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 · Sections 2–4

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Book VIII · Sections 2–4

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Ancient Greek

p. 406

ἐσβαλὼν ἔπραξεν, ἡ Ἀννιβαϊκὴ· τὰ δʼ ἐν Λιβύῃ γενόμενα ἀπʼ ἀρχῆς ἥδε συνάγει.

ἤρξαντο δʼ αὐτῶν ἀμφὶ τὸν Σικελικὸν πόλεμον οἱ Ῥωμαῖοι, ναυσὶ πεντήκοντα καὶ τριακοσίαις ἐπιπλεύσαντες ἐς Λιβύην, καὶ πόλεις τινὰς ἑλόντες, καὶ στρατηγὸν ἐπὶ τῇ δυνάμει καταλιπόντες Ἀτίλιον Ῥῆγλον, ὃς ἄλλας τε πόλεις διακοσίας προσέλαβεν, αἳ Καρχηδονίων ἔχθει πρὸς αὐτὸν μετετίθεντο, καὶ τὴν χώραν ἐπιὼν ἐπόρθει. Καρχηδόνιοι δὲ Λακεδαιμονίους στρατηγὸν ἤτουν, οἰόμενοι διʼ ἀναρχίαν κακοπραγεῖν. οἱ μὲν δὴ Ξάνθιππον αὐτοῖς ἔπεμπον, ὁ δὲ Ἀτίλιος ἀμφὶ λίμνῃ στρατοπεδεύων ὥρᾳ καύματος περιώδευε τὴν λίμνην ἐπὶ τοὺς πολεμίους, ὅπλων τε βάρει καὶ πνίγει καὶ δίψει καὶ ὁδοιπορίᾳ κακοπαθῶν, καὶ βαλλόμενος ἀπὸ κρημνῶν ἄνωθεν. ὡς δʼ ἐπλησίασε περὶ ἑσπέραν καὶ ποταμὸς αὐτοὺς διεῖργεν, ὁ μὲν εὐθὺς ἐπέρα τὸν ποταμὸν ὡς καὶ τῷδε τὸν Ξάνθιππον ἐκπλήξων, ὁ δὲ συντεταγμένην τὴν στρατιὰν ἐπαφίησι διὰ τῶν πυλῶν, ἐλπίσας κεκμηκότος καὶ κακοπαθοῦντος περιέσεσθαι, καὶ τὴν νύκτα πρὸς τῶν νικώντων ἔσεσθαι. τῆσδε μὲν οὖν τῆς ἐλπίδος ὁ Ξάνθιππος οὐκ ἀπέτυχεν· ἀπὸ γὰρ τρισμυρίων ἀνδρῶν οὓς ὁ Ἀτίλιος ἦγεν, ὀλίγοι μόλις αὐτῶν ἐς Ἀσπίδα πόλιν διέδρασαν, οἱ δὲ λοιποὶ πάντες οἱ μὲν ἀπώλοντο οἱ δʼ ἐζωγρήθησαν. καὶ μετʼ αὐτῶν ὁ στρατηγὸς Ἀτίλιος, ὕπατος γεγονώς, αἰχμάλωτος ἦν.

τόνδε μὲν δὴ μετʼ οὐ πολὺ κάμνοντες οἱ Καρχηδόνιοι σὺν οἰκείοις πρέσβεσιν ἔπεμψαν ἐς Ῥώμην, ἐργασόμενον σφίσι διαλλαγὰς ἢ

Appian’s Roman History, Volume I: Book VIII

p. 407

Hannibal did in his Italian campaigns in the Hannibalic history. This book will deal with the operations in Africa from the earliest period.

About the beginning of the Sicilian war the Romans sent 350 ships to Africa, captured a number of towns, and left in command of the army Atilius Regulus, who took some 200 more towns, which gave themselves up to him on account of their hatred of the Carthaginians; and continually advancing he ravaged the territory. Thereupon the Carthaginians, considering that their misfortunes were due to bad generalship, asked the Lacedemonians to send them a commander. The Lacedemonians sent them Xanthippus. Regulus, being encamped in the hot season alongside a lake, marched around it to engage the enemy, his soldiers suffering greatly from the weight of their arms, from dust, thirst, and fatigue, and exposed to missiles from the neigh-boring heights. Toward evening he came to a river which separated the two armies. This he crossed at once, thinking in this way to terrify Xanthippus, but the latter, anticipating an easy victory over an enemy thus harassed and exhausted and having night in his favor, drew up his forces and made a sudden sally from his camp. The expectations of Xanthippus were not disappointed. Of the 30,000 men led by Regulus, only a few escaped with difficulty to the city of Aspis. All the rest were either killed or taken prisoners, and among the latter was the consul Regulus himself.

Not long afterward the Carthaginians, weary of fighting sent him, in company with their own ambassadors, to Rome to obtain peace or to return if it

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.