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 IBook VI · Sections 74–75

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Book VI · Sections 74–75

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Ancient Greek

p. 254

καὶ ἐνθυμουμένων ἐν οἵοις εἰσὶ κινδύνοις καὶ οἵου στρατηγοῦ στεροῦνται. μάλιστα δὲ αὐτούς, ὅτι τοὺς δράσαντας οὐχ ηὕρισκον, ὑπερήλγυνεν.

Οὐρίατθον μὲν δὴ λαμπρότατα κοσμήσαντες ἐπὶ ὑψηλοτάτης πυρᾶς ἔκαιον, ἱερεῖά τε πολλὰ ἐπέσφαττον αὐτῷ, καὶ κατὰ ἴλας οἵ τε πεζοὶ καὶ οἱ ἱππεῖς ἐν κύκλῳ περιθέοντες αὐτὸν ἔνοπλοι βαρβαρικῶς ἐπῄνουν, μέχρι τε σβεσθῆναι τὸ πῦρ παρεκάθηντο πάντες ἀμφʼ αὐτό. καὶ τῆς ταφῆς ἐκτελεσθείσης, ἀγῶνα μονομάχων ἀνδρῶν ἤγαγον ἐπὶ τοῦ τάφου. τοσοῦτον αὑτοῦ πόθον κατέλιπεν Οὐρίατθος, ἀρχικώτατος μὲν ὡς ἐν βαρβάροις γενόμενος, φιλοκινδυνότατος δʼ ἐς ἅπαντα πρὸ ἁπάντων, καὶ ἰσομοιρότατος ἐν τοῖς κέρδεσιν. οὐ γάρ ποτε πλέον ὑπέστη λαβεῖν, ἀεὶ παρακαλούντων· ὃ δὲ καὶ λάβοι, τοῖς ἀριστεύσασιν ἐδίδου. ὅθεν αὐτῷ, δυσχερέστατον ἔργον καὶ οὐδενί πω στρατηγῶν εὐμαρῶς ἐγγενόμενον, ἔτεσιν ὀκτὼ τοῦδε τοῦ πολέμου παμμιγὴς στρατὸς ἀστασίαστος ἦν καὶ κατήκοος ἀεὶ καὶ ἐς τοὺς κινδύνους ὀξύτατος. τότε δὲ σφῶν Τάνταλον ἑλόμενοι στρατηγεῖν, ἐπὶ Ζάκανθαν ἐφέροντο, ἣν Ἀννίβας καθελὼν ἔκτισε καὶ ἀπὸ τῆς αὑτοῦ πατρίδος Καρχηδόνα προσεῖπεν. ἀποκρουσθεῖσι δʼ αὐτοῖς ἐκεῖθεν, καὶ τὸν Βαῖτιν ποταμὸν περῶσιν, ὁ Καιπίων ἐπέκειτο, μέχρι κάμνων ὁ Τάνταλος αὑτόν τε καὶ τὴν στρατιὰν τῷ Καιπίωνι

Appian’s Roman History, Volume I: Book VI

p. 255

dangers they were in, and of what a general they had been bereft. Most of all were they grieved that they could not find the perpetrators of the crime.

They arrayed the body of Viriathus in splendid garments and burned it on a lofty funeral pile. Many sacrifices were offered for him. Troops of horse and foot in armor marched around him singing his praises in barbarian fashion. Nor did they depart from the funeral pile until the fire had gone out. When the obsequies were ended, they had gladiatorial contests at his tomb. So great was the longing for Viriathus after his death — a man who had the highest qualities of a commander as reckoned among barbarians, always foremost in facing danger and most exact in dividing the spoils. He never consented to take the lion’s share, even when friends begged him to, but whatever he got he divided among the bravest. Thus it came about (a most difficult task and one never before achieved by any other commander so easily) that in the eight years of this war, in an army composed of various tribes, there never was any sedition, the soldiers were always obedient and fearless in the presence of danger. After his death they chose a general named Tantalus and made an expedition against Saguntum, the city which Hannibal had overthrown and reestablished and named New Carthage, after his own country. When they had been repulsed from that place and were crossing the river Baetis, Caepio pressed them so hard that Tantalus became exhausted and surrendered his army to Caepio on condition that they should be treated as subjects. The latter took from them all their arms and gave them

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.