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 9–10

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Book VIII · Sections 9–10

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Ancient Greek

p. 416

ἐμισθοῦτο, καὶ πάντας ἐγύμναζε, διακοσίους σταδίους ἀποσχὼν ἀπὸ Καρχηδόνος.

Νομάδων δὲ τῶν ἐν Λιβύῃ δυνάσται μὲν ἦσαν κατὰ μέρη πολλοί, Σύφαξ δʼ ὑπὲρ ἅπαντας, καὶ τιμὴν εἶχε πρὸς τῶν ἄλλων ἐπιφανῆ. Μασσυλίων δʼ αὖ, γένους ἀλκίμου, παῖς ἦν τοῦ βασιλέως Μασσανάσσης, ὃς ἐτέθραπτο μὲν ἐν Καρχηδόνι καὶ ἐπεπαίδευτο, ὄντι δʼ αὐτῷ καὶ τὸ σῶμα καλῷ καὶ τὸν τρόπον ἀρίστῳ Ἀσδρούβας ὁ Γέσκωνος, οὐδενὸς Καρχηδονίων δεύτερος, ἠγγύησε τὴν θυγατέρα, καίπερ ὄντι Νομάδι, Καρχηδόνιος ὤν. ὡς δʼ ἠλλύησεν, ἐπήγετο ἐς Ἰβηρίαν στρατηγῶν τὸ μειράκιον. Σύφαξ δὲ κνιζό μενος ὑπʼ ἔρωτος ἐπὶ τῇ παιδὶ τὰ Καρχηδονίων ἐλεηλάτει, καὶ Σκιπίωνι διαπλεύσαντι πρὸς αὐτὸν ἐξ Ἰβηρίας συνέθετο συμμαχήσειν ἐπὶ Καρχηδονίους ἰόντι. αἰσθόμενοι δʼ οἱ Καρχηδόνιοι καὶ μέγα ποιούμενοι ἐς τὸν πρὸς Ῥωμαίους πόλεμον Σύφακα προσλαβεῖν, ἐξέδοσαν αὐτῷ τὴν παρθένον ἀγνοούντων καὶ ὄντων ἐν Ἰβηρίᾳ Ασδρούβου τε καὶ Μασσανάσσου. ἐφʼ οἷς ὁ Μασσανάσσης ὑπεραλγῶν συνετίθετο καὶ ὅδε ἐν Ἰβηρίᾳ τῷ Σκιπίωνι, λανθάνων, ὡς ᾤετο, Ἀσδρούβαν. ὁ δʼ αἰσθόμενος βαρέως μὲν ἔφερεν ὑπὲρ τοῦ μειρακίου καὶ τῆς θυγατρός, ὑβρισμένοιν ἀμφοῖν, ἡγεῖτο δʼ ὅμως τῇ πατρίδι συμφέρειν ἐκποδὼν Μασσανάσσην ποιήσασθαι, καὶ ἐπανιόντι ἐς Λιβύην ἐξ Ἰβηρίας ἐπὶ θανάτῳ τοῦ πατρὸς συνέπεμπε προπομποὺς ἱππέας, οἷς εἴρητο ἀφανῶς ἐπιβουλεύειν αὐτῷ καὶ κτείνειν ὅπῃ δύναιντο.

Appian’s Roman History, Volume I: Book VIII

p. 417

mercenaries and exercised them all in camp at a distance of two hundred stades from Carthage.

There were many chieftains in Numidia who had separate dominions. Syphax occupied the highest place among them and was held in greater honor than the others. There was also a certain Masinissa, son of the king of the Massylians, a powerful tribe. He had been brought up and educated at Carthage. He was a man of fine presence and good manners. Hasdrubal, the son of Gisco, who was second in rank to nobody in Carthage, betrothed his daughter to him although he was a Numidian, and after the betrothal took the young man with him to the war in Spain. Syphax, who was also in love with the girl, was indignant at this and began to pillage the Carthaginian territory, and he proposed to Scipio (who made a journey from Spain to meet him) that they should make a joint at-tack on Carthage. The Carthaginians, learning this and knowing how great service Syphax could render them in the war against the Romans, gave the girl to him without the knowledge of Hasdrubal or Masinissa, since they were in Spain. The latter, being greatly exasperated, made an alliance with Scipio in Spain, concealing it from Hasdrubal, as he supposed. Hasdrubal, although he was grieved at the outrage put upon the young man and his daughter, nevertheless thought that it would be an advantage to the country to make away with Masinissa. So when the latter returned from Spain to Africa at the death of his father, he sent a cavalry escort with him and told them to put him to death secretly in whatever way they could.

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.