The seven books of history against the pagans

Book Four

BOOK FOUR Preface ERGIL REPORTS THAT Aeneas said, when he was with difficulty consoling his remaining companions after their common dangers and their shipwrecks: 'Perhaps some day it will be pleasing to recall even these events.'1 This sentiment, aptly expressed once, always carries with it by its very different effects a threefold force: when past events are held the more pleasing as they are the more serious when carried out; and future events, while they are made desirable by an aversion for the present are always believed to be better; but with present events, no just comparison can be made with miseries on this account, because they afflict us with much greater annoyance, however trifling those are which are ours, than those which have either transpired or are to come; although they are called great, nevertheless, they do not exist at all at the moment. For example, if one irritated by fleas at night, and on this account is kept awake, may by chance recall the other vigils"which he at some time sustained for a long time as the result of very burning fevers, undoubtedly he will endure the unrest of the latter with more impatience than the recollection of the former. But although in the feelings of all there can thus seem to be a consideration of time, yet does anyone exist who, in his every anxiety, will declare fleas to be more serious than fevers? Or will anyone admit it to be more grievous to be awake while healthy than not to have been able to sleep when about to die? Since this is so, 1 Vergil, Aeneid, 1.203. 120 BOOK FOUR 121 in whatever way, I agree with these dandies and our other critics that these evils, with which we are sometimes admonished because it so befits, they consider serious; yet I do not overlook the fact that they also assert them by comparison to be more serious than they really are. Just as if someone going forth from his very soft bed and comfortable chamber early in the morning should see that the surfaces of the ponds had frozen from the cold of the night and the grass had become white with frost and warned by the unexpected sight should say: 'It is cold today,' this person would seem to be by no means blameworthy, because he had spoken in language either according to its general usage or its proper sense. But if in fear, running back into his bedchamber and covering himself with blankets or rather hiding himself in them, he should cry out that never was it as cold as this, not even as it was once in the Appennines, when Hannibal, covered and overcome with snow, lost elephants, horses, and the greater part of his army, this man I would not endure uttering such childish nonsense and talking in such a way, but I would drag him forth from his blankets, witnesses of his soft living, before the people publicly, and, when he was taken out of doors, I would show him the children playing in this cold and delighting in it and perspiring, so that he would be taught that his verbose nonsense vitiated by soft living was not due to the severity of the weather, but to the sluggishness in himself; and by making a comparison of situations, it would be proven that his ancestors had endured no small hardships, but that they themselves were not able to endure even small ones. I shall prove this more clearly as I turn over in my mind the disasters of the past, setting them forth according to order, the war with Pyrrhus among the first. The cause and origin of this war were the following. (1) In the four hundred and sixty-fourth year after the founding of the City, the Tarentines attending a theatrical performance saw a Roman fleet by chance passing by and viciously attacked it, only five vessels barely escaping by flight; 122 PAULUS OROSIUS the rest of the fleet was dragged into the harbor and destroyed; the prefects of the ships were slaughtered, all men useful for war were killed, and the remainder sold for a price. Immediately , legates were sent to Tarentum by the Romans to complain about the injuries which had been brought upon them, but they were beaten and brought back additional injuries from the same people. For these reasons, a...