Appian’s Roman History, Volume I

Name: Appian’s Roman History, Volume I
Author: Appian of Alexandria

Ancient Greek with Horace White’s English translation

Appian’s Roman History, Volume IPreface · Sections 14–15

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Ancient Greek Page · Branch 11 of 315

Preface · Sections 14–15

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Ancient Greek

p. 22

Ῥωμαϊκῶν Ἰταλική.

τελευταίῳ δὲ ἔθνει, Σαυνίταις, οἳ παρὰ τὸν Ἰόνιον ᾤκηνται, μεγάλῳ τε καὶ χαλεπῷ, ὀγδοήκοντα ἔτεσι συνεπλάκησαν, μέχρι καὶ τούσδε καὶ ὅσα σφίσιν ἐγγὺς ἔθνη συνεμάχει, καὶ Ἕλληνας, ὅσοι ὑπὸ τὴν Ἰταλίαν εἰσίν, ὑπηγάγοντο· καὶ ἔστιν ἥδε, τῶν προτέρων εἰς σύγκρισιν, Ῥωμαϊκῶν Σαυνιτική.

τὰ δὲ λοιπά, τούτων ἑκάστη κατὰ λόγον ἐπιγράφονται, Ῥωμαϊκῶν Κελτική τε καὶ Σικελικὴ καὶ Ἰβηρικὴ καὶ Ἀννιβαϊκὴ καὶ Καρχηδονιακὴ καὶ Μακεδονικὴ καὶ ἐφεξῆς ὁμοίως.

τέτακται δ’ αὐτῶν ἄλλη μετ’ ἄλλην ὡς ἑκάστῳ πολέμῳ τὴν ἀρχὴν πρὸ ἑτέρου λαβεῖν συνέπεσεν, εἰ καὶ τὸ τέλος τῷ ἔθνει μετὰ πολλὰ ἕτερα γεγένηται. ὅσα δ’ αὐτοὶ Ῥωμαῖοι πρὸς ἀλλήλους ἐστασίασάν τε καὶ ἐπολέμησαν ἐμφύλια, φοβερώτερα σφίσι ταῦτα μάλιστα γενόμενα, ἐς τοὺς στρατηγοὺς τῶν στάσεων διῄρηται, τὰ μὲν ἐς Μάριόν τε καὶ Σύλλαν, τὰ δ’ ἐς Πομπήιόν τε καὶ Καίσαρα, τὰ δὲ ἐς Ἀντώνιόν τε καὶ τὸν ἕτερον Καίσαρα, τὸν Σεβαστὸν ἐπίκλην, πρὸς τοὺς ἀνδροφόνους τοῦ προτέρου Καίσαρος, τὰ δὲ ἐς 〈τὰ πρὸσ〉 ἀλλήλους, αὐτῶν Ἀντωνίου τε καὶ Καίσαρος στασιασάντων.

ᾧ τινι τελευταίῳ τῶν ἐμφυλίων ὄντι καὶ Αἴγυπτος ὑπὸ Ῥωμαίους ἐγένετο καὶ τὰ Ῥωμαίων εἰς μοναρχίαν περιῆλθεν. ὧδε μὲν ἐς βίβλους ἕκαστα τῶν ἐθνῶν ἢ στρατηγῶν τὰ ἐμφύλια διῄρηται· ἡ δὲ τελευταία καὶ τὴν στρατιὰν αὐτῶν, ὅσην ἔχουσιν, ἢ πρόσοδον, ἣν καρποῦνται καθ’ ἕκαστον ἔθνος, ἢ εἴ τι προσαναλίσκουσιν εἰς τὰς ἐπινείους φρουρὰς ὅσα τε τοιουτότροπα ἄλλα ἐπιδείξει.

ἁρμόζει δὲ ἀπὸ τοῦ γένους ἄρξασθαι τὸν περὶ τῆς ἀρετῆς

Appian’s Roman History, Volume I: Preface

p. 23

Roman history. With the last nation, the Samnites, who dwelt on the Adriatic, the Romans struggled eighty years under the greatest difficulties, but finally they subjugated them and the neighbors who were allied with them, and also the Greeks who had settled in Italy. This, by way of distinction from the former, will be called the Samnite Roman history. The rest will be named according to its subject, the Celtic, Sicilian, Spanish, Hannibalic, Carthaginian, Macedonian, and so on. The order of these histories with respect to each other is according to the time when the Romans began to be embroiled in war with each nation, even though many other things intervened before that nation came to its end. The internal seditions and civil wars of the Romans—to them the most calamitous of all—will be designated under the names of their chief actors, as the wars of Marius and Sulla, those of Pompey and Caesar, those of Antony and the second Caesar, surnamed Augustus, against the murderers of the first Caesar, and those of Antony and Augustus against each other. At the end of this last of the civil wars Egypt passed under the Roman sway, and the Roman government itself became a monarchy.

Thus, the foreign wars will be divided into books according to the nations, and the civil wars according to the chief commanders. The last book will show the present military force of the Romans, the revenues they collect from each province, what they spend for the naval service, and other things of that kind. It is proper to begin with the origin of the people of whose prowess I am about to write.

About This Reading Edition

Appian’s Roman History asked readers of the Roman Empire to reckon with how conquest, ambition, and civil conflict created their world; its questions about political power, cultural encounter, civic division, and the human cost of expansion remain urgent today. This approximately page-aligned parallel-text edition pairs the Ancient Greek text with Horace White’s English translation, following the 1912 facing leaves while omitting translator’s notes, figures, fragment attributions, marginalia, and unnumbered appendices.

Historical Text and Translation

Appian, a Greek-speaking Roman historian from Alexandria, wrote in the second century CE and arranged Rome’s expansion by the peoples and regions it conquered rather than as one continuous chronology—a strikingly original design. Much of his twenty-four-book work is lost, making the surviving books and fragments especially valuable.

About Horace White

Horace White was an American journalist, editor, and financial writer rather than a university professor. He led the Chicago Tribune and later the New York Evening Post, yet his Greek scholarship produced the fluent two-volume Appian translation of 1899 that became the English text of the original Loeb edition in 1912.

Rights

Appian’s ancient work, Ludwig Mendelssohn’s 1879 Greek edition, Horace White’s 1899/1912 English translation, and the Eulogikon Greek Preface are in the public domain in the United States. The Perseus digital transcriptions are reused under CC BY-SA 4.0; their attribution and share-alike terms continue to apply.