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 4–5

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Book VIII · Sections 4–5

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Ancient Greek

p. 408

ἐπανήξοντα· καὶ ὁ Ἀτίλιος Ῥῆγλος ἐν ἀπορρήτῳ τοῖς τέλεσι Ῥωμαίων ἐπισκήψας ἐγκρατῶς ἔχεσθαι τοῦ πολέμου, ἐπανῆλθεν ἐς λύμην ἕτοιμον, καὶ αὐτὸν οἱ Καρχηδόνιοι καθείρξαντες ἐν γαλεάγρᾳ κέντρα πάντοθεν ἐχούσῃ διέφθειραν. Ξανθίππῳ δὲ τὸ εὐτύχημα συμφορῶν ἦρξε· Καρχηδόνιοι γὰρ αὐτόν, ἵνα μὴ δοκοίη Λακεδαιμονίων ἔργον εἶναι τοσοῦτον, ὑποκρινάμενοι τιμᾶν δωρεαῖς πολλαῖς καὶ προπέμπειν ἐπὶ τριήρων ἐς Λακεδαίμονα, τοῖς τριηράρχοις ἐνετείλαντο μετὰ τῶν συμπλεόντων Λακώνων καταποντίσαι. ὁ μὲν δὴ δίκην ἔδωκε τήνδε εὐπραξίας, καὶ τάδε ἦν τοῦ πρώτου πολέμου Ῥωμαίοις περὶ Λιβύην εὐπραγήματά τε καὶ ἀτυχήματα, μέχρι Καρχηδόνιοι Σικελίας Ῥωμαίοις ἀπέστησαν. ὅπως δὲ ἀπέστησαν, ἐν τῇ Σικελικῇ γραφῇ δεδήλωται.

μετὰ δὲ τοῦτο Ῥωμαίοις μὲν καὶ Καρχηδονίοις εἰρηναῖα ἦν ἐς ἀλλήλους, Λίβυες, δʼ ὅσοι Καρχηδονίων ὄντες ὑπήκοοι συνεμεμαχήκεσαν αὐτοῖς ἐπὶ Σικελίαν, καὶ Κελτῶν ὅσοι ἐμεμισθοφορήκεσαν, ἐγκλήματά τινα μισθῶν καὶ ὑποσχέσεων ἐς τοὺς Καρχηδονίους ἔχοντες ἐπολέμουν αὐτοῖς μάλα καρτερῶς. οἱ δὲ Ῥωμαίους ἐς συμμαχίαν ὡς φίλους ἐκάλουν, καὶ αὐτοὺς οἱ Ῥωμαῖοι ξενολογεῖν ἐς μόνον τόνδε τὸν πόλεμον ἀπὸ τῆς Ἰταλίας ἐφῆκαν· ἀπείρητο γὰρ ἐν ταῖς σπονδαῖς καὶ τόδε. ἔπεμψαν δὲ καὶ διαλλακτῆρας, οἷς οἱ Λίβυες οὐχ ὑπήκουον, ἀλλὰ τὰς πόλεις ἐδήλωσαν ὑπηκόους εἶναι Ῥωμαίων, εἰ θέλοιεν· οἱ δʼ οὐκ ἐδέξαντο. Καρχηδόνιοι δὲ ναυτικῷ πολλῷ ταῖς

Appian’s Roman History, Volume I: Book VIII

p. 409

were not granted. Yet Regulus in private strongly urged the chief magistrates of Rome to continue the war, and then went back to certain torture, for the Carthaginians shut him up in a cage stuck full of spikes and thus put him to death. This success was the beginning of sorrows to Xanthippus, for the Carthaginians, in order that the credit might not seem to be due to the Lacedemonians, pretended to honor him with splendid gifts, sent galleys to convey him back to Lacedemon, but enjoined upon the captains of the ships to throw him and his Lacedemonian comrades overboard. In this way he paid the penalty for his successes. Such were the results, good and bad, of the first war of the Romans in Africa, until the Carthaginians surrendered Sicily to them. How this came about has been shown in my Sicilian history.

After this there was peace between the Romans and the Carthaginians, but the Africans, who were subject to the latter and had served them as auxiliaries in the Sicilian war, and certain Celtic mercenaries who complained that their pay had been withheld and that the promises made to them had not been kept, made war against the Carthaginians in a very formidable manner. The latter appealed to the Romans for aid on the score of friendship, and the Romans allowed them for this war only to hire mercenaries in Italy, for even that had been forbidden in the treaty. Nevertheless they sent men to act as mediators between them. The Africans refused the mediation, but offered to become subjects of the Romans if they would take them. The latter would not accept them. Then the Carthaginians blockaded the towns with a great fleet, and cut off their supplies from the sea, and as

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.