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 82–83

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Book VI · Sections 82–83

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Ancient Greek

p. 268

φυγῇ μάλιστα ὁμοίας, οἱ Παλλάντιοι πανταχόθεν ἐπικείμενοι πολλὰ ἔβλαπτον ἐξ ἠοῦς ἐπὶ ἑσπέραν. νυκτὸς δὲ ἐπιλαβούσης Ῥωμαῖοι μὲν ἐς τὰ πεδία ἑαυτοὺς ἐρρίπτουν ἀνὰ μέρος, ὡς τύχοιεν, ἄσιτοι τε και κατάκοποι, οἱ δὲ Παλλάντιοι θεοῦ σφᾶς ἀποτρέποντος ἀνεχώρουν. καὶ τάδε μὲν ἦν περὶ Αἰμίλιον.

Ῥωμαῖοι δʼ αὐτὰ πυθόμενοι τὸν μὲν Αἰμίλιον. παρέλυσαν τῆς στρατηγίας τε καὶ ὑπατείας, καὶ ἰδιώτης ἐς Ῥώμην ὑπέστρεφε, καὶ χρήμασιν ἐπεζημιοῦτο· Μαγκίνῳ δʼ ἐδίκαζον καὶ τοῖς πρέσβεσι τοῖς Νομαντίνων. οἱ μὲν δὴ τὰς συνθήκας, ἃς ἐπεποίηντο πρὸς Μαγκῖνον, ἐπεδείκνυον· ὁ δὲ τὴν αἰτίαν αὐτῶν ἐς Πομπήιον ἀνέφερε τὸν πρὸ αὐτοῦ γενόμενον στρατηγόν, ὡς ἀργὸν καὶ ἄπορον τὸν στρατὸν ἐγχειρίσαντά οἱ, καὶ διʼ αὐτὸ κἀκεῖνον ἡσσημένον τε πολλάκις καὶ συνθήκας ὁμοίας αὐτῷ θέμενον πρὸς τοὺς Νομαντίνους· ὅθεν ἔφη καὶ τὸν πόλεμον τόνδε, παρὰ τὰς συνθήκας ἐκείνας ὑπὸ Ῥωμαίων ἐψηφισμένον, ἀπαίσιον αὐτοῖς γεγονέναι. οἱ δʼ ἐχαλέπαινον μὲν ἀμφοτέροις ὁμοίως, ἀπέφυγε δʼ ὅμως Πομπήιος ὡς περὶ τῶνδε κριθεὶς καὶ πάλαι. Μαγκῖνον δʼ ἔγνωσαν ἐκδοῦναι τοῖς Νομαντίνοις, ἄνευ σφῶν αἰσχρὰς συνθήκας πεποιημένον, ᾧ λόγῳ καὶ Σαυνίταις οἱ πατέρες, ὅμοια χωρὶς αὐτῶν συνθεμένους, ἡγεμόνας εἴκοσιν ἐξεδεδώκεσαν. Μαγκῖνον μὲν δὴ Φούριος ἀγαγὼν ἐς Ἰβηρίαν γυμνὸν παρεδίδου τοῖς Νομαντίνοις· οἱ δὲ οὐκ ἐδέξαντο. στρατηγὸς δὲ ἐπʼ αὐτοὺς αἱρεθεὶς Καλπούρνιος Πίσων οὐδʼ ἤλασεν ἐπὶ Νομαντίαν, ἀλλʼ ἐς

Appian’s Roman History, Volume I: Book VI

p. 269

the Pallantines hanging on their flanks and rear and doing great damage from early dawn till evening. When night came the Romans, worn with toil and hunger, threw themselves on the ground by companies just as it happened, and the Pallantines, moved by some divine interposition, went back to their own country. And this was what happened to Aemilius.

When these things were known at Rome, Aemilius was deprived of his command and consulship, and when he returned to Rome as a private citizen he was fined besides. The dispute before the Senate between Mancinus and the Numantine ambassadors was still going on. The latter exhibited the treaty they had made with Mancinus; he, on the other hand, put the blame on Pompeius, his predecessor in the command, who had turned over to him a worthless and ill-provided army, with which Pompeius himself had often been beaten, and so had made a similar treaty with the Numantines. He added that the war had been under bad omens, for it had been decreed by the Romans in violation of these agreements. The senators were equally incensed against both, but Pompeius escaped because he had been tried for this offence long before. They decided to deliver Mancinus to the Numantines for making a disgraceful treaty without their authorization. In this they followed the example of the fathers, who once delivered to the Samnites twenty generals who had made similar treaties without authority. Mancinus was taken to Spain by Furius, and delivered naked to the Numantines, but they refused to receive him. Calpurnius Piso was chosen general against them, but he did not

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.