In 410 A.D. the Goths captured the city of Rome - an event which made a profound impression on writers of the time. Pagan writers were quick to blame the disaster on the spread of Christianity: the old gods no longer protected the city.
In response to these accusations, Augustine wrote his City of God; and at the same time he asked Orosius, a Spanish presbyter, to write a companion work, which would show that similar disasters had afflicted mankind since the earliest times. In fulfilling this request, Orosius produced the longest surviving summary of the whole range of ancient Roman history, covering over eleven centuries from before the foundation of the city up until Orosius' own time.
Orosius followed Livy in placing the foundation of Rome in 751 B.C. He used the era from the foundation of the city ("Ab Urbe Condita") to date all subsequent years, although he included frequent digressions about Greek history, which could not usually be dated in this way.
The Latin text of Orosius, as edited by C.Zangemeister, is available here. Max Bänziger has kindly corrected a number of mistakes in this copy of the text.
Book 1 (Latin text) | ante urbem conditam | [ - 752 B.C.] |
Book 2 (Latin text) | A.U.C. 1 - 363 | [ 751 - 389 B.C.] |
Book 3 (Latin text) | A.U.C. 364 - 463 | [ 388 - 289 B.C.] |
Book 4 (Latin text) | A.U.C. 464 - 606 | [ 288 - 146 B.C.] |
Book 5 (Latin text) | A.U.C. 606 - 679 | [ 146 - 73 B.C.] |
Book 6.i-xii (Latin text) | A.U.C. 679 - 696 | [ 73 - 56 B.C.] |
Book 6.xiii-xxii (Latin text) | A.U.C. 697 - 751 | [ 55 - 1 B.C.] |
Book 7.i-xxv (Latin text) | A.U.C. 752 - 1060 | [ 1 - 309 A.D.] |
Book 7.xxvi-xliii (Latin text) | A.U.C. 1061 - 1168 | [ 310 - 417 A.D.] |