praetor no whit more submissive than his spirit.

¹³ cum euidenti oppugnaretur calumnia et opinione bonorum omnium iure absoluendus putaretur, peiurio iudicum condemnatus est. qui Zmyrnam conmigrans litterarum studiis intentus consenuit.

¹³ although he was assailed by manifest calumny and was thought, in the opinion of all good men, to be by right acquitted, he was condemned by the perjury of the judges. He, migrating to Smyrna, grew old intent upon the studies of letters.

[18] Anno ab urbe condita DCLVIIII Sex. Julio Caesare et L. Marcio Philippo consulibus intestinis causis sociale bellum tota commouit Italia.² siquidem Liuius Drusus, tribunus plebi, Latinos omnes spe libertatis inlectos cum placito explere non posset, in arma excitauit.

[18] In the year from the founding of the City 659, with Sextus Julius Caesar and Lucius Marcius Philippus as consuls, the Social War was stirred up throughout all Italy by domestic causes.² indeed, since Livius Drusus, tribune of the plebs, could not fulfill his plebiscite for all the Latins, whom he had enticed by the hope of liberty, he roused them to arms.

³ eo accessit, ut maestam urbem prodigia dira terrerent. nam sub ortu solis globus ignis a regione septentrionis cum maximo caeli fragore emicuit. ⁴ apud Arretinos cum panes per conuiuia frangerentur, cruor e mediis panibus quasi ex uulneribus corporum fluxit.

³ To this was added that dire prodigies terrified the mournful city. For at sunrise a globe of fire from the septentrional (northern) region flashed forth with a very great crash of the heavens. ⁴ Among the Arretines, when loaves were being broken throughout convivial banquets, gore flowed from the midst of the loaves as if from wounds of bodies.

⁵ praeterea per septem continuos dies grando lapidum, inmixtis etiam testarum fragmentis, terram latissime uerberauit. in Samnitibus uastissimo terrae hiatu flamma prorupit et usque in caelum extendi uisa est. ⁶ conplures praeterea in itinere uidere Romani globum coloris aurei caelo ad terram deuolui maioremque factum rursus a terra in sublime ad orientem solem ferri ac magnitudine sua ipsum solem obtexisse.

⁵ moreover for seven continuous days a hail of stones, with fragments of potsherds mixed in, struck the earth very widely. among the Samnites, from a most vast yawning of the earth, a flame burst forth and seemed to be extended up to heaven. ⁶ several Romans moreover, while on the road, saw a globe of golden color roll down from the sky to the earth, and, having grown greater, again be borne from the earth on high toward the rising sun, and by its magnitude it covered the sun itself.

⁷ Drusus tantis malis anxius domi suae incerto quidem auctore interfectus est.

⁷ Drusus, anxious at such great evils, was slain in his own house by an unknown perpetrator.

⁸ Igitur Picentes Vestini Marsi Paeligni Marrucini Samnites Lucani cum adhuc occultam defectionem meditarentur, C. Seruium praetorem, legatum ad se missum, apud Asculum occiderunt statimque clausa ciuitate omnes ciues Romanos indicta caede iugularunt. ⁹ continuo atrocissimam perniciem infamissima praecessere prodigia. namque omnium generum animalia, quae manus hominum blande perpeti atque inter homines uiuere solita erant, relictis stabulis pascuisque cum balatu hinnitu mugituque miserabili ad siluas montesque fugerunt.

⁸ Therefore the Picentes, Vestini, Marsi, Paeligni, Marrucini, Samnites, and Lucani, while they were still contemplating a hidden defection, killed Gaius Servius, the praetor, a legate sent to them, at Asculum; and immediately, with the city shut, having proclaimed a massacre, they slaughtered all the Roman citizens. ⁹ Straightway the most infamous prodigies preceded a most atrocious destruction. For animals of every kind, which had been accustomed to endure the hands of men gently and to live among men, leaving their stalls and pastures, with pitiable bleating, neighing, and lowing, fled to the woods and the mountains.

canes quoque, quorum naturae est extra homines esse non posse, lacrimosis ululatibus uagi luporum ritu oberrarunt. ¹⁰ igitur Cn. Pompeius praetor cum Picentibus iussu senatus bellum gessit et uictus est, postquam sibi Samnites Papium Mutilum imperatorem praefecerant, Marsi autem Agamemnonem archipiratam praeoptauerant. ¹¹ Iulius Caesar Samnitium pugna uictus caeso fugit exercitu.

dogs too, whose nature is that they cannot be without humans, with lachrymose howls wandered, straying in the manner of wolves. ¹⁰ therefore Cn. Pompeius, praetor, by order of the senate waged war with the Picentes and was defeated, after the Samnites had set Papius Mutilus over themselves as imperator, but the Marsi had preferred Agamemnon, the arch-pirate. ¹¹ Julius Caesar, defeated in battle by the Samnites, fled, his army cut down.

Rutilius consul Marium propinquum suum legatum sibi legit: quem adsidue summonentem moram bello utilem fore et paulisper in castris exerceri militem oportere tironem, ¹² dolo id eum agere ratus contempsit seseque in insidias Marsorum et uniuersum agmen exercitus sui incautus iniecit, ubi et ipse consul occisus et multi nobiles interfecti et octo milia Romanorum militum caesa sunt. ¹³ arma et corpora interfectorum in conspectum Marii legati Tolenus fluuius pertulit atque in testimonium cladis euexit. Marius raptis continuo copiis uictores insperatus oppressit, octo milia et ipse Marsorum interfecit.

Rutilius the consul chose Marius, his kinsman, as his legate: who, continually warning that delay in war would be useful and that the raw recruit ought to be exercised for a little while in camp, ¹² he, thinking that he was doing this by deceit, scorned it, and, incautious, threw himself into the ambushes of the Marsi, and the whole column of his army, where both the consul himself was slain, and many nobles were killed, and eight thousand Roman soldiers were cut down. ¹³ The river Tolenus bore the arms and bodies of the slain into the sight of Marius the legate and carried them out as testimony of the disaster. Marius, with forces seized up immediately, unexpectedly crushed the victors, and he himself slew eight thousand of the Marsi.

¹⁴ Caepio autem a Vestinis et Marsis deductus in insidias, cum exercitu trucidatus est. L. uero Iulius Caesar postquam apud Aeserniam uictus aufugerat, contractis undique copiis aduersum Samnitas et Lucanos dimicans multa hostium milia interfecit. ¹⁵ cumque ab exercitu imperator appellatus esset Romamque nuntios de uictoria misisset, senatus saga, hoc est uestem maeroris, quam exorto sociali bello sumpserat, hac spe adridente deposuit atque antiquum togae decorem recuperauit.

¹⁴ Caepio, however, having been led down into ambush by the Vestini and the Marsi, was massacred with his army. But Lucius Julius Caesar, after he had been defeated at Aesernia and had fled, with forces gathered from all sides, fighting against the Samnites and the Lucanians, killed many thousands of the enemy. ¹⁵ And when he had been hailed as imperator by the army and had sent messengers to Rome about the victory, the senate laid aside the saga, that is, the garment of mourning, which it had assumed upon the outbreak of the Social War, this hope smiling on, and recovered the ancient decor of the toga.

Marius deinde sex milia Marsorum cecidit, septem milia armis exuit. ¹⁶ Sylla cum uiginti et quattuor cohortibus Aeserniam missus, ubi artissima obsidione Romani ciues et milites premebantur, maximo bello et plurima caede hostium urbem sociosque seruauit. ¹⁷ Cn. Pompeius Picentes graui proelio fudit, qua uictoria senatus laticlauia et cetera dignitatis insignia recepit, cum togas tantummodo uictoria Caesaris primum respirante sumpsisset.

Marius then felled six thousand of the Marsi, and stripped seven thousand of their arms. ¹⁶ Sylla, sent with twenty-four cohorts to Aesernia, where Roman citizens and soldiers were being pressed by a very close siege, by a very great battle and a very great slaughter of the enemy saved the city and the allies. ¹⁷ Cn. Pompeius routed the Picentes in a grievous battle, and by that victory the senate recovered the laticlavia and the other insignia of dignity, whereas it had assumed only the togas when Caesar’s victory first afforded a respite.

Porcius Cato praetor Etruscos, Plotius legatus Vmbros plurimo sanguine inpenso et difficillimo labore uicerunt.

Porcius Cato, praetor, defeated the Etruscans, and Plotius, legate, the Umbrians, with very much blood expended and with exceedingly difficult toil.

¹⁸ Cn. Pompeio L. Porcio Catone consulibus Pompeius diu obsedit Asculum ciuitatem; nec tamen expugnauisset, nisi populum in campum prorumpentem grauissima oppressione uicisset. decem et octo milia Marsorum in ea pugna cum Frauco imperatore suo caesa sunt, capta tria milia. ¹⁹ quattuor milia autem Italici uiri ex ea caede profugi iugum montis coacto in unum agmine forte conscenderant, ubi oppressi exanimatique niuibus miserabili morte riguerunt.

¹⁸ In the consulship of Cn. Pompeius and L. Porcius Cato, Pompeius long besieged the city of Asculum; nor yet would he have taken it, unless he had defeated the populace bursting forth into the plain by a most grievous crushing. Eighteen thousand of the Marsi in that battle, along with their own commander Fraucus, were slain, three thousand captured. ¹⁹ Moreover, four thousand Italian men, fugitives from that slaughter, had by chance climbed the ridge of a mountain with their column compressed into one body, where, overwhelmed and rendered lifeless by the snows, they stiffened in a pitiable death.

²⁰ namque ita, ut attoniti timore hostium steterant, alii stirpibus uel saxis reclines, alii armis suis innitentes, patentibus cuncti oculis dentibusque nudatis uiuentium in modum uisebantur; nec ullum erat procul intuentibus mortis indicium nisi diuturna immobilitas, quam nullo modo humanae uitae uegetatio diu perpeti potest. ²¹ eadem die Picentes congressi et uicti sunt, quorum dux Vidacilius conuocatis principibus suis post magnificas epulas largaque pocula cunctos ad exemplum sui prouocans hausto ueneno absumptus est, cunctis factum eius laudantibus sed nemine subsequente.

²⁰ For indeed thus, as they had stood astonished by fear of the enemy, some reclining on roots or rocks, others leaning upon their arms, with all their eyes lying open and their teeth laid bare, they were seen in the manner of the living; nor was there any indication of death to those looking from afar except a prolonged immobility, which the vigor of human life can in no wise long endure. ²¹ On the same day the Picentes met in battle and were conquered, whose leader Vidacilius, having called together his chiefs, after magnificent banquets and ample cups, calling all to the example of himself, having drunk poison perished, all praising his deed but no one following.

²² Anno ab urbe condita DCLXI cum ad obsidendos Pompeios Romanus isset exercitus et Postumius Albinus uir consularis, tunc L. Syllae legatus, intolerabili superbia omnium in se militum odia suscitasset, lapidibus occisus est. ²³ Sylla consul ciuilem cruorem non nisi hostili sanguine expiari posse testatus est: cuius rei conscientia permotus exercitus ita pugnam adortus est, ut sibi unusquisque pereundum uideret nisi uicisset. decem et octo milia Samnitium illo proelio caesa sunt; Iuuentium quoque, Italicum ducem, et magnum ipsius populum persecutus occidit.

²² In the year from the founding of the City 661, when the Roman army had gone to besiege Pompeii and Postumius Albinus, a man of consular rank, then legate of L. Sulla, had aroused by intolerable arrogance the hatreds of all the soldiers against himself, he was stoned to death. ²³ Sulla the consul affirmed that civil gore could be expiated only by hostile blood: the army, moved by the consciousness of this matter, so attacked the battle that each saw it must perish unless it had conquered. Eighteen thousand Samnites were cut down in that battle; he also, pursuing Juventius, an Italic leader, killed him, and a great multitude of his people.

²⁴ Porcius Cato consul Marianas copias habens cum aliquanta strenue gessisset, gloriatus est, C. Marium non maiora fecisse, et ob hoc, cum ad lacum Fucinum contra Marsos bellum gereret, a filio C. Marii in tumultu belli quasi ab incerto auctore prostratus est. ²⁵ C. Gabinius legatus in expugnatione hostilium castrorum interfectus est. Marrucini Vestinique Sulpicio legato Pompei persequente uastati sunt.

²⁴ Porcius Cato, consul, having the Marian forces, after he had conducted matters with some vigor, boasted that C. Marius had not done greater things; and on account of this, when he was waging war against the Marsi at Lake Fucinus, he was prostrated in the turmoil of war by the son of C. Marius, as if by an unknown assailant. ²⁵ C. Gabinius, legate, was killed in the expugnation of the enemy camps. The Marrucini and the Vestini were laid waste by Sulpicius, Pompey’s legate, in pursuit.

Popaedius et Obsidius, Italici imperatores, ab eodem Sulpicio apud flumen Teanum horribili proelio oppressi et occisi sunt. ²⁶ Pompeius Asculum ingressus praefectos centuriones cunctosque principes eorum uirgis cecidit securique percussit, seruos praedamque omnem sub hasta uendidit, reliquos liberos quidem sed nudos et egentes abire praecepit; et cum de hac praeda opitulationem aliquam in usum stipendii publici senatus fore speraret, nihil tamen Pompeius ex ea egenti aerario contulit. ²⁷ namque eodem tempore cum penitus exhaustum esset aerarium et ad stipendium frumenti deesset expensa, loca publica quae in circuitu Capitolii pontificibus auguribus decemuiris et flaminibus in possessionem tradita erant, cogente inopia uendita sunt et sufficiens pecuniae modus, qui ad tempus inopiae subsidio esset, acceptus est.

Popaedius and Obsidius, Italian generals, by that same Sulpicius at the river Teanus were overwhelmed and killed in a horrible battle. ²⁶ Pompey, having entered Asculum, struck the prefects, the centurions, and all their chiefs with rods and smote them with the axe; he sold the slaves and all the booty at auction (under the spear), he ordered the rest to depart free indeed but naked and destitute; and although he hoped that from this booty there would be some assistance for the public pay-fund of the senate, nevertheless Pompey contributed nothing from it to the needy treasury. ²⁷ For at the same time, since the treasury had been utterly drained and the expense for the payment of grain was lacking, the public places which around the circuit of the Capitol had been handed over in possession to the pontiffs, augurs, decemvirs, and flamens were, need compelling, sold, and a sufficient amount of money, which might be a relief to the want for the time, was received.

²⁸ equidem tunc in sinus ipsius ciuitatis euersarum omnium urbium nudatarumque terrarum abrasae undique opes congerebantur, cum ipsa Roma turpi adigente inopia praecipuas sui partes auctionabatur. ²⁹ quamobrem consideret tunc tempora sua, cum quasi inexplebilis uenter cuncta consumens et semper esuriens cunctis urbibus, quas miseras faciebat, ipsa miserior nihil relinquens nihil habebat et stimulo domesticae famis ad continuationem bellicae inquietudinis trudebatur.

²⁸ indeed then into the very bosom of the city itself the resources scraped away on all sides from all the overthrown cities and stripped lands were being heaped together, while Rome herself, with shameful want driving her, was auctioning off her chief parts. ²⁹ wherefore let one consider her condition at that time, when, like an insatiable belly consuming all things and ever hungry, among all the cities which she was making wretched, she herself, more wretched, leaving nothing, had nothing, and by the goad of domestic famine was thrust toward a continuation of bellicose inquietude.

³⁰ Isdem temporibus rex Sothimus cum magnis Thracum auxiliis Graeciam ingressus cunctos Macedoniae fines depopulatus est tandemque a C. Sentio praetore superatus redire in regnum coactus est.

³⁰ At the same time King Sothimus, having entered Greece with great Thracian auxiliaries, devastated all the confines of Macedonia, and at length, overcome by C. Sentius, praetor, was forced to return to his kingdom.

[19] Anno ab urbe condita DCLXII nondum finito sociali bello Romae primum bellum ciuile commotum est, eodemque anno Mithridaticum bellum etsi minus infame non tamen minus graue coeptum est.² equidem de Mithridatici belli spatio uarie traditum est, utrum abhinc primum coeperit an tunc praecipue exarserit, maxime cum alii triginta alii quadraginta annos gestum ferant. sed quamuis isdem gesta temporibus perplexis coaceruata malis exarserint, a me tamen speciatim, etsi breuiter, singula proferentur.

[19] In the 662nd year from the founding of the city, with the Social War not yet finished, at Rome the first civil war was stirred up; and in the same year the Mithridatic War, although less infamous, was nonetheless no less grave, was begun.² Indeed, about the duration of the Mithridatic War it has been variously handed down, whether it first began from this point or then especially flared up, most of all since some report it was waged for 30 years, others for 40. But although the things done in those same times, heaped together with perplexing ills, blazed forth, by me, however, specifically—though briefly—each will be set forth.

³ Marius, Sylla consule et contra Mithridatem in Asiam cum exercitu profecturo, in Campania tamen propter socialis belli reliquias consistente, adfectauit septimum consulatum et bellum suscipere Mithridaticum. ⁴ quo Sylla cognito inpatiens reuera iuuenis intemperataque ira percitus cum quattuor legionibus primum ante urbem consedit, ubi Gratidium Marii legatum quasi primam uictimam belli ciuilis occidit, mox urbem cum exercitu inrupit, faces ad inflammandam urbem poposcit. omnibus metu abditis, per Sacram uiam cito agmine in forum uenit.

³ Marius, with Sulla being consul and about to set out against Mithridates into Asia with an army, while nevertheless taking his stand in Campania on account of the remnants of the Social War, affected a seventh consulship and to undertake the Mithridatic war. ⁴ When Sulla learned this, impatient—truly youthful—and stirred by intemperate anger, he first encamped with four legions before the city, where he killed Gratidius, Marius’s legate, as if the first victim of the civil war; soon he irrupted into the city with the army, and demanded torches to inflame the city. With all hiding in fear, he came quickly in column along the Sacred Way into the forum.

⁵ Marius cum permouere nobilitatem, inflammare plebem, equestrem denique ordinem perarmare aduersus Syllam frustra adtemptasset, postremo seruis spe libertatis et praedae ad arma sollicitatis, nequiquam repugnare ausus, tandem in Capitolium concessit. sed cum eo Syllanae cohortes inruissent, magna suorum caede diffugit. ⁶ ibi tunc Sulpicius Marii collega seruo suo prodente prostratus est; seruum uero ipsum, quod hostem indicauerat, manumitti, quod uero dominum prodiderat, saxo Tarpeio deici consules decreuerunt.

⁵ When Marius had attempted in vain to stir the nobility, inflame the plebs, and at last to arm the equestrian order against Sulla, and, after slaves too had been solicited to arms by the hope of liberty and plunder, having dared to resist to no purpose, he finally withdrew to the Capitol. But when Sulla’s cohorts had burst in there, he fled, with great slaughter of his own men. ⁶ There then Sulpicius, Marius’s colleague, was laid low, betrayed by his own slave; but the consuls decreed that the slave himself, because he had pointed out an enemy, be manumitted, and because he had betrayed his master, be cast down from the Tarpeian Rock.

⁷ Marius fugiens cum persequentum instantia circumsaeptus esset, in Minturnensium paludibus sese abdidit; e quibus infeliciter luto oblitus ignominioseque protractus, turpi autem spectaculo Minturnas deductus contrususque in carcerem percussorem ad se missum solo uultu exterruit. ⁸ deinde lapsus e uinculis in Africam transfugit sollicitatoque ex Utica filio, ubi in custodia obseruabatur, continuo Romam regressus Cinnae consuli societate scelerum coniunctus est. ⁹ igitur ad profligandam uniuersam rempublicam exercitum sibi in quattuor partes diuiserunt.

⁷ Marius, fleeing, when he had been hemmed in by the urgency of the pursuers, hid himself in the marshes of the Minturnae; from which, unhappily, smeared with mud and ignominiously dragged out, and led to Minturnae as a shameful spectacle and crammed into prison, he terrified with his face alone the executioner sent to him. ⁸ Then, slipping from his bonds, he fled across into Africa, and, after getting his son from Utica, where he was under guard, immediately returned to Rome and was joined to the consul Cinna in a society of crimes. ⁹ Therefore, to prostrate the entire Republic, they divided the army among themselves into four parts.

tres siquidem legiones Mario datae, parti copiarum Cn. Carbo praepositus est, partem Sertorius accepit, ille scilicet Sertorius, iam hic ciuilis belli incentor et particeps, qui etiam hoc finito aliud post in Hispania bellum excitauit, quod per multos annos maximis Romanorum cladibus traxit. cetera uero exercitus portio Cinnam secuta est. ¹⁰ porro autem Cn. Pompeius, qui a senatu cum exercitu arcessitus, ut reipublicae opitularetur, et diu sese nouarum rerum aucupatione suspenderat, contemptus a Mario uel Cinna ad Octauium alterum consulem sese contulit et mox cum Sertorio conflixit.

indeed three legions were given to Marius; over a part of the forces Cn. Carbo was set; a part Sertorius received—that Sertorius, namely, already here an inciter and participant of civil war, who even when this was finished later in Spain stirred up another war, which he prolonged for many years with the greatest disasters of the Romans. but the remaining portion of the army followed Cinna. ¹⁰ moreover Cn. Pompeius, who had been summoned by the senate with an army, that he might aid the republic, and had long held himself back by angling for new affairs, scorned by Marius or by Cinna, betook himself to Octavius, the other consul, and soon clashed with Sertorius.

¹¹ infelicem pugnam interuentus noctis diremit; sescenteni ex utraque parte milites trucidati sunt. ¹² postera die cum permixtim corpora ad sepulturam discernerentur, miles Pompeianus fratris sui, quem ipse interfecerat, corpus adgnouit: in concursu enim utrique cognitionem uultus galea, considerationem furor ademerat; quamuis parum sit culpae circa ignorantiam, ut uideatur nescisse de fratre quem non ambigitur scisse de ciue. ¹³ itaque uictor uicto infelicior, ubi et fratris corpus agnouit et parricidium suum, exsecratus bella ciuilia ilico pectus suum gladio transuerberans simulque lacrimas et sanguinem fundens super fraternum sese cadauer abiecit.

¹¹ the unhappy battle was broken off by the intervention of night; six hundred soldiers on each side were butchered. ¹² On the next day, when the bodies, all mixed together, were being distinguished for burial, a Pompeian soldier recognized the body of his brother, whom he himself had slain: for in the rush the helmet had deprived each of recognition of the face, and frenzy had taken away consideration; although there is little of fault concerning ignorance, so that he may seem not to have known of a brother whom there is no doubt he knew as a fellow citizen. ¹³ And so, the victor more unlucky than the vanquished, when he recognized both his brother’s body and his own parricide, execrating civil wars, straightway, stabbing his own breast with a sword and at the same time pouring out tears and blood, he hurled himself upon his brother’s corpse.

¹⁴ Et quid hoc profuit ad confusionem crudelis incepti, quod in primo statim bellorum ciuilium exordio infamis fama percrebruit, concurrisse ignaros quidem fratres sed conscios ciues, petisse fratrem scelere uictorem spolia fratris occisi ac mox tantae immanitatis reum eodem gladio atque eadem manu per suam necem parricidium, quod admiserat, uindicasse? ¹⁵ numquid intentarum animositates partium tam triste mouit exemplum ? numquid apud quemquam periculum sceleris reppulit terror erroris ? numquid haec, quae communis est etiam cum beluis, pietas et reuerentia naturae? ** quod unus perimendo ac pereundo commisit, quia in se agi posset intremuit seseque ab huiusmodi incepto conscientia uictus remouit?

¹⁴ And what did this profit toward the confusion of the cruel undertaking, that at the very outset of the civil wars an infamous report spread far and wide, that brothers indeed unknowing of each other but citizens conscious of each other had clashed, that the brother, a victor by wickedness, sought the spoils of his slain brother, and soon, arraigned for so great immanity, with the same sword and the same hand, by his own death avenged the parricide which he had committed? ¹⁵ Did this so sad example move the animosities of the engaged parties ? Did the peril of crime repel with anyone the terror of error ? Was there this, which is common even with beasts, piety and reverence of nature? ** what one man by killing and by perishing committed, because it might be done against himself did he tremble, and, conscience overcoming him, remove himself from an undertaking of this kind?

¹⁶ quin potius annis fere quadraginta consequentibus in tantum continuata sunt bella ciuilia, ut magnitudo laudis adpendenda ex magnitudine sceleris putaretur. omnes enim post tale documentum in tali militia parricidiorum pericula refugissent, nisi parricidia ipsa uoluissent.

¹⁶ Nay rather, in the nearly forty years that followed the civil wars were continued to such an extent that the magnitude of praise was thought to be weighed from the magnitude of crime. For after such a lesson, in such a military service, all would have fled the dangers of parricides, unless they had willed the parricides themselves.

¹⁷ Igitur Marius coloniam Ostiensem ui ingressus omnia ibi genera libidinis auaritiae et crudelitatis exercuit. ¹⁸ Pompeius fulmine adflatus interiit; exercitus uero eius pestilentia correptus paene totus absumptus est. nam undecim milia uirorum de castris Pompei mortua, sex milia autem de parte Octauii consulis siderata sunt.

¹⁷ Therefore Marius, having entered the Ostian colony by force, exercised there every kind of lust, avarice, and cruelty. ¹⁸ Pompeius, struck by lightning, perished; but his army, seized by pestilence, was almost entirely consumed. For 11,000 men from Pompeius’s camp died, but 6,000 from the side of the consul Octavius were struck by lightning.

¹⁹ Marius Antium et Ariciam ciuitates hostiliter inrupit cunctosque in his praeter proditores interfecit, bona suis diripienda permisit. post Cinna consul cum legionibus et Marius cum fugitiuis urbem ingressi nobilissimos quosque e senatu et plurimos consulares uiros interfecerunt.

¹⁹ Marius burst in hostilely into the cities of Antium and Aricia and slew all in them except the traitors, and he permitted their goods to be plundered by his own. Afterwards the consul Cinna with the legions and Marius with the fugitives, having entered the city, killed each of the most noble from the senate and very many consular men.

²⁰ Sed quota haec portio ostentatae miseriae est? ** uno uerbo definisse caedem bonorum, cuius fuit tanta numerositas, tanta diuturnitas, tanta crudelitas tantaque diuersitas ? ²¹ uerumtamen aequius est me aliquid utilitatis subtraxisse causae quam tantum horroris ingessisse notitiae, siue peritis haec siue imperitis obiciantur. ²² de patria siquidem, de ciuibus et de maioribus nostris haec loquimur, qui his exagitati malis tam abominanda gesserunt, de quibus etiam auditis posteri perhorrescant, qui profecto nolunt ista nimis exaggerari aut sufficientis notitiae moderatione, si sciunt, aut misericordis reuerentiae contemplatione, si nesciunt.

²⁰ But what portion is this of the misery set forth? ** to have defined with one word the slaughter of the good, of which there was such numerousness, such long duration, such cruelty and such diversity ? ²¹ Nevertheless it is more equitable that I have subtracted something of utility from the cause than that I have heaped so much horror upon knowledge, whether these things be objected to the experienced or to the inexperienced. ²² Indeed, of our fatherland, of our fellow citizens and of our ancestors we speak these things, who, harried by these evils, performed deeds so abominable that even at the hearing of them posterity shudders, who assuredly do not wish these things to be too much exaggerated, either by the moderation of sufficient knowledge, if they know, or by the contemplation of merciful reverence, if they do not know.

²³ Igitur Marius cum interfectorum ciuium capita inlata conuiuiis, oblata Capitoliis, conlata Rostris ad spectaculum ornatumque congereret ac septimum consulatum cum Cinna tertium consule peruasisset, in exordio consularis imperii sera tandem morte praereptus est. ²⁴ Cinna bonorum neces malorum caede suppleuit. nam cum introducta per Marium fugitiuorum manus insatiabilis praedandi esset nullamque partem auctoribus praedae consulibus ministraret, in forum quasi stipendii causa sollicitata, militibusque circumdata, inermis extincta est.

²³ Therefore Marius, while he was heaping up the heads of slain citizens brought into banquets, offered to the Capitol, amassed on the Rostra for spectacle and ornament, and had seized a seventh consulship, with Cinna consul for the third time, was snatched away at the outset of his consular imperium by a death, belated at last. ²⁴ Cinna made up for the slaughters of the good by the slaughter of the wicked. For when the band of fugitives brought in by Marius was insatiable for plundering and furnished no share of the booty to the authors of the plunder, the consuls, having been summoned into the forum as if for the sake of stipend, and surrounded by soldiers, unarmed, it was exterminated.

caesa sunt illa die in foro urbis octo milia fugitiuorum, idemque Cinna quarto consul ab exercitu suo interfectus est.

on that day in the forum of the city, eight thousand fugitives were cut down, and likewise Cinna, consul for the fourth time, was slain by his own army.

[20] Interea residui senatorum, qui potentiam Cinnae, Marii crudelitatem, insaniam Fimbriae Sertoriique audaciam fuga euaserant, transuecti in Graeciam coegere precibus Syllam, ut periclitanti immo iam paene perditae patriae opem ferret.² igitur Sylla mox ut Campanum litus attigit, Norbanum consulem proelio oppressit: septem milia tunc Romanorum Romani interfecerunt, sex milia eorundem ab isdem capta sunt, centum uiginti et quattuor de Syllana parte ceciderunt. ³ Fabius uero Hadrianus, cui imperium pro praetore erat, regnum Africae seruorum manu adfectans, a dominis eorum apud Uticam congestis sarmentis cum omni familia uiuus incensus est.

[20] Meanwhile the remaining of the senators, who had escaped by flight the power of Cinna, the cruelty of Marius, the insanity of Fimbria, and the audacity of Sertorius, having been conveyed across into Greece, compelled Sulla by entreaties to bring help to the fatherland in peril, nay now almost ruined.² Therefore Sulla, as soon as he reached the Campanian shore, overwhelmed the consul Norbanus in battle: then Romans killed 7,000 Romans, 6,000 of the same were captured by the same, 124 fell on Sulla’s side. ³ But Fabius Hadrianus, who had the command with pro-praetor authority, aiming at a kingdom in Africa by the hand of slaves, by their masters—brushwood having been heaped up at Utica—was burned alive with his whole household.

⁴ Damasippus praetor incentore Mario consule Q. Scaeuolam C. Carbonem L. Domitium P. Antistium in curiam quasi ad consultandum uocatos crudelissime occidit. corpora interfectorum per carnifices unco tracta atque in Tiberim missa sunt. ⁵ eodem tempore Syllae duces plurima proelia aduersum Marianas partes infelicissima felicitate gesserunt.

⁴ Damasippus, the praetor, at the instigation of the consul Marius, most cruelly killed Q. Scaevola, C. Carbo, L. Domitius, and P. Antistius, who had been called into the Curia as if for consultation. The bodies of the slain were dragged by the executioners with a hook and cast into the Tiber. ⁵ At the same time Sulla’s generals waged very many battles against the Marian party with a most ill-starred felicity.

nam et Q. Metellus Carrinatis copias cecidit et castra peruasit et Cn. Pompeius Carbonis equitatum grauiter trucidauit. ⁶ Syllae etiam et Marii adulescentis maximum tunc proelium apud Sacriportum fuit, in quo de exercitu Marii caesa sunt XXV milia, sicut Claudius scribit. ⁷ Pompeius Carbonem etiam castris exuit fugientemque insecutus, nunc caedendo nunc ad deditionem cogendo plurima exercitus parte priuauit.

for both Q. Metellus cut down the forces of Carrinas and overran the camp, and Cn. Pompeius grievously slaughtered the cavalry of Carbo. ⁶ There was then the greatest battle of Sulla and the young Marius at Sacriportus, in which 25 thousand of the army of Marius were cut down, as Claudius writes. ⁷ Pompeius also stripped Carbo of his camp and, pursuing him as he fled, now by slaughtering, now by compelling to surrender, deprived him of a very large part of his army.

Metellus Norbani agmen oppressit: ubi nouem milia Marianae partis occisa sunt. ⁸ Lucullus cum a Quintio obsideretur, erupit et repentina pugna obsessorem deleuit exercitum. nam plus quam decem milia ibi tunc caesa referuntur.

Metellus overwhelmed Norbanus’s column: where 9 thousand of the Marian party were slain. ⁸ Lucullus, when he was being besieged by Quintius, burst out and in a sudden battle obliterated the besieger’s army; for more than 10 thousand are reported to have been cut down there at that time.

⁹ Sylla deinde cum Camponio Samnitium duce et Carrinatis reliquis copiis ante ipsam urbem portamque Collinam ad horam diei nonam signa contulit grauissimoque proelio tandem uicit. octoginta milia hominum ibi fusa dicuntur: duodecim milia sese dediderunt, reliquam multitudinem in fugam uersam insatiabilis uictorum ciuium ira consumpsit.

⁹ Sulla then, with Camponius, leader of the Samnites, and the remaining forces of Carrinas, before the city itself and the Colline Gate, at the 9th hour of the day brought up the standards and at last conquered in a most grievous battle. 80,000 men are said to have been routed there: 12,000 surrendered; the insatiable wrath of victorious fellow citizens consumed the remaining multitude turned to flight.

[21] Sylla mox atque urbem uictor intrauit, tria milia hominum, qui se per legatos dediderant, contra fas contraque fidem datam inermes securosque interfecit. plurimi tunc quoque, ut non dicam innocentes, sed etiam ipsius Syllanae partis occisi sunt, quos fuisse plus quam nouem milia ferunt. ita liberae per urbem caedes, percussoribus passim uagantibus ut quemque uel ira uel praeda sollicitabat, agitabantur.

[21] Sulla soon thereafter, a victor, also entered the city, and he slew three thousand men who had surrendered themselves through legates, unarmed and unsuspecting, against right and against the pledged faith. Very many then too, not to say the innocent, but even men of Sulla’s own party, were killed; they say these were more than nine thousand. Thus free slaughters throughout the city were being carried on, with assassins roaming everywhere, as each man was stirred either by wrath or by plunder.

² igitur cunctis iam quod singuli timebant aperte frementibus Q. Catulus palam Syllae dixit: cum quibus tandem uicturi sumus, si in bello armatos, in pace inermes occidimus? ³ tunc Sylla auctore L. Fursidio primipilari primus infamem illam tabulam proscriptionis induxit. prima proscriptio octoginta hominum fuit, in quibus quattuor consulares erant Carbo Marius Norbanus et Scipio et inter eos Sertorius tunc maxime pertimescendus.

² therefore, with all now openly murmuring at what each had feared, Q. Catulus said openly to Sulla: with whom, at last, are we to live, if in war we kill the armed, in peace the unarmed? ³ then Sulla, with L. Fursidius, a primipilaris, as instigator, first introduced that infamous tablet of proscription. The first proscription was of eighty men, among whom there were four consulars—Carbo, Marius, Norbanus, and Scipio—and among them Sertorius, then especially to be dreaded.

⁴ item alia cum quingentis nominibus proposita est, quam cum Lollius, quippe securus nihilque sibi conscius, legeret, ubi suum repente nomen offendit, dum se trepidus adoperto capite foro subtrahit, interfectus est. ⁵ sed ne in ipsis quidem tabulis fides ac finis malorum uidebatur. namque alios quos proscripserant iugulabant, alios autem postquam iugulauerant proscribebant.

⁴ likewise another, with five hundred names, was posted; and when Lollius—indeed secure and conscious of nothing against himself—was reading it, where he suddenly came upon his own name, while in panic he, with his head covered, was withdrawing from the forum, he was killed. ⁵ But not even on the very tablets did there seem to be good faith or an end of evils; for some whom they had proscribed they slaughtered, while others, after they had slaughtered them, they proscribed.

⁶ nec ipsius mortis erat uia simplex aut una condicio, ut in nece ciuium saltem ius hostium seruaretur, qui nihil a uictis praeter uitam exigunt. ⁷M. Marium siquidem de caprili casa extractum uinciri Sylla iussit ductumque trans Tiberim ad Lutatiorum sepulchrum effossis oculis membrisque minutatim desectis uel etiam fractis trucidari.⁸ post hunc P. Laetorius senator et Venuleius triumuir occisi.

⁶ nor was the path of death itself simple nor a single condition, such that in the slaying of citizens at least the law of enemies might be preserved, who exact nothing from the vanquished except life. ⁷ Marcus Marius, indeed, dragged out from a goatherd’s hut, Sylla ordered to be bound and led across the Tiber to the sepulcher of the Lutatii, with his eyes gouged out and his limbs cut off piece by piece, or even broken, to be butchered. ⁸ after him Publius Laetorius, a senator, and Venuleius, a triumvir, were killed.

M. Marii caput Praeneste missum: quo uiso C. Marius ultima desperatione correptus, ubi a Lucretio obsidebatur, ne in manus incideret inimicorum, cum Telesino mutua morte concurrit.⁹ dumque uiolentius ipse in concurrentem manus adigit, circa suum uulnus manum percutientis hebetauit. ita eo interfecto, ipse leuiter uulneratus ceruices seruo suo praebuit.

The head of M. Marius was sent to Praeneste: on seeing which, C. Marius, seized by utmost desperation, while he was being besieged by Lucretius, lest he fall into the hands of his enemies, clashed with Telesinus in mutual death. ⁹ And while he himself, more violently, drives his hands against the one rushing at him, around his own wound he blunted the hand of the striker. Thus, with him slain, he himself, lightly wounded, offered his neck to his slave.

¹⁰ Carrinatem praetorem Sylla iugulauit. inde Praeneste profectus omnes Marianae militiae principes, hoc est legatos quaestores praefectos et tribunos iussit occidi. ¹¹ Pompeius Carbonem a Cossura insula in Aegyptum fugere conantem, in Siciliam ad se retractum conpluresque cum eo socios eius occidit.

¹⁰ Sulla jugulated the praetor Carrinas. Then, having set out from Praeneste, he ordered all the leaders of the Marian soldiery, that is, the legates, quaestors, prefects, and tribunes, to be slain. ¹¹ Pompey killed Carbo, who was attempting to flee from the island of Cossura into Egypt, having been dragged back to himself into Sicily, and he killed several of his associates along with him.

¹² Sylla dictator creatus est, ut dominationis et crudelitatis libido honesti praecipuique nominis reuerentia et armaretur et uelaretur. ¹³ Pompeius in Africam transgressus eruptione circa Uticam facta decem et octo milia hominum interfecit. quo bello Domitius dux Marianus dum inter primores pugnat, occisus est.

¹² Sulla was created dictator, so that the lust of domination and cruelty might both be armed and veiled by the reverence of an honorable and most preeminent name. ¹³ Pompey, having crossed into Africa, with a sally made around Utica, killed eighteen thousand men. In which war Domitius, a Marian leader, while fighting among the foremost, was slain.

¹⁴ idemque Pompeius Hiertam Numidiae regem persecutus, fugientemque a Bogude Bocchi Maurorum regis filio spoliari omnibus copiis fecit: quem continuo Bullam reuersum tradito sibi oppido interfecit.

¹⁴ and the same Pompey, having pursued Hierta, king of Numidia, caused that, as he fled, he was despoiled of all his forces by Bogudes, son of Bocchus, king of the Moors: whom, having immediately returned to Bulla, the town having been surrendered to him, he put to death.

[22] Creatis itaque P. Seruilio et Appio Claudio consulibus uisus est tandem Sylla priuatus.² hoc fine conclusa sunt duo bella funestissima, sociale Italicum et ciuile Syllanum. haec per annos decem tracta plus quam centum quinquaginta milia Romanorum consumpserunt; ³ tantumque lectissimorum uirorum uernaculorumque militum Roma hoc ciuili bello perdidit, quantum in ea superiore tempore, cum se iam aduersum Alexandrum Magnum circumspiceret, in discretis aetatibus census inuenit; ⁴ praeterea uiros consulares uiginti et quattuor, praetorios sex, aedilicios sexaginta, senatores fere ducentos, absque innumeris totius Italiae populis, qui passim sine consideratione deleti sunt, quos neget quisquam, si ualet, quin eodem damno suo uicerit Roma quo amisit Italia.

[22] With P. Servilius and Appius Claudius therefore created consuls, Sylla at last was seen as a private citizen.² With this end were concluded two most funereal wars, the Italic Social and the Sullan civil. These, protracted through ten years, consumed more than 150,000 Romans; ³ and Rome lost in this civil war so many of the most select men and homeborn soldiers as, in that earlier time, when she was already looking around against Alexander the Great, the census in the separate age-classes found; ⁴ besides, 24 consular men, 6 praetorian, 60 aedilician, nearly 200 senators, apart from the innumerable peoples of all Italy, who far and wide without consideration were destroyed—let anyone deny it, if he is able—that Rome conquered with the same damage to herself with which Italy was lost.

⁵ Pro pudor! num quidnam et hic conparatione ambigua egent tempora? immo uel maxime, inquiunt: nam quid tam apte quam bellis ciuilibus bella ciuilia conparantur?

⁵ For shame! Do these times too need an ambiguous comparison? Nay, rather most of all, they say: for what is compared so aptly as civil wars with civil wars?

an forte dicetur, etiam in his temporibus bella ciuilia non fuisse? ⁶ quibus a nobis respondebitur, iustius quidem socialia uocari oportere, sed nobis proficere, si ciuilia nominentur. cum enim causis uocabulis ac studiis paria docentur omnia tum sibi in his tanto plus uindicat reuerentia Christianae religionis quanto minus praesumpserit potestas irata uictoris.

Or perhaps it will be said that even in these times there were not civil wars? ⁶ to which we shall reply that they ought more justly indeed to be called social, but it profits us if they are named civil. For when in causes, in vocabularies, and in allegiances all things are shown equal, then the reverence of the Christian religion claims so much the more for itself in these matters, the less the wrathful power of the victor has presumed.

⁷ nam cum plerumque improbi tyranni temere inuadentes rempublicam usurpatoque regio statu Romani imperii corpus abruperint atque ex eo bella uel per se iniusta inportarint uel in se iusta commouerint, Britannis Gallisque et creati populis et instructi: ⁸ haec bella, quantum externis proxima tantum longinqua ciuilibus, quid nisi socialia iure uocitentur, cum ipsi Romani ne Sertorii quidem aut Perpennae aut Crixi aut Spartaci bella ciuilia uspiam nominarint? ⁹ in tali ergo uel defectu uel perduellione sociorum minore nunc utique inuidia laboraret, si fortassis exsisteret uel grauis pugna uel cruenta uictoria. ¹⁰ uerumtamen cum in hisce temporibus omnia plus necessitatis adferant et minus pudoris, hoc est causa pugna uictoria, uel pro extinguenda insolentia tyrannorum uel pro cohibendo sociorum defectu uel pro inurendo ultionis exemplo: ¹¹ cui tandem dubium est, quanto nunc mitius quantoque clementius excitata, ut dicunt, bella ciuilia geruntur, immo reprimuntur potius quam geruntur?

⁷ For since, very often, wicked tyrants, rashly invading the republic and, with the royal status usurped, have torn asunder the body of the Roman empire and from this have either brought in wars unjust in themselves or have stirred up against themselves wars just, being by the Britons and the Gauls both raised up by peoples and equipped: ⁸ these wars, as near to external ones as they are far from civil ones, what should they rightly be called if not social, since the Romans themselves nowhere called even the wars of Sertorius or of Perpenna or of Crixus or of Spartacus “civil” wars? ⁹ therefore, in such a defection or treason of allies, one would now surely labor under less ill-will, if perhaps either a grievous battle or a bloody victory should arise. ¹⁰ Nevertheless, since in these times all things bring more of necessity and less of modesty—namely, the cause, the battle, the victory—either for extinguishing the insolence of tyrants or for restraining the defection of allies or for branding in an example of vengeance: ¹¹ who, then, doubts how much more mildly and how much more clemently the so‑called civil wars are now conducted, nay, are rather repressed than conducted?

¹² quis enim unum ciuile bellum per decem annos his temporibus agitatum audierit? quis uno bello centum quinquaginta milia hominum, uel hostium ab hostibus, ut non dicam ciuium a ciuibus, caesa meminerit? ¹³ quis illam, quam explicare longum est, optimorum atque inlustrium uirorum multitudinem trucidari in pace cognorit ? postremo quis illas infames interficiendorum tabulas timuerit legerit senserit?

¹² for who has heard in these times of one civil war prosecuted for 10 years? who remembers in one war 150,000 men, even enemies by enemies, not to say citizens by citizens, cut down? ¹³ who has known that multitude of the best and most illustrious men to be butchered in peace, which it is long to unfold ? finally, who has feared, has read, has felt those infamous tables of the to-be-killed?

¹⁴ ac non potius omnibus notum sit, una cunctos pace compositos atque eadem salute securos uictos uictoresque pariter communi exultasse laetitia, at etiam in tantis totius imperii Romani prouinciis urbibus ac populis uix paucos aliquando extitisse, quos iusta ultio inuito etiam uictore damnarit? ¹⁵ et, ut uerbis uerba non onerem, non temere dixerim, tantam uel in bello saltim extinctam modo fuisse gregariorum militum manum quanta tunc caesa est in pace nobilium.

¹⁴ and is it not rather known to all that, all alike once settled by one peace and made secure by the same safety, the conquered and the conquerors together exulted equally with a common joy, and that even amid so many provinces, cities, and peoples of the whole Roman empire there have scarcely ever appeared more than a few whom just vengeance has condemned, with even the victor unwilling? ¹⁵ and, so that I do not burden words with words, I would not say rashly that there has only just been extinguished in war a band of rank‑and‑file soldiers as great as the number of nobles then cut down in peace.

¹⁶ Igitur Sylla mortuo Lepidus, Marianae partis adsertor, aduersus Catulum Syllanum ducem surgens, rediuiuos bellorum ciuilium cineres suscitauit. bis tunc acie certatum est; plurimi Romanorum, iam ipsa paucitate miserorum et adhuc illo furore insanientium, caesi sunt. ¹⁷ Albanorum ciuitas, obsidione oppugnata atque excruciata fame ultima, miserabilium reliquiarum deditione seruata est; ubi tunc Scipio, Lepidi filius, captus atque occisus est.

¹⁶ Therefore, with Sulla dead, Lepidus, the assertor of the Marian party, rising against Catulus, the Sullan leader, stirred up the redivivous ashes of the civil wars. Twice then it was contested in battle-line; very many Romans, now by the very paucity of the wretched and still maddening with that fury, were cut down. ¹⁷ The city of the Albans, assaulted by siege and excruciated by utmost famine, was preserved by the surrender of pitiable remnants; where then Scipio, son of Lepidus, was captured and slain.

Brutus in Cisalpinam Galliam fugiens persequente Pompeio apud Regium interfectus est. ¹⁸ ita hoc bellum ciuile non magis clementia Catuli quam taedio Syllanae crudelitatis, ut ignis in stipula, eadem celeritate qua exarsit euanuit.

Brutus, fleeing into Cisalpine Gaul, with Pompey pursuing, was slain at Regium. ¹⁸ Thus this civil war, not so much by the clemency of Catulus as by weariness at Sullan cruelty, like fire in stubble, vanished with the same celerity with which it blazed up.

[23] Anno ab urbe condita DCLXXIII, sonantibus undique bellorum fragoribus, quorum unum in Hispania erat, aliud in Pamphylia, in Macedonia tertium, quartum in Delmatia, exsanguis adhuc atque exhausta intestina pernicie tamquam febribus Romana respublica propulsare armis occidentis septentrionisque fortissimas gentes cogebatur.² Sertorius siquidem, uir dolo atque audacia potens, cum partium Marianarum fuisset, Syllam fugiens ex Africa dilapsus in Hispanias, bellicosissimas gentes in arma excitauit. ³ aduersus hunc, ut breuiter definiam, duo duces missi Metellus et Domitius: quorum Domitius ab Hirtuleio Sertorii duce cum exercitu oppressus est.

[23] In the year from the founding of the City 673, with the crashes of wars resounding on all sides—of which one was in Spain, another in Pamphylia, a third in Macedonia, a fourth in Dalmatia—the Roman commonwealth, still bloodless and drained by internal ruin as if by fevers, was being compelled to repel by arms the very strong nations of the west and the north.² For Sertorius, a man powerful in guile and audacity, since he had been of the Marian party, fleeing Sulla and slipping away from Africa into the Spains, stirred up the most warlike peoples to arms. ³ Against him, to define briefly, two leaders were sent, Metellus and Domitius; of these, Domitius, with his army, was overwhelmed by Hirtuleius, a commander of Sertorius.

⁴ Manlius, proconsule Galliae in Hispaniam cum tribus legionibus et mille quingentis equitibus transgressus, iniquam cum Hirtuleio pugnam conseruit: a quo castris copiisque nudatus, in oppidum Ilerdam paene solus refugit. ⁵ Metellus multis proeliis fatigatus, per deuia oberrans hostem mora fatigabat, donec Pompei castris consociaretur. ⁶ Pompeius contracto apud Palantiam exercitu Lauronem ciuitatem, quam tunc Sertorius oppugnabat, frustra conatus defendere uictus aufugit.

⁴ Manlius, proconsul of Gaul, having crossed into Spain with three legions and 1,500 horsemen, engaged an unequal battle with Hirtuleius: by whom, stripped of camp and forces, he fled back almost alone into the town of Ilerda. ⁵ Metellus, wearied by many battles, wandering through byways, was tiring the enemy by delay, until he was united with Pompey’s camp. ⁶ Pompey, with an army gathered near Palantia, tried in vain to defend the city of Lauron, which Sertorius was then besieging; defeated, he fled.

⁷ Sertorius superato fugatoque Pompeio Lauronem captam cruentissime depopulatus est; reliquum agmen Lauronensium, quod caedibus superfuerat, miserabili in Lusitaniam captiuitate traduxit. ⁸ Pompeium autem, hoc est illum Romanorum ducem, a se uictum fuisse gloriatus est, quem magna praeditum fiducia ad hoc bellum non pro consule sed pro consulibus Roma misisset. ⁹ fuisse tunc Pompeio triginta milia peditum, mille equites Galba scribit, Sertorium autem sexaginta milia peditum, octo milia equitum habuisse commemorat.

⁷ Sertorius, with Pompey overcome and put to flight, most bloodily ravaged Lauron when it had been captured; the remaining column of the Lauronensians, which had survived the slaughters, he led in miserable captivity into Lusitania. ⁸ Moreover, he boasted that Pompey—that is, that general of the Romans—had been defeated by himself, whom, endowed with great confidence, Rome had sent to this war not as a proconsul but in place of the consuls. ⁹ Galba writes that Pompey then had 30,000 infantry and 1,000 cavalry, but commemorates that Sertorius had 60,000 infantry and 8,000 cavalry.

¹⁰ postea uero Hirtuleius cum Metello congressus apud Italicam Baeticae urbem uiginti milia militum perdidit uictusque in Lusitaniam cum paucis refugit. ¹¹ Pompeius Belgidam, nobilem Celtiberiae urbem, cepit. Sertorius deinde cum Pompeio congressus decem milia militum eius interfecit; ex alio cornu uincente Pompeio tantundem paene ipse perdidit.

¹⁰ Afterwards indeed Hirtuleius, having engaged with Metellus near Italica, a city of Baetica, lost twenty thousand soldiers and, conquered, fled back into Lusitania with a few. ¹¹ Pompey took Belgida, a noble city of Celtiberia. Sertorius then, having engaged with Pompey, killed ten thousand of his soldiers; from the other wing, with Pompey conquering, he himself lost almost as many.

¹² multa inter eos praeterea proelia gesta sunt. Memmius, quaestor Pompei idemque uir sororis eius, occisus est. Hirtulei fratres interfecti.

¹² many battles, moreover, were waged between them. Memmius, Pompey’s quaestor and likewise the husband of his sister, was slain. The brothers of Hirtuleius were killed.

Perpenna, qui se Sertorio iunxerat, comminutus est. ¹³ postremo ipse Sertorius decimo demum anno belli inchoati isdem quibus et Viriatus suorum dolis interfectus finem bello fecit Romanisque uictoriam sine gloria dedit; quamuis Perpennam postea pars exercitus eius secuta sit: qui a Pompeio uictus cum uniuerso exercitu suo interfectus est. ¹⁴ ciuitatibus uero cunctis ultro ac sine mora per deditionem receptis, duae tantum restiterunt, hoc est Uxama et Calagurris : quarum Uxamam Pompeius euertit, Calagurrim Afranius iugi obsidione confectam atque ad infames escas miseranda inopia coactam ultima caede incendioque deleuit.

Perpenna, who had joined himself to Sertorius, was crushed. ¹³ At last Sertorius himself, in the tenth year from the war’s inception, slain by the same treacheries of his own men as Viriatus, made an end to the war and gave to the Romans a victory without glory; although afterward a part of his army followed Perpenna: who, defeated by Pompey, was killed along with his entire army. ¹⁴ But with all the communities received back voluntarily and without delay by surrender, only two held out, that is Uxama and Calagurris: of which Pompey overthrew Uxama, and Calagurris—worn down by an unceasing siege and, by pitiable want, driven to infamous viands—Afranius annihilated with final slaughter and fire.

¹⁵ percussores Sertorii praemium ne petendum quidem a Romanis esse duxerunt, quippe qui meminissent antea Viriati percussoribus denegatum.

¹⁵ the assassins of Sertorius judged that the reward was not even to be sought from the Romans, since they remembered that previously it had been denied to the assassins of Viriatus.

¹⁶ Et quamuis nullo tunc praemio patrauerint Romanam securitatem, tamen fortis fide ac uiribus semper Hispania cum optimos inuictissimos reges reipublicae dederit, nullum umquam tyrannorum ab initio usque dederit, nullum umquam tyrannorum ab initio usque in hodiernum diem uel de se editum misit uel in se extrinsecus incurrentem uiuum potentemue dimisit.

¹⁶ And although at that time, with no reward, they accomplished Roman security, nevertheless Spain, ever strong in fidelity and in forces, since it has given to the Republic the best and most unconquerable kings, has at no time from the beginning given any of the tyrants; at no time from the beginning down to the present day has it either sent forth from itself any of the tyrants produced from itself, or, one rushing upon it from without against it, let go alive or powerful.

¹⁷ Interea Macedonicum bellum Claudius sortitus uarias gentes, quae Rhodopaeis montibus circumfusae sunt ac tunc Macedoniam crudelissime populabantur - ¹⁸ nam inter cetera dictu audituque horrida quae in captiuos agebant, raptis, cum poculo opus esset, humanorum capitum ossibus cruentis capillatisque adhuc ac per interiores cauernas male effosso cerebro oblitis auide ac sine horrore tamquam ueris poculis utebantur: quarum cruentissimi atque immanissimi Scordisci erant - ¹⁹ has itaque, ut dixi, Claudius pellere Macedoniae finibus bello adtemptauit magnisque se malorum molibus obiecit: unde cum animo aeger et curis circumsaeptus, morbo insuper correptus esset, interiit. ²⁰ huius successor Scribonius adtemptatarum superiore bello gentium uim declinans, in Dardaniam arma conuertit eamque superauit. ²¹ Publius uero Seruilius exconsule Ciliciam et Pamphyliam crudelissime adortus dum subdere studet, paene deleuit.

¹⁷ Meanwhile, Claudius, having drawn by lot the Macedonian war, [encountered] various nations that are spread around the Rhodopean mountains and at that time were most cruelly devastating Macedonia - ¹⁸ for among the other things horrible to speak and hear that they did upon captives, when there was need of a cup, they would snatch the bones of human heads, still bloody and haired, and, the brain badly dug out through the inner cavities and smeared, they used them eagerly and without horror as if true cups: of whom the bloodiest and most inhuman were the Scordisci - ¹⁹ these therefore, as I said, Claudius attempted by war to drive from the borders of Macedonia and exposed himself to great masses of evils: whence, when sick in mind and surrounded by cares, and moreover seized by disease, he perished. ²⁰ His successor Scribonius, declining the force of the nations attempted in the previous war, turned arms into Dardania and overcame it. ²¹ But Publius Servilius, a former consul, having most cruelly attacked Cilicia and Pamphylia while he strove to subject them, almost destroyed them.

²² Lyciam et urbes eius obsessas oppressasque cepit. praeterea Olympum montem peruagatus Phasidem euertit, Corycum diruit, Tauri quoque montis latera in Ciliciam uergentia perscrutatus Isauros bello fractos in dicionem redegit; primus Romanorum per Taurum duxit exercitum ac limitem itineris fecit. triennio emenso, quo bellum gestum est, Isaurici nomen adsumpsit.

²² He captured Lycia and its cities, besieged and overpowered. Moreover, ranging over Mount Olympus he overthrew Phaselis, he demolished Corycus, and, having searched out the flanks of Mount Taurus sloping toward Cilicia, he brought the Isaurians, broken by war, back under dominion; the first of the Romans he led an army through the Taurus and made a line of march. With a three-year period elapsed, during which the war was conducted, he assumed the name Isauricus.

²³ Cosconius proconsule sortitus Illyricum, protrita subactaque Delmatia Salonas, urbem florentissimam, post biennium tandem expugnauit et cepit.

²³ Cosconius, as proconsul, having received Illyricum by lot, Dalmatia worn down and subjugated, at length after two years stormed and took Salona, a most flourishing city.

[24] Anno ab urbe condita DCLXXVIIII Lucullo et Cassio consulibus gladiatores septuaginta et quattuor Capuae a ludo Cn. Lentuli diffugerunt: qui continuo ducibus Crixo et Oenomao Gallis et Spartaco Thrace Vesuuium montem occupauerunt; unde erumpentes Clodii praetoris, qui eos obsidione cinxerat, castra expugnarunt, ipsoque in fugam acto cuncta in praedam auerterunt.² inde per Consentiam et Metapontum circumducti, ingentia breui agmina collegerunt. nam Crixo decem milium multitudo, Spartaco autem triplex tunc numerus fuisse refertur.

[24] In the year from the founding of the City 679, with Lucullus and Cassius as consuls, seventy-four gladiators at Capua fled from the ludus of Gnaeus Lentulus: who immediately, under leaders Crixus and Oenomaus, Gauls, and Spartacus, a Thracian, seized Mount Vesuvius; whence bursting out they stormed the camp of the praetor Clodius, who had encircled them with a siege, and, he himself put to flight, they turned everything to plunder.² then, led around through Consentia and Metapontum, they gathered vast agmina in a short time. For with Crixus there was a multitude of 10,000, but with Spartacus a threefold number is reported then to have been.

Oenomaus enim iam in superiore bello fuerat occisus. ³ itaque cum caedibus incendiis rapinis stuprisque omnia miscerent, in exsequiis captiuae matronae, quae se dolore uiolati pudoris necauerat, munus gladiatorium ex quadringentis captiuis scilicet qui spectandi fuerant spectaturi, utpote lanistae gladiatorum potius quam militum principes, ediderunt. ⁴ deinde consules Gellius et Lentulus aduersum eos cum exercitu missi, quorum Gellius Crixum acerrime pugnantem proelio oppressit, Lentulus a Spartaco superatus aufugit.

For Oenomaus had already been slain in the earlier war. ³ And so, as they were throwing everything into confusion with slaughters, burnings, plunderings, and defilements, at the exequies of a captive matron—who had killed herself from grief at her violated modesty—they produced a gladiatorial munus from 400 captives, namely those who had been meant to be spectators would themselves be the spectacle to be watched, as being, to be sure, lanistae of gladiators rather than leaders of soldiers. ⁴ Then the consuls Gellius and Lentulus were sent against them with an army, of whom Gellius crushed Crixus, fighting most fiercely, in battle, while Lentulus, overcome by Spartacus, fled.

post etiam conlatis frustra ambo consules copiis, accepta graui clade, fugerunt. dehinc C. Cassium proconsulem idem Spartacus oppressum bello interfecit. ⁵ itaque exterrita ciuitate non minore propemodum metu, quam sub Hannibale circa portas fremente trepidauerat, senatus Crassum cum legionibus consulum nouoque supplemenlto militum misit.

afterwards also, when both consuls, having assembled their forces in vain, had suffered a grievous defeat, they fled. then the same Spartacus slew Gaius Cassius, proconsul, who had been overwhelmed in war. ⁵ accordingly, with the state terrified by a fear almost no less than when, under Hannibal roaring around the gates, it had trembled, the senate sent Crassus with the consuls’ legions and with a new supplement of soldiers.

⁶ is mox ut fugitiuorum pugnam iniit, sex milia eorum interfecit, nongentos uero cepit. inde priusquam ipsum Spartacum ad caput Silari fluminis castra metantem bello adgrederetur, Gallos auxiliatores eius Germanosque superauit, e quibus XXX milia hominum cum ipsis ducibus occidit. ⁷ nouissime ipsum Spartacum disposita acie congressum maximasque cum eo fugitiuorum copias perculit.

⁶ he, soon as he entered battle with the fugitives, killed six thousand of them, and indeed captured nine hundred. Thence, before he should attack Spartacus himself, who was pitching camp at the head of the river Silarus, he overcame the Gauls and Germans, his auxiliaries, of whom he killed 30 thousand men together with the leaders themselves. ⁷ lastly he struck down Spartacus himself, engaged with a drawn-up battle line, and shattered with him the very greatest forces of the fugitives.

nam sexaginta milia eorum caesa, sex milia capta referuntur, tria milia ciuium Romanorum recepta sunt. ⁸ ceteri, qui ex hoc bello lapsi oberrabant, per conplures duces frequenti indagine attriti sunt.

for 60,000 of them are reported slain, 6,000 captured, 3,000 Roman citizens were recovered. ⁸ the rest, who, having slipped out of this war, were wandering about, were worn down by frequent dragnet-hunts under several commanders.

⁹ At ego iterum ac saepius repeto: num quidnam et hic conparatione aliqua egent tempora ? quis rogo audire non horreat non dicam bella talia, sed uel nomina tanta bellorum, externa, seruilia, socialia, ciuilia, fugitiuorum ? ¹⁰ quae ne sic saltem sese, ut commoti maris fluctus quamuis molibus magnis sequuntur, sed undique diuersis causis uocabulis formis malisque excitata coaceruataque concurrunt. ¹¹ ut e proximo repetam et infame illud seruile praeteream, Iugurthinum bellum nondum adhuc ab Africo perdetonuerat, iam Cimbricum a circio fulminabat. ¹² de Cimbricis illis nubibus adhuc foedi uastique torrentes effusi sanguinis agebantur, iam socialis belli nebulas in magna continuo malorum nubila coituras misera exhalabat Italia.

⁹ But I again and more often repeat: do the times here too need some comparison ? who, I ask, would not shudder to hear—not to say such wars, but even the very names so great of wars—external, servile, social, civil, of the fugitives ? ¹⁰ which not even thus at least compose themselves, as the waves of a stirred sea, although by great breakwaters, follow, but from every side, roused by diverse causes, titles, forms, and evils, they rush together heaped up. ¹¹ To take an instance from what is nearest and to pass over that infamous servile one, the Jugurthine war had not yet up to now finished thunder-detoning from the Africus, when already the Cimbrian, from the Ciercius, was fulminating. ¹² From those Cimbrian clouds there were still being driven foul and vast torrents of shed blood, when already wretched Italy was exhaling the mists of the Social War, destined forthwith to coalesce into great cloud-masses of evils.

¹³ adhuc uero post infinitam crebramque Italici belli tempestatem discurri tuto per Italiam minime poterat, ita omnes absque illis periculosissimis inimicarum urbium uoraginibus dissoluta ac lubrica pace titubabant; ¹⁴ iam sibi Marianum atque Cinnanum Roma parturiebat excidium, aliudque e diuerso oriens atque aquilo, hoc est Mithridaticum, minabatur, quod quidem Mithridaticum a superioribus coeptum porro in ulteriora porrigitur. ¹⁵ de Mariana face rogus Syllanae cladis accensus est, de isto rogo funestissimo Syllani et ciuilis belli per plurimas terrarum partes ardentes sudes sparsi sunt multaque incendia ex uno fomite diffuderunt. ¹⁶ nam Lepidus et Scipio in Italia, Brutus in Gallia, Domitius Cinnae gener in Africa, Carbo in Cossura et Sicilia, Perpenna in Liguria et post cum Sertorio in Hispania, omniumque atrocissimus Sertorius in eadem Hispania haec tunc ciuilia, uel quo alio dicenda sunt nomine, bella excitantes, de uno multa, de magno magna fecerunt; ¹⁷ absque illis tribus uastissimis bellis, quae tunc externa uocabantur, hoc est Pamphylico Macedonico atque Delmatico, dissimulato etiam magno illo Mithridatico longe omnium [diuturno] infestissimo ac formidulosissimo; ¹⁸ deinde, adhuc Hispaniensi Sertoriano nondum finito immo adhuc ipso uiuente Sertorio, hoc fugitiuorum et, ut uerius dicam, gladiatoricium bellum inhorruit, iam non spectandum paucis sed ubique metuendum.

¹³ yet indeed after the infinite and frequent tempest of the Italian war, it was by no means possible to run safely through Italy, so that all, even apart from those most perilous whirlpools of enemy cities, were tottering in a dissolved and slippery peace; ¹⁴ already Rome was bringing forth for herself destruction, the Marian and the Cinnan, and another, rising from the opposite quarter, the east and the north wind, that is, the Mithridatic, was menacing, which indeed Mithridatic, begun by earlier men, is further stretched onward into later times. ¹⁵ from the Marian torch the pyre of the Sullan disaster was kindled; from that most funereal pyre, flaming stakes of Sulla and of civil war were scattered through very many parts of the earth and poured out many conflagrations from one tinder. ¹⁶ for Lepidus and Scipio in Italy, Brutus in Gaul, Domitius, the son-in-law of Cinna, in Africa, Carbo in Cossura and Sicily, Perpenna in Liguria and afterwards with Sertorius in Spain, and Sertorius, most atrocious of all, in the same Spain—stirring up these then civil wars, or by what other name are they to be called—made many things out of one, great things out of a great; ¹⁷ apart from those three most vast wars, which at that time were called external, that is the Pamphylian, the Macedonian, and the Dalmatian, with that great Mithridatic too passed over in silence, by far of all the most [long-lasting], most hostile and most formidable; ¹⁸ then, with the Spanish Sertorian not yet finished—nay rather with Sertorius himself still living—this war of fugitives and, to speak more truly, the gladiatorial war bristled up, now not to be looked at by a few but to be feared everywhere.

¹⁹ quod quia fugitiuorum bellum dicitur, nemini uile habeatur ex nomine: saepe in eo singuli et aliquando simul cum agminibus frustra iunctis ambo consules uicti sunt plurimique nobiles trucidati; ipsi autem fugitiui plus quam centum milia fuere qui caesi sunt. ²⁰ ex quo admonemus ut ipsa se consoletur Italia de uexatione externorum praesentium per recordationem praeteritorum ex se atque in se et ipsam se inconparabiliter crudelius dilacerantum suorum.

¹⁹ Since it is called the war of the fugitives, let it be held cheap by no one on account of the name: often in it individual consuls, and sometimes both consuls together, with their battle-lines joined to no purpose, were defeated, and very many nobles were butchered; but as for the fugitives themselves, more than 100,000 were those who were cut down. ²⁰ From this we admonish that Italy should console herself concerning the vexation of present externals by the recollection of past men of her own, who, from herself and within herself, lacerating that same Italy, tore her incomparably more cruelly to pieces.

²¹ Quamobrem huic nunc quinto uolumini iam finem fecerim ut bella ciuilia externis ubique permixta, uel quae dicta sunt uel etiam quae sequuntur, quia sic sibi serie temporum et malis sequacibus cohaeserunt libri saltem termino separentur.

²¹ Wherefore I would now make an end of this fifth volume, so that the civil wars everywhere commingled with external ones, both those which have been said and even those which follow—since thus they have coalesced with one another by the series of times and attendant evils—may at least be separated by the terminus of a book.