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 87–88

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Facing Pages · Branch 132 of 315

Book VI · Sections 87–88

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Ancient Greek

p. 276

ἐξετεθέριστο καὶ ἐς τὸ πρόσθεν ἔδει βαδίζειν, ὁδὸς μὲν ἦν παρὰ τὴν Νομαντίαν ἐπὶ τὰ πεδία σύντομος, καὶ πολλοὶ συνεβούλευον ἐς αὐτὴν τραπέσθαι. ὁ δʼ ἔφη τὴν ἐπάνοδον δεδιέναι, κούφων μὲν τότε τῶν πολεμίων ὄντων, καὶ ἐκ πόλεως ὁρμωμένων καὶ ἐς πόλιν ἀφορμώντων· οἱ δʼ ἡμέτεροι βαρεῖς ἐπανίασιν ὡς ἀπὸ σιτολογίας καὶ κατάκοποι, καὶ κτήνη καὶ ἁμάξας καὶ φορτία ἄγουσιν. δυσχερής τε ὅλως καὶ ἀνόμοιος ὁ ἀγών· ἡσσωμένοις μὲν γὰρ πολὺς ὁ κίνδυνος, νικῶσι δὲ οὐ μέγα τὸ ἔργον, οὐδʼ ἐπικερδές. εἶναι δʼ ἄλογον κινδυνεύειν ἐπὶ ὀλίγοις, καὶ στρατηγὸν ἀμελῆ τὸν ἀγωνιζόμενον πρὸ τῆς χρείας, ἀγαθὸν δὲ τὸν ἐν μόναις παρακινδυνεύοντα ταῖς ἀνάγκαις. συγκρίνων δʼ ἔφη καὶ τοὺς ἰατροὺς μὴ χρῆσθαι τομαῖς μηδὲ καύσεσι πρὸ φαρμάκων. ταῦτʼ εἰπὼν ἐκέλευε τοῖς ἡγεμόσι τὴν μακροτέραν περιάγειν. καὶ συνεξῄει τότε μὲν ἐς τὸ πέραν τοῦ στρατοπέδου, ὕστερον δὲ ἐς τὰ Οὐακκαίων, ὅθεν οἱ Νομαντῖνοι τὰς τροφὰς ἐωνοῦντο, κείρων ἅπαντα, καὶ τὰ χρήσιμα ἐς τὰς ἑαυτοῦ τροφὰς συλλέγων, τὰ δὲ περιττὰ σωρεύων τε καὶ κατακαίων.

ἐν δέ τινι πεδίῳ τῆς Παλλαντιας, ὄνομα Κοπλανίῳ, πολλοὺς ἐπὶ τῶν ὀρῶν ὑπὸ λόφοις ἔκρυψαν οἱ Παλλάντιοι, καὶ ἑτέροις ἐς τὸ φανερὸν τοὺς σιτολογοῦντας ἠνώχλουν. ὁ δὲ Ῥουτίλιον Ῥοῦφον, συγγραφέα τῶνδε τῶν ἔργων, τότε χιλιαρχοῦντα, ἐκέλευσε τέσσαρας ἱππέων ἴλας λαβόντα ἀναστεῖλαι τοὺς ἐνοχλοῦντας. Ῥοῦφος

Appian’s Roman History, Volume I: Book VI

p. 277

When those fields had been harvested and it was necessary to move forward, and a short road to Numantia was found across the country which many advised him to take, he said: What I am afraid of is the coming back. Our enemies are very nimble. They can dart out of the city and dart back again, while our men, like soldiers who return from foraging, will be tired out with the booty, the wagons, and the burdens they bring. For this reason the fighting will be severe and unequal. If we are beaten the danger will be serious, and if victorious, neither the glory nor the gain will be great. It is foolish to incur danger for small results. He must be considered a reckless general who would fight before there is any need, while a good one takes risks only in cases of necessity. He added by way of simile that physicians do not cut and burn their patients till they have first tried drugs. Having spoken thus, he ordered his officers to take the longer road. Then he made some excursions beyond the camp and later advanced into the territory of the Vaccaei, from whom the Numantines bought their food supplies, cutting down everything, taking for himself what was useful as food, and piling the rest in heaps and burning it.

In a part of Pallantia called Complanio the Pallantians had concealed a large force just below the brow of a hill while others openly annoyed the Roman foragers. Scipio ordered Rutilius Rufus, a military tribune (who afterwards wrote a history of these transactions), to take four troops of horse and drive back the assailants. Rufus followed them too sharply when they retreated, and darted up the hill with the fugitives.

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.