Text
Orosius, Historia adversus Paganos 2.2:
Among the Assyrians, Ninus was the first king who achieved preeminence. After his death, his wife Semiramis, the queen of all Asia, restored the city of Babylon and made it the capital of the Assyrian kingdom. For a long time the power of the Assyrian kingdom remained unshaken. But when Arbatus, otherwise called Arbaces, the prefect of the Medes and himself born a Mede, had killed his king Sardanapalus at Babylon, he transferred the title and supreme power of the kingdom to the Medes. In this way the kingdom of Ninus and of Babylon was turned over to the Medes the same year in which Procas, the father of Amulus and of Numitor and the grandfather of Rhea Silvia, who was the mother of Romulus, began to rule among the Latins. Moreover, I will prove beyond question that all these events were arranged according to the inscrutable, mysterious, and unfathomable judgments of God and that they were not brought to pass either by human agencies or by mere chance.
Now, all histories of ancient times begin with Ninus, and all histories of Rome begin with Procas. There was an interval of 64 years from the first year of the reign of Ninus to the time when Semiramis began to restore Babylon, and from the first year of the reign of Procas to the founding of the city of Romulus there was a like interval of 64 years. … In the same year of the reign of this Procas, the kingdom of Babylon came to an end, though Babylon herself has survived to our own day. But when Arbatus withdrew to the Medes, the Chaldeans successfully maintained their right to Babylon in opposition to the Medes and continued to hold part of the kingdom. In this way the Medes legally ruled Babylon, but the Chaldeans were in actual possession. The latter, however, on account of the ancient dignity of the royal city, preferred not to name the city after themselves, but rather to take their own name from it. Hence it happens that although Nebuchadnezzar and his successors down to Cyrus are considered powerful because of the strength of the Chaldeans and famous because of the Babylonian name, nevertheless they are not included in the number and line of illustrious kings. To resume my argument, Babylon under her prefect Arbatus was dishonored in the very year when during the reign of King Procas, to speak accurately, the seeds of future Rome were sown. Babylon was finally overthrown by Cyrus at the time when Rome first freed herself from the despotism of the Tarquin kings. Indeed, it was as if the one fell and the other arose at the same instant: while Babylon endured foreign rule, Rome for the first time began to resent the arrogance of her own princes; Babylon, like a person awaiting death, bequeathed an inheritance, for which Rome, though still a minor, presented herself as the heir; and as the rule of the East fell, the rule of the West rose.
Source (list of abbreviations)
Orosius, Historia adversus Paganos 2.2
Bibliography
| Raymond 1936, 73-74 | Raymond, Irving W. Seven Books of History against the Pagans. The Apology of Paulus Orosius. New York: Columbia University Press 1936. |
Amar Annus
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