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 VII · Sections 27–28

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English Page · Branch 166 of 315

Book VII · Sections 27–28

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Ancient Greek

p. 346

καὶ σφᾶς ὡς αὐτικα ἁλωσομένους ὠλοφύροντο, αἱ δὲ γυναῖκες ἱκέτευον ἐν τοῖς ἱεροῖς μετὰ τῶν τέκνων λῆξαί ποτε τὰς συμφορὰς τῇ πόλει, οἱ δʼ ἄρχοντες θυσίαις τε καὶ εὐχαῖς ἱλάσκοντο τοὺς θεούς, εἴ τι μήνιμα ἐνοχλεῖ, κορεσθῆναι τοῖς γεγονόσιν. ἡ δὲ βουλὴ Κόιντον μὲν Φάβιον, τὸν συγγραφέα τῶνδε τῶν ἔργων, ἐς Δελφοὺς ἔπεμπε χρησόμενον περὶ τῶν παρόντων, δούλους δὲ ἐς ὀκτακισχιλίους τῶν δεσποτῶν ἐπιδόντων ἠλευθέρου, ὅπλα τε καὶ τόξα τοὺς ἐν ἄστει πάντας ἐργάζεσθαι παρεσκεύαζε, καὶ συμμάχους, καὶ ὥς, τινὰς συνέλεγεν. Κλαύδιόν τε Μάρκελλον μέλλοντα πλεῖν ἐς Σικελίαν, ἐς τὸν Ἀννίβου πόλεμον μετέφερεν. ὁ δὲ τὸν μὲν στόλον ἐμερίσατο τῷ συνάρχῳ Φουρίῳ, καὶ τὸ μέρος ἔπεμψεν ἐς τὴν Σικελίαν, αὐτὸς δὲ τοὺς δούλους ἄγων καὶ ὅσους ἄλλους ἐδύνατο τῶν πολιτῶν ἢ συμμάχων, γενομένους ἅπαντας ἐς μυρίους πεζοὺς καὶ δισχιλίους ἱππέας, ἐς τὸ Τεανὸν παρῆλθε, καὶ ὅ τι πράξειν ὁ Ἀννίβας μέλλοι παρεφύλασσεν.

Ἀννιβου δὲ δόντος τοῖς αἰχμαλώτοις ἐς Ῥώμην πρεσβεύσασθαι περὶ σφῶν, εἰ θέλοιεν αὐτοὺς οἱ ἐν ἄστει λύσασθαι χρημάτων, καὶ τοὺς αἱρεθέντας ὑπʼ αὐτῶν τρεῖς, ὧν ἡγεῖτο Γναῖος Σεμπρώνιος, ὁρκώσαντος ἐς αὐτὸν ἐπανήξειν, οἱ μὲν οἰκεῖοι τῶν ἁλόντων, περιστάντες τὸ βουλευτήριον, ἐπηγγέλλοντο λύσεσθαι τοὺς οἰκείους ἕκαστος ἰδίοις χρήμασι, καὶ παρεκάλουν τὴν βουλὴν τοῦτο

Appian’s Roman History, Volume I: Book VII

p. 347

for their relatives, calling on them by name, and bewailing their own fate as soon to fall into the enemy’s hands. Women went to the temples with their children and prayed that there might sometime be an end to the calamities to the city. The magistrates besought the gods by sacrifices and prayers that if they had any cause of anger they would be satisfied with the punishment already visited. The Senate sent Quintus Fabius (the same who wrote a history of these events) to the temple of Delphi to seek an oracle concerning the present posture of affairs. They freed 8000 slaves with their masters’ consent, and ordered everybody in the city to go to work making arms and projectiles. They also made a conscription, as was allowed, even among certain of the allies. They also changed the destination of Claudius Marcellus, who was about to sail to Sicily, and sent him to fight against Hannibal. Marcellus divided the fleet with his colleague Furius and sent a part of it to Sicily, while he himself took the manumitted slaves and as many others as he could collect of citizens and allies, amounting altogether to 10,000 foot and 2000 horse, and marched to Teanum in order to see what Hannibal would do next.

Hannibal allowed his captives to send messengers to Rome in their own behalf, to see if the citizens would ransom them with money. Three were chosen by them, of whom Gn. Sempronius was the leader, from whom Hannibal exacted an oath that they would return to him. The relatives of the prisoners, collecting around the senate-house, declared their readiness to redeem their friends severally with their own money and begged the

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.