Stelle Anno ab urbe condita MCLXVIII Const...; (Historiarum adversum paganos libri VII (417 - 418), Lib. 7, Cap. 43, 1-8 (Vol. III, pp. 127-9, trans. Fear, pp. 412-13)) [1525]

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ID 1525
Text Historiarum adversum paganos libri VII (417 - 418) Orosius
Quotation Anno ab urbe condita MCLXVIII Constantius comes apud Arelatem Galliae urbem consistens, magna rerum gerendarum industria Gothos a Narbona expulit atque abire in Hispaniam coegit interdicto praecipue atque intercluso omni commeatu nauium et peregrinorum usu commerciorum. 2 Gothorum tunc populis Athaulfus rex praeerat: qui post inruptionem urbis ac mortem Alarici Placidia, ut dixi, captiua sorore imperatoris in uxorem adsumpta Alarico in regnum successerat. 3 Is, ut saepe auditum atque ultimo exitu eius probatum est, satis studiose sectator pacis militare fideliter Honorio imperatori ac pro defendenda Romana republica inpendere uires Gothorum praeoptauit. 4 Nam ego quoque ipse uirum quendam Narbonensem inlustris sub Theodosio militiae, etiam religiosum prudentemque et grauem, apud Bethleem oppidum Palaestinae beatissimo Hieronymo presbytero referentem audiui, se familiarissimum Athaulfo apud Narbonam fuisse ac de eo saepe sub testificatione Dei didicisse, quod ille, cum esset animo uiribus ingenioque nimius, referre solitus esset: 5 Se inprimis ardenter inhiasse, ut, oblitterato Romano nomine, Romanum omne solum Gothorum imperium et faceret et uocaret, essetque, ut uulgariter loquar, Gothia quod Romania fuisset: fieret nunc Athaulfus quod quondam Caesar Augustus; 6 at ubi multa experientia probauisset neque Gothos ullo modo parere legibus posse propter effrenatam barbariem neque reipublicae interdici leges oportere, sine quibus respublica non est respublica, elegisse saltim ut gloriam sibi de restituendo in integrum augendoque Romano nomine Gothorum uiribus quaereret habereturque apud posteros Romanae restitutionis auctor, postquam esse non potuerat immutator. 7 Ob hoc abstinere a bello, ob hoc inhiare paci nitebatur, praecipue Placidiae uxoris suae, feminae sane ingenio acerrimae et religione satis probae, ad omnia bonarum ordinationum opera persuasu et consilio temperatus. 8 Cumque eidem paci petendae atque offerendae studiosissime insisteret, apud Barcinonam Hispaniae urbem dolo suorum, ut fertur, occisus est.
Translation 1. 1,168 years after the foundation of the City, Count Constantius halted at the city of Arles in Gaul and doing what had to be done with great energy, drove the Goths from Narbonne and forced them to depart into Spain, taking special care to cut them off from any trade by sea and stopping them importing foreign goods. 2. At this time, Athaulf was the ruler over the Gothic tribes. He became king in Alaric’s place, after the breaching of the City and Alaric’s death. As I have mentioned, he married the emperor’s captive daughter, Placidia. 3. It has often been heard, and was proved by his end, that he was clearly a keen partisan of peace and chose to fight loyally for the emperor Honorius and use the Goths’ might to defend the Roman state. 4. I myself heard a devout, sober, and serious man from Narbonne who had served with distinction under Theodosius, telling the most blessed priest Jerome in Bethlehem, a town in Palestine, that he had been a great friend of Athaulf in Narbonne and had learnt this about him, often before witnesses: that when he was too full of confidence, strength, and cleverness. he was accustomed to relate that at first he earnestly had wanted to obliterate the name of Rome and make the Romans’ land the Goths’ empire in both word and deed, so that there would have been, to put it in everyday speech, a Gothia where there had once been Romania and that he, Athaulf, would now be what Augustus Caesar had once been. 6. But when, after long experience, he had proved to himself that, because of their wild barbarism, the Goths were completely unable to obey the law, and because he believed it wrong to deprive a state of laws (without which a state is not a state at all), he chose at least to seek for himself the glory of having restored and extended the Roman Empire by the might of his Goths and, since he could not be her supplanter, to be remembered by posterity as the author of Rome’s renewal. 7. It was for this reason that he strove to avoid war, and for this reason that he strove to love peace. He was influenced to carry out everything required to set things in good order by the persuasive advice of his wife, Placidia, without a doubt a woman of keen intellect and clearly virtuous in religion. 8. It is said that he was killed in the Spanish city of Barcelona through the treachery of his own people, while making every effort to make and offer peace.
Quotation source Lib. 7, Cap. 43, 1-8 (Vol. III, pp. 127-9, trans. Fear, pp. 412-13)
Temporal Coverage 411 - 418
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