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Diotimos Library · Greek Antiquity Collection · Bilingual Edition

Appian of Alexandria

Appian’s Roman History, Volume I

Ancient Greek with Horace White’s English translation

Appian’s Roman History, Volume IBook I · Fragments 6–11

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English Page · Branch 17 of 315

Book I · Fragments 6–11

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Ancient Greek

p. 36

ὁ δὲ στρατηγὸς αἰσθόμενος παρʼ ἰδιοξένων ἐξήγγειλεν Ὁστιλίῳ.

οἱ δὲ ἐβλασφήμουν αὐτὸν ὡς κακῶς ἐπὶ τρισὶν ἀνδράσι τὰ πάντα θέμενον.

συμβάσεις ποιεῖν ἐφʼ οἷς ἂν Γάβιοι δικαιῶσιν.

ὠνεῖται τὰ τρία βιβλία τῆς τιμῆς τῶν ἐννέα.

ὁ δὲ Ὁράτιος λελωβημένος ἦν τὰ σκέλη, ὑπατείας τε οὐκ ἔτυχεν οὔτε ἐν πολέμῳ οὔτε ἐν εἰρήνῃ διὰ τὴν ἀχρηστίαν τῶν ποδῶν.

οἱ ὕπατοι τὰ ὅρκια προύτεινον, καὶ ἐς πάντα ἔφασαν ἐνδώσειν μᾶλλον ἢ Ταρκύνιον προσήσεσθαι.

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Appian’s Roman History, Volume I: Book I

p. 37

personal friends, communicated it to Hostilius.

Some blamed him [Tullus Hostilius] because he wrongly staked everything on the prowess of three men (the Horatii).

[The Romans thought] that peace might be made [by Tarquinius] on the terms that the Gabini considered just.

[Tarquinius] bought three books [from the Sibyl] at the price [previously asked] for the nine.

Horatius [Cocles] was a cripple. He failed of reaching the consulship, either in war or in peace, on account of his lameness.

The Consuls tendered the oaths [by which they bound themselves], and said that they would yield everything rather than take back Tarquinius.

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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.