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 VI · Sections 78–79

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Facing Pages · Branch 124 of 315

Book VI · Sections 78–79

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Ancient Greek

p. 260

ἐπιδραμόντες καὶ τῶνδε πολλοὺς διέφθειραν, Ὄππιόν τε χιλίαρχον ἐπʼ αὐτοῖς ἀνεῖλον. καὶ κατʼ ἄλλο μέρος τάφρον ὀρύσσουσι Ῥωμαίοις ἐπιδραμόντες ἔκτειναν ἐς τετρακοσίους, καὶ τὸν ἡγούμενον αὐτῶν. ἐφʼ οἷς τῷ τε Πομπηίῳ σύμβουλοι παρῆσαν ἐκ Ῥώμης, καὶ τοῖς στρατιώταις (ἓξ γὰρ ἔτη διεληλύθει στρατευομένοις) διάδοχοι νεοκατάγραφοί τε καὶ ἔτι ἀγύμναστοι καὶ ἀπειροπόλεμοι. μεθʼ ὧν ὁ Πομπήιος αἰδούμενός τε τὰ ἐπταισμένα, καὶ ἐπειγόμενος τὴν αἰσχύνην ἀναλαβεῖν, ἐπέμενε χειμῶνος ἐν τῷ στρατοπέδῳ. καὶ οἱ στρατιῶται κρύους τε ὄντος ἐν ἀστέγῳ σταθμεύοντες, καὶ πρῶτον ἄρτι πειρώμενοι τοῦ περὶ τὴν χώραν ὕδατός τε καὶ ἀέρος, κατὰ γαστέρα ἔκαμνον, καὶ διεφθείροντο ἔνιοι. μέρους δὲ ἐπὶ σῖτον οἰχομένου, κρύψαντες ἐνέδραν οἱ Νομαντῖνοι παρʼ αὐτὸ τὸ Ῥωμαίων στρατόπεδον ἠκροβολίζοντο ἐρεθίζοντες, ἕως οἱ μὲν οὐ φέροντες ἐπεξῄεσαν, οἱ δʼ ἐκ τῆς ἐνέδρας ἀνίσταντο· καὶ Ῥωμαῖοι πολλοὶ μὲν ἐκ τοῦ πλήθους, πολλοὶ δὲ τῶν ἐπιφανῶν ἀπέθανον· οἱ δὲ Νομαντῖνοι καὶ τοῖς τὸν σῖτον φέρουσιν ἀπαντήσαντες ἔκτειναν καὶ τῶνδε πολλούς.

καὶ ὁ Πομπήιος τοσοῖσδε συνενεχθεὶς κακοῖς ἐς τὰς πόλεις μετὰ τῶν συμβούλων ἀνεζεύγνυ, χειμάσων τὸ ἐπίλοιπον, τοῦ ἦρος προσδοκῶν ἥξειν οἱ διάδοχον. καὶ δεδιὼς κατηγορίαν, ἔπρασσεν ἐς τοὺς Νομαντίνους κρύφα τοῦ πολέμου διαλύσεις. οἱ δὲ καὶ αὐτοὶ κάμνοντες ἤδη φόνῳ τε πολλῷ ἀρίστων καὶ γῆς ἀργίᾳ καὶ τροφῶν ἀπορίᾳ καὶ μήκει τοῦ πολέμου, μακροῦ παρὰ

Appian’s Roman History, Volume I: Book VI

p. 261

their own fortification. They also attacked the foragers and killed many, and among them Oppius, a military tribune. They made an assault in another quarter on a party of Romans who were digging a ditch, and killed about 400 of them including their leader. About this time certain counsellors came to Pompeius from Rome, together with an army of new recruits, still raw and undisciplined, to take the places of the soldiers who had served their six years. Pompeius, being put to shame by so many disasters, and desiring to wipe out the disgrace, remained in camp in the winter time with these raw recruits. The soldiers, being exposed to severe cold without shelter, and unaccustomed to the water and climate of the country, fell sick with dysentery and many died. A detachment having gone out for forage, the Numantines laid an ambuscade near the Roman camp and provoked them to a skirmish. The latter, not enduring the affront, sallied out against them. Then those who were in ambush sprang up, and many of the common soldiers and many of the nobility lost their lives. Finally the Numantines encountered the foraging party on its return and killed many of those also.

Pompeius, being cast down by so many misfortunes, marched away with his senatorial council to the towns to spend the rest of the winter, expecting a successor to come early in the spring. Fearing lest he should be called to account, he made overtures to the Numantines secretly for the purpose of bringing the war to an end. The Numantines themselves, being exhausted by the slaughter of so many of their bravest men, by the loss

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.