Orosius

Born around 375-385 in what's now Braga, Portugal, Orosius was a priest with enough standing to seek out the heavyweights: he travelled the Mediterranean to work with Augustine of Hippo and Jerome of Stridon. He didn't just talk theology - he co-wrote sections of Augustine's City of God. In 415 he was sent to Palestine to confer with intellectuals, sat in on a Church Council in Jerusalem, and carried back the relics of Saint Stephen. His Seven Books of History Against the Pagans, finished by 418, was a chronicle of pagan peoples from deep antiquity to his own day, written to show that pre-Christian times were brutal and chaotic. It became the go-to source on the ancient world straight through the Renaissance, shaping how historians framed narrative and method for centuries. He died sometime between 418 and 423.