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 IPreface · Sections 7–9

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English Page · Branch 6 of 315

Preface · Sections 7–9

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Ancient Greek

p. 12

κύκλῳ περικάθηνται μεγάλοις στρατοπέδοις καὶ φυλάσσουσι τὴν τοσήνδε γῆν καὶ θάλασσαν ὥσπερ χωρίον.

ἀρχή τε οὐδεμία προῆλθέ πω μέχρι νῦν εἰς τοσοῦτο μεγέθους καὶ χρόνου. οὔτε γὰρ τὰ Ἑλλήνων, εἴ τις ὁμοῦ τὰ Ἀθηναίων καὶ Λακεδαιμονίων καὶ Θηβαίων, δυναστευσάντων παρὰ μέρος, ἀπὸ τῆς Δαρείου στρατείας, ὅθεν αὐτοῖς ἐστιν ἐλλαμπρύνεσθαι μάλιστα, ἐς τὴν Φιλίππου τοῦ Ἀμύντου τῆς Ἑλλάδος ἡγεμονίαν συναγάγοι, πολλὰ ἂν ἔτη φανείη.

οἵ τε ἀγῶνες αὐτοῖς ἐγένοντο οὐκ ἐπὶ ἀρχῆς περικτήσει μᾶλλον ἢ φιλοτιμίᾳ πρὸς ἀλλήλους, καὶ οἱ λαμπρότατοι περὶ τῆς αὐτῶν ἐλευθερίας πρὸς ἀρχὰς ἄλλας ἐπιούσας. οἳ δέ τινες αὐτῶν ἐς Σικελίαν πλεύσαντες ἐπὶ ἀρχῆς ἑτέρας ἐλπίδι προσέπταισαν, ἤ, εἴ τις ἐς τὴν Ἀσίαν διῆλθεν, μικρὰ καὶ ὅδε δράσας εὐθὺς ἐπανῄει. ὅλως τε ἡ Ἑλληνικὴ δύναμις, καίπερ ἐκθύμως ὑπὲρ ἡγεμονίας ἀγωνισαμένων, οὐ προῆλθεν ὑπὲρ τὴν Ἑλλάδα βεβαίως, ἀλλὰ δεινοὶ μὲν ἐγένοντο ἀδούλωτον αὐτὴν καὶ ἀήττητον κατασχεῖν ἐπὶ πλεῖστον, ἀπὸ δὲ Φιλίππου τοῦ Ἀμύντου καὶ Ἀλεξάνδρου τοῦ Φιλίππου καὶ πάνυ μοι δοκοῦσι πρᾶξαι κακῶς καὶ ἀναξίως αὐτῶν.

ἥ τε τῆς Ἀσίας ἀρχὴ ἔργων μὲν πέρι καὶ ἀρετῆς οὐδ’ ἐς τὰ σμικρότατα τῶν Εὐρωπαίων παραβάλλεται δι’ ἀσθένειαν καὶ ἀτολμίαν τῶν ἐθνῶν.

καὶ τοῦτο δηλώσει καὶ ἥδε ἡ γραφὴ προϊοῦσα· ὀλίγαις γὰρ μάχαις Ῥωμαῖοι τοσούτων τῆς Ἀσίας ἐθνῶν κατέσχον, ὅσων 〈ἔτι νῦν〉 ἐπικρατοῦσι, καὶ ταῦτα Μακεδόνων αὐτῶν ὑπερμαχομένων, τὰ

Appian’s Roman History, Volume I: Preface

p. 13

armies and they garrison the whole stretch of land and sea like a single strong-hold.

No government down to the present time ever attained to such size and duration. That of the Greeks, even if we count the mastery of Athens, Sparta, and Thebes successively from the invasion of Darius, which was the beginning of their glory, to the hegemony of Greece held by Philip the son of Amyntas, lasted comparatively but few years. Their wars were not for conquest abroad but rather for preëminence among themselves, and they were most distinguished for the defence of their freedom against foreign invaders. Those of them who invaded Sicily with the hope of extending their dominion made a failure, and whenever they marched into Asia they accomplished small results and speedily returned. In short the Greek power, although ardent in fighting for the Grecian hegemony, never advanced steadfastly beyond the boundaries of Greece, but took pride in holding itself unenslaved and seldom conquered, and from the time of Philip the son of Amyntas, and of Alexander the son of Philip, they seem to me to have done very badly and to have been unworthy of themselves.

The mastery of Asia is not to be compared, as to labor and bravery, with that of the smallest of the countries of Europe, on account of the effeminacy and cowardice of the Asiatic peoples, as will be shown in the progress of this history. Such of the Asiatic nations as the Romans hold, they subdued in a few battles, though even the Macedonians joined

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.