For the period prior to Augustine's arrival in 597, Bede drew on earlier writers, including Solinus. He had access to two works of Eusebius: the "Historia Ecclesiastica", and also the "Chronicon", though he had neither in the original Greek; instead he had a Latin translation of the "Historia", by Rufinus, and Saint Jerome's translation of the "Chronicon". He also knew Orosius's "Adversus Paganus", and Gregory of Tours' "Historia Francorum", both Christian histories, as well as the work of Eutropius, a pagan historian. He used Constantius's "Life of Germanus" as a source for Germanus's visits to Britain. Bede's account of the invasion of the Anglo-Saxons is drawn largely from Gildas's "De Excidio et Conquestu Britanniae". Bede would also have been familiar with more recent accounts such as Stephen of Ripon's "Life of Wilfrid", and anonymous "Life" "of Gregory the Great" and "Life of Cuthbert". He also drew on Josephus's "Antiquities", and the works of Cassiodorus, and there was a copy of the "Liber Pontificalis" in Bede's monastery. Bede quotes from several classical authors, including Cicero, Plautus, and Terence, but he may have had access to their work via a Latin grammar rather than directly. However, it is clear he was familiar with the works of Virgil and with Pliny the Elder's "Natural History", and his monastery also owned copies of the works of Dionysius Exiguus. He probably drew his account of St. Alban from a life of that saint which has not survived. He acknowledges two other lives of saints directly; one is a life of Fursa, and the other of St. Æthelburh; the latter no longer survives. He also had access to a life of Ceolfrith. Some of Bede's material came from oral traditions, including a description of the physical appearance of Paulinus of York, who had died nearly 90 years before Bede's "Historia Ecclesiastica" was written.