Sophia Scriptura

Church History 7.21.9

Eusebius of Caesarea · Church History · ca. 300–325 · Caesarea · Read in context

Summary: The city's population has so fallen that the grain rolls from ages 14 to 80 do not equal the former number aged 40 to 70.

Greek text · Dindorf 4:318–319

εἶτα θαυμάζουσι καὶ διαπο- “ροῦσι πόθεν οἱ συνεχεῖς λοιμοὶ, πόθεν αἱ χαλεπαὶ νόσοι, πόθεν αἶ παντοδαπαὶ φθοραὶ, πόθεν ὁ ποικίλος καὶ πολὺς τῶν ἀνθρώπων ὄλεθρος, διὰ τί “μηκέτι τοσοῦτο πλῆθος οἰκητόρων ἡ μεγίστη πόλις “ἐν αὐτῇ φέρει, ἀπὸ νηπίων ἀρξαμένη παίδων μέχρι “τῶν εἰς ἄκρον γεγηρακότων, ὅσους ὠμογέροντας οὓς “ἐκάλει πρότερον ὄντας ἔτρεφεν, ἀλλʼ οἱ τεσσαρα- ῾κοντοῦται καὶ μέχρι τῶν ἑβδομήκοντα ἐτῶν τοσοῦτο ‘πλείονες τότε ὥστε μὴ συμπληροῦσθαι νῦν τὸν “ἀριθμὸν αὐτῶν, προσεγγραφέντων καὶ συγκαταλε- ῾γέντων εἰς τὸ δημόσιον σιτηρέσιον τόν ἀπὸ τεσσα- ‘ρεσκαίδεκα ἐτῶν μέχρι τῶν ὀγδοήκοντα, καὶ γεγό- “νασιν οἶον ἡλικιῶται τῶν πάλαι γεραιτάτων οἱ ὄψει “νεώτατοι.

English · Claude translation

Then they wonder and are at a loss whence come the continual plagues, whence the severe diseases, whence the manifold kinds of destruction, whence the various and great mortality of men, why the greatest city no longer carries within it so great a multitude of inhabitants, from infant children to those extremely old, as it formerly supported of those it called hale old men. But those from forty to seventy years of age were then so much more numerous that their number is not now filled up, even when those from fourteen to eighty years are enrolled and registered together for the public grain dole; and those youngest in appearance have become like the contemporaries of those formerly oldest.

About this passage

Source
Dindorf 4:318–319 · Wilhelm Dindorf, ed., Eusebii Caesariensis Opera, vol. 4: Historiae ecclesiasticae libri I–X (Leipzig: Teubner, 1871) · Greek text: W. Dindorf, Eusebii Caesariensis Opera 4 (Leipzig: Teubner, 1871), digitized by the First Thousand Years of Greek project (Open Greek and Latin), CC BY-SA 4.0
Text
As printed in Dindorf, Eusebii Opera 4. Manuscript variants and the editor's apparatus are not reproduced; no textual problem is noted in this passage.
Translation
Claude translation (claude-opus-5-5), 2026-09-27 · Translated by Claude from the Greek text of Dindorf, Eusebii Caesariensis Opera 4 (Teubner, 1871); made independently of existing English translations.
Compare
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, series 2, vol. 1 (1890) (an older public-domain English translation, whole volume at CCEL; checked against ours only after ours was made)
Extrabiblical texts
  • Dionysius of Alexandria (Dionysius of Alexandria (letters and fragments)) · quotation, high confidence

Notes

Translation notes

  • Quotation from Dionysius of Alexandria; a notable piece of demographic evidence.

Cite this passage

Eusebius, Hist. eccl. 7.21.9 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/eusebius-historia/7/21/9/).

Plain text
Eusebius, Hist. eccl. 7.21.9 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/eusebius-historia/7/21/9/).

Download citation:BibTeX ·RIS (Zotero, EndNote)

Whole work:BibTeX ·RIS ·Markdown text

Report an error in this passage