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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 II · Fragments I–IV

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English Page · Branch 19 of 315

Book II · Fragments I–IV

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Ancient Greek

p. 42

Οὐολοῦσκοι δὲ τοῖς πταίσμασι τῶν γειτόνων οὐ καταπλαγέντες ἐστράτευον ἐπὶ Ῥωμαίους, καὶ ἐπολιόρκουν τοὺς αὐτῶν κληρούχους.

ὁ δὲ δῆμος τὸν Μάρκιον μετιόντα τὴν ὑπατείαν οὐκ ἐχειροτόνησεν, οὐ τὸν ἄνδρα ἀπαξιῶν, ἀλλὰ τὸ φρόνημα δεδιὼς αὐτοὺ.

ο Μάρκιος πιμπράμενος ἐπὶ Ῥωμαίοις, φυγὴν καταδικασθείς, καὶ μικρὸν ἐς αὐτοὺς οὐδὲν ἐπινοῶν ἐς Οὐολούσκους ἐτράπετο.

ὅτι πατρίδα καὶ γένος ἀλλαξάμενος ἥκοι, τὸ μηδὲν ἡγησάμενος, καὶ τὰ τῶν Οὐολούσκων ἀντὶ τῆς πατρίδος αἱρήσεσθαι βουληθείς.

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Appian’s Roman History, Volume I: Book II

p. 43

The Volsci, in nowise terrified by the misfortunes of their neighbors, made war against the Romans and laid siege to their colonies.

The people refused to elect Marcius (Coriolanus) when he sought the consulship, not because they considered him unfit, but because they feared his domineering spirit.

Marcius being inflamed against the Romans when they banished him went over to the Volsci, meditating no small revenge.

When he arrived there, having renounced his own country and kin, he did not meditate anything in particular, but intended to side with the Volsci against his country.

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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.