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 IV · Fragments II–III

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Book IV · Fragments II–III

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Ancient Greek

p. 106

τρεῖς, οἳ τοῖς Κελτοῖς ἔμελλον προαγορεύσειν ἀνίστασθαι τῆς γῆς ὡς Ῥωμαίων φίλης, καὶ ἀπειλήσειν ἀπειθοῦσιν. ἀποκριναμένων δὲ τῶν Κελτῶν ὅτι ἀνθρώπων οὐδένα δεδίασιν οὔτε ἀπειλοῦντα σφίσιν οὔτε πολεμοῦντα, χρῄζοντες δὲ γῆς οὔπω τὰ Ῥωμαίων πολυπραγμονοῦσιν, οἱ πρέσβεις οἱ Φάβιοι τοὺς Κλουσίνους ἐνῆγον ἐπιθέσθαι τοῖς Κελτοῖς τὴν χώραν λεηλατοῦσιν ἀπερισκέπτως. καὶ συνεκδημοῦντες αὐτοῖς ἀναιροῦσι τῶν Κελτῶν πολὺ πλῆθος ἐν προνομῇ, καὶ τὸν ἡγούμενον ἐκείνου τοῦ μέρους αὐτὸς ὁ Ῥωμαίων πρεσβευτὴς Κόιντος Φάβιος ἀνεῖλέ τε καὶ ἐσκύλευσε, καὶ τὰ ὅπλα φορῶν ἐπανῆλθεν ἐς Κλούσιον.

ὅτι ὁ τῶν Κελτῶν βασιλεὺς Βρέννος, τῶν Φαβίων τῶν Ῥωμαίων πολλοὺς ἀνελόντων Κελτῶν, μὴ δεξάμενος τοὺς Ῥωμαίων πρέσβεις, ἐπὶ τούτοις πρέσβεις ἐπιλεξάμενος ἐς κατάπληξιν, οἳ Κελτῶν ἁπάντων μεγάλων τὰ σώματα ὄντων ὑπερέβαλλον, ἐξέπεμπεν ἐς Ῥώμην, αἰτιώμενος τοὺς Φαβίους ὅτι πρεσβεύοντες παρὰ τοὺς κοινοὺς νόμους ἐπολέμησαν. ᾔτει τε τοὺς ἄνδρας ἐς δίκην ἐκδότους οἱ γενέσθαι, εἰ μὴ θέλουσι Ῥωμαῖοι κοινὸν αὐτῶν εἶναι τὸ ἔργον. οἱ δὲ Ῥωμαῖοι συνεγίγνωσκον μὲν τοὺς Φαβίους ἁμαρτεῖν, αἰδοῖ δὲ οἴκου διαφέροντος χρήματα τοὺς Κελτοὺς πράξασθαι παρὰ σφῶν παρεκάλουν. οὐ πειθομένων δὲ χειροτονοῦσι τοὺς Φαβίους ἐπὶ τὴν ἐτήσιον ἀρχὴν

Appian’s Roman History, Volume I: Book IV

p. 107

ambassadors to the Gauls to order them to vacate the country that was in alliance with Rome, and to threaten them if they did not obey. The Gauls replied that they feared no mortal man in threat or war, that they were in need of land, and that they had not yet meddled with the affairs of the Romans. The Fabii urged the Clusians to make an attack upon the Gauls while they were heedlessly plundering the country. They took part in the expedition themselves and slew an immense number of the Gauls whom they caught foraging. Quintus Fabius, one of the Roman embassy, himself killed the chief of that band, stripped his body, and carried his arms back to Clusium.

After the Fabii had slain this large number of Gauls, Brennus, their king, though he had refused to recognize the Roman embassy, for the purpose of intimidating the Romans selected as ambassadors to them certain Gauls who exceeded all the others in bodily size as much as the Gauls exceeded other peoples, and sent them to Rome to complain that the Fabii, while serving as ambassadors, had joined in war against him, contrary to the law of nations. He demanded that they should be given up to him for punishment unless the Romans wished to make the crime their own. The Romans acknowledged that the Fabii had done wrong, but having great respect for that distinguished family, they urged the Gauls to accept a pecuniary compensation from them. As the latter refused, they elected the Fabii

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.