Paulus Orosius was a fifth century Roman historian and a student of Augustine of Hippo. His ‘Seven Books of History against the Pagans’ is a major work that had a great impact on historiography during the period between antiquity and the Middle Ages. It presents an engaging historical narration, focusing on the pagan peoples from the earliest time up until when the author was alive. Orosius’ objective was to compose a work that could prove that Rome’s decadence and its recent sacking by Alaric I was not a result of its conversion to Christianity. Delphi’s Ancient Classics series provides eReaders with the wisdom of the Classical world, with both English translations and the original Latin texts. This eBook presents Orosius’ ‘Seven Books of History against the Pagans’, with illustrations and an informative introduction. (Version 1) * Beautifully illustrated with images relating to Orosius’ life and works * Features the complete text of ‘Seven Books of History against the Pagans’, in both English translation and the original Latin * Concise introduction to the text * Features Irving Woodworth Raymond’s 1936 translation * Excellent formatting of the texts * Easily locate the chapters you want to read with individual contents tables * Provides a special dual English and Latin text, allowing readers to compare the sections paragraph by paragraph — ideal for Latin students * Features a brief biography * Ordering of texts into chronological order and literary genres Please visit www.delphiclassics.com to explore our range of Ancient Classics titles or buy the entire series as a Super Set CONTENTS: The Translation History against the Pagans (c. 416) The Latin Text Contents of the Latin Text The Dual Text Dual Latin and English Text Brief Biography Orosius (1911) Please visit www.delphiclassics.com to browse through our range of exciting titles

This work is valuable as history, containing as it does contemporary information on the period after 278 A.D. It was used widely during the Middle Ages, and the existence today of nearly 200 manuscript copies is evidence of its past popularity.

Shows how Orosius situates himself in the classical tradition and draws on a variety of rhetorical tools to shape his historical narrative, The histories against the pagans, written in 415/7, and position the Church at the heart of his view of Roman history.

This volume offers a counterbalance to the dismissal that Orosius's Histories Against the Pagans has suffered in most recent criticism. Orosius is traditionally considered to be a mediocre scholar and an essentially worthless historian. This book takes his literary endeavour seriously, recognising the unique contribution the Histories made at a crucial moment of debate and uncertainty, where the present was shaped by restructuring the past. The significance of the Histories is recognised intrinsically rather than only in comparison with other texts and authors, principally Augustine of Hippo, Orosius's mentor. The approach of the book is historiographical, exploring the form, purpose and meaning of the Histories. The themes of divine providence, monotheism, and imperial authority are examined, and the subjects of war and the sack of Rome receive extended analysis. The book foregrounds Orosius's significant historiographical innovations that are seldom explored, such as the subversion of imperial history within a Christian spectrum in the synchronisation of the emperor Augustus and Christ. Each chapter contributes to the progression of knowledge about Orosius's Histories and the wider literary and historiographical culture of disruption that characterised the late fourth and early fifth centuries CE.