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 99–100

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Ancient Greek Page · Branch 142 of 315

Book VI · Sections 99–100

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Ancient Greek

p. 296

ἔκτεινεν ἐς δισμυρίους, Τερμησὸν δέ, μεγάλην πόλιν ἀεὶ δυσπειθῆ Ῥωμαίοις γενομένην, ἐξ ἐρυμνοῦ κατήγαγεν ἐς τὸ πεδίον, καὶ ἐκέλευσεν οἰκεῖν ἀτειχίστους. Κολένδαν δὲ προσκαθίσας ἐνάτῳ μηνὶ παρέλαβεν ἐγχειρίσασαν ἑαυτήν, καὶ τοὺς Κολενδέας ἅπαντας μετὰ παίδων καὶ γυναικῶν ἀπέδοτο.

πόλιν δʼ ἑτέραν τῆς Κολένδης πλησίον ᾤκουν μιγάδες Κελτιβήρων, οὓς Μᾶρκος Μάριος συμμαχήσαντας αὐτῷ κατὰ Λυσιτανῶν, τῆς βουλῆς ἐπιτρεπούσης, ᾠκίκει πρὸ πέντε ἐνιαυτῶν. ἐλῄστευον δʼ ἐξ ἀπορίας οὗτοι· καὶ κρίνας αὐτοὺς ὁ Δείδιος ἀνελεῖν, συνθεμένων αὐτῷ τῶν δέκα πρέσβεων ἔτι παρόντων, ἔφη τοῖς ἐπιφανέσιν αὐτῶν ἐθέλειν τὴν Κολενδέων χώραν αὐτοῖς προσορίσαι πενομένοις. ἀσπαζομένους δὲ ὁρῶν ἐκέλευε, τῷ δήμῳ ταῦτα μετενεγκόντας, ἥκειν μετὰ γυναικῶν καὶ παίδων τὴν χώραν μεριουμένους. ἐπεὶ δʼ ἀφίκοντο, προσέταξε τοὺς στρατιώτας ἐκ τοῦ χάρακος ἐξελθεῖν καὶ τοὺς ἐνεδρευομένους ἔσω παρελθεῖν ὡς ἀπογραψόμενος αὐτῶν ἔνδον τὸ πλῆθος, ἐν μέρει μὲν ἀνδρῶν ἐν μέρει δὲ παίδων καὶ γυναικῶν, ἵνα ἐπιγνοίη πόσην χώραν αὐτοῖς δέοι διελεῖν. ὡς δὲ παρῆλθον ἐς τὴν τάφρον καὶ τὸ χαράκωμα, περιστήσας αὐτοῖς τὸν στρατὸν ὁ Δείδιος ἔκτεινε πάντας. καὶ ἐπὶ τοῖσδε Δείδιος μὲν καὶ ἐθριάμβευσε, πάλιν δὲ τῶν Κελτιβήρων ἀποστάντων Φλάκκος ἐπιπεμφθεὶς ἔκτεινε δισμυρίους. ἐν δὲ Βελγήδῃ πόλει ὁ μὲν δῆμος ἐς ἀπόστασιν ὁρμῶν τὴν βουλὴν

Appian’s Roman History, Volume I: Book VI

p. 297

Termesum, a large city always insubordinate to the Romans, from a place of security into the plain, and ordered the inhabitants to live without walls. He also besieged the city of Colenda and captured it nine months after he had invested it, and sold the inhabitants with their wives and children.

There was another city near Colenda inhabited by mixed tribes of Celtiberians who had been the allies of Marcus Marius in a war against the Lusitanians, and whom he had settled there five years before with the approval of the Senate. They were living by robbery on account of their poverty. Didius, with the concurrence of the ten legates who were still present, resolved to destroy them. Accordingly, he told their principal men that he would allot the land of Colenda to them because they were poor. Finding them very much pleased with this offer, he told them to communicate it to their people, and to come with their wives and children to the parcelling out of the land. When they had done so he ordered his soldiers to vacate their camp, and these people, whom he wanted to ensnare, to go inside, so that he might make a list of their names, the men on one register and the women and children on another, in order to know how much land should be set apart for them. When they had gone inside the ditch and palisade, Didius surrounded them with his army and killed them all, and for this he was honored with a triumph. At a later period, the Celtiberians having revolted again, Flaccus was sent against them and slew 20,000. The people of the town of Belgida were eager for revolt, and when their senate hesitated they set fire to the senate-house and burned the senators. When

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.