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Victor of Vita: Historia Persecutionis Africanae Provinciae

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Victor, bishop of Vita in the province of Byzacena, wrote the Historia Persecutionis Africanae Provinciae in the 480s. It narrates the persecution of Catholic Christians by the Arian Vandal kings of North Africa, beginning with the invasion of 429 under Geiseric and culminating in the harsh measures of Huneric in 483–484. The work is in three books with a preface. It includes documents such as Huneric’s edicts and the confession of faith submitted by the Catholic bishops at the conference of Carthage in 484.

The Historia is the principal narrative source for Vandal Africa and an important document of conflict between Arian and Catholic Christians in the post-Roman West. Victor writes as a passionate partisan, and his account of exiles, tortures, and martyrdoms is shaped by the conventions of martyr literature, but the documents he preserves are of great value. The work is a vivid record of a Roman province under barbarian rule. It also records the names of many bishops and clergy sent into exile.

About this edition. The Latin text comes from the Open Greek and Latin digital edition of the Corpus Scriptorum Ecclesiasticorum Latinorum (edition: Michael Petschenig, CSEL 7, 1881), licensed CC BY-SA. Every word has been analyzed with LatinCy, a neural language model for Latin — click or tap any word for its dictionary form, part of speech, and complete morphology, together with the full entry from Lewis & Short’s A Latin Dictionary.

Latin · History
Historia Persecutionis Africanae Provinciae
Victor of Vita · Preface · every word parsed
BookPreface123
1
[Quondam ueteres ob studium sapientiae enucleare atque sciscitari assidue minime desistebant, quae forte uel qualia prospere uel secus prouinciis, locis aut regionibus euenissent, de quibus uel in quibus exacuerent stilum ingenii sui atque redolentes magisterii flores ignaris historiae calathorum offerrent gratuito munere propinatos, dabantque operam ut nequaquam lateret in totum, quod in parte forte fuerat gestum.
Sed illi fastu mundialis amoris inflati gloriam elationis suae longe lateque gestiebant laudabiliter diffamari. At uero uenerabilitas studii tui historiam texere cupiens, inquiris simili quidem feruore, dispari tamen amore; et illi ut laudarentur in saeculo, ipse ut praeclarus appareas in futuro et dicas: in domino laudabitur anima mea: audiant mansueti et laetentur. Poteris ut uoluisti, quia omne datum optimum et omne donum perfectum caelitus accepisti, eruditus a tanto pontifice totoque laudis genere praedicando beato Diadoco, cuius ut astra lucentia extant quam plurima catholici dogmatis monumenta dictorum. Et sat est tibi ut aequiperes doctrinam doctoris, quia satis est discipulo ut sit quomodo magister eius.
Alium uideo Timotheum ab incunabulis infantiae sacris litteris eruditum, necnon inter alios sublimem atque expeditum magisterii gentium Lucam, arte medicum, apostoli Pauli discipulum. Ego namque iubentis imperio oboedientiae
ceruicem submittens, quae obuenerunt in partibus Africanis debaccantibus Arrianis, sensim breuiterque indicare temptabo, et quasi rusticanus operarius defatigatis ulnis aurum colligam de antris occultis, speciem uero adhuc sordentem atque confusam non cunctabor artifici iudicio ignis examinandam contradere, qui monetarios possit solidos picturare.]
Click or tap any word for its parse and dictionary entry.
Text: Perseus Digital Library, licensed CC BY-SA. Dictionary: Lewis & Short (Perseus, CC BY-SA). Morphology: LatinCy — machine parsing, corrected against the AGDT & PROIEL treebanks and Morpheus.
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