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 III · Fragment I

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Book III · Fragment I

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Ancient Greek

p. 60

τοῦ χιλιάρχου, καὶ τοὺς ἐπὶ τῶν ἔργων ἐν τοῖς ἀγροῖς δεδεμένους ἐκλύσαντες, καὶ ὁπλίσαντες ὡς ἐδύναντο, ἤλαυνον ἐς Ῥώμην ὁμοῦ δισμύριοι γεγονότες.

ἔτι δʼ αὐτῶν ὁδὸν ἡμέρας μιᾶς ἀπεχόντων ὑπήντα Κορουῖνος, καὶ παραστρατοπεδεύσας ἐν τοῖς ὄρεσι τοῖς Ἀλβανῶν ἠρεμεί, περισκοπῶν τε τὸ ἔργον ἔτι, καὶ μέγα ἡγούμενος ἀπεγνωκόσι μάχεσθαι. οἱ δὲ ἐπεμίγνυντο ἀλλήλοις κρύφα, καὶ ὀδυρμοὶ καὶ δάκρυα τῶν φυλάκων ἦν ὡς ἐν οἰκείοις καὶ φίλοις ἁμαρτεῖν μὲν ὁμολογούντων, τὴν δὲ αἰτίαν ἐς τὰ χρέα φερόντων τὰ ἐν Ῥώμῃ. ὧν ὁ Κορουῖνος αἰσθανόμενος, καὶ ὀκνῶν ἅψασθαι πολιτικοῦ καὶ τοσούτου φόνου, συνεβούλευσε τῇ βουλῇ τὰ χρέα τοῖς ἀνδράσι μεθεῖναι, τόν τε πόλεμον ἐξαίρων ἐπὶ μέγα, εἰ τοσῶνδε ἀνδρῶν δύναιτο κρατῆσαι μαχομένων ἐξ ἀπογνώσεως, καὶ τὰς συνόδους αὐτῶν καὶ ἐπιμιξίας ἐν ὑπονοίᾳ τιθέμενος, μὴ οὐδʼ ὁ ἴδιος αὐτῷ στρατὸς ἐς πάντα ᾖ πιστός, ἅτε συγγενεῖς ὄντες ἐκείνων, καὶ οὐχ ἧσσον αὐτῶν αἰτιώμενοι τὰ χρέα. σφαλέντα δὲ κινδυνεύσειν ἔφη περὶ μειζόνων· καὶ τὴν νίκην, εἰ κρατήσειεν, ἀτυχεστάτην ἔσεσθαι τῇ πόλει κατʼ οἰκείων τοσῶνδε. οἷς ἡ βουλὴ πεισθεῖσα τὰς μὲν τῶν χρεῶν ἀποκοπὰς ἐψηφίσατο πᾶσι Ῥωμαίοις, τοῖς δὲ τότε ἐχθροῖς καὶ ἄδειαν. οἱ μὲν δὴ τὰ ὅπλα ἀποθέμενοι κατῄεσαν ἐς τὴν πόλιν.

ὅτι

Appian’s Roman History, Volume I: Book III

p. 61

near the town of Terracina. They set free all those who were working under sentence in the fields, armed them as well as they could, and marched to Rome to the number of about 20,000.

About one day’s march from the city they were met by Corvinus who went into camp near them on the Alban mount. He remained quietly in his camp while investigating what the matter was, and did not consider it wise to attack these desperadoes. The men mingled with each other privately, the guards acknowledging with groans and tears, as among relatives and friends, that they were to blame, but declaring that the cause of it all was the debts they owed at Rome. When Corvinus understood this he shrank from the responsibility of so much civil bloodshed and advised the Senate to release these men from debt. He exaggerated the difficulty of the war if it should be necessary to put down such a large body of men, who would fight with the energy of despair. He had strong suspicions also of the result of the meetings and conferences, lest his own army, who were relatives of these men and not less oppressed with debt, should be to some extent lacking in fidelity. If he should be defeated he said that the dangers would be greatly increased; if victorious, the victory itself would be most lamentable to the commonwealth, being gained over so many of their own relatives. The Senate was moved by his arguments and decreed a cancellation of debts to all Romans, and immunity also to these revolters. The latter laid down their arms and returned to the city.

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.