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 VIII · Section 1

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Book VIII · Section 1

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Ancient Greek

p. 402

Καρχηδόνα τὴν ἐν Λιβύῃ Φοίνικες ᾤκισαν ἔτεσι πεντήκοντα πρὸ ἁλώσεως Ἰλίου, οἰκισταὶ δʼ αὐτῆς ἐγένοντο Ζῶρός τε καὶ Καρχηδών, ὡς δὲ Ῥωμαῖοι καὶ αὐτοὶ Καρχηδόνιοι νομίζουσι, Διδὼ γυνὴ Τυρία, ἧς τὸν ἄνδρα κατακαίνει Πυγμαλίων Τύρου τυραννεύων, καὶ τὸ ἔργον ἐπέκρυπτεν. ἡ δὲ ἐξ ἐνυπνίου τὸν φόνον ἐπέγνω, καὶ μετὰ χρημάτων πολλῶν καὶ ἀνδρῶν, ὅσοι Πυγμαλίωνος τυραννίδα ἔφευγον, ἀφικνεῖται πλέουσα Λιβύης ἔνθα νῦν ἔστι Καρχηδών. ἐξωθούμενοι δʼ ὑπὸ τῶν Λιβύων ἐδέοντο χωρίον ἐς συνοικισμὸν λαβεῖν, ὅσον ἂν βύρσα ταύρου περιλάβοι. τοῖς δὲ ἐνέπιπτε μέν τι καὶ γέλωτος ἐπὶ τῇ τῶν Φοινίκων μικρολογίᾳ, καὶ ᾐδοῦντο ἀντειπεῖν περὶ οὕτω βραχυτάτου· μάλιστα δʼ ἠπόρουν ὅπως ἂν πόλις ἐν τηλικούτῳ διαστήματι γένοιτο, καὶ ποθοῦντες ἰδεῖν ὅ τι ἔστιν αὐτοῖς τοῦτο τὸ σοφόν, συνέθεντο δώσειν καὶ ἐπώμοσαν. οἱ δὲ τὸ δέρμα περιτεμόντες ἐς ἱμάντα ἕνα στενώτατον, περιέθηκαν ἔνθα νῦν ἔστιν ἡ Καρχηδονίων ἀκρόπολις· καὶ ἀπὸ τοῦδε Βύρσα ὀνομάζεται.

Appian’s Roman History, Volume I: Book VIII

p. 403

The Phoenicians settled Carthage, in Africa, fifty years before the capture of Troy. Its founders were either Zorus and Carchedon, or, as the Romans and the Carthaginians themselves think, Dido, a Tyrian woman, whose husband had been slain clandestinely by Pygmalion, the ruler of Tyre. The murder being revealed to her in a dream, she embarked for Africa with her property and a number of men who desired to escape from the tyranny of Pygmalion, and arrived at that part of Africa where Carthage now stands. Being repelled by the inhabitants, they asked for as much land for a dwelling place as they could encompass with an ox-hide. The Africans laughed at this frivolity of the Phoenicians and were ashamed to deny so small a request. Besides, they could not imagine how a town could be built in so narrow a space, and wishing to unravel the mystery they agreed to give it, and confirmed the promise by an oath. The Phoenicians, cutting the hide round and round in one very narrow strip, enclosed the place where the citadel of Carthage now stands, which from this affair was called Byrsa (a hide).

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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.