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 II · Fragment V

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Facing Pages · Branch 22 of 315

Book II · Fragment V

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Ancient Greek

p. 48

ἔτισαν ἱκανήν, ὧν χώρα τε τοσαύτη διέφθαρται καὶ πόλεις ἀπολώλασι πολλαί, καὶ τὸ Ῥωμαίοις ἔσχατον, παρακαλοῦσι καὶ πρέσβεις πέμπουσιν ὑπάτους καὶ ἱερέας καὶ μητέρα καὶ γυναῖκα, τό τε ἀδίκημα ἰῶνται ἀμνηστίᾳ καὶ καθόδῳ. σὺ δὲ μὴ ἀνιάτῳ κακῷ τὸ κακὸν ἰῶ, μηδὲ συμφοραῖς ἐπιχείρει κοιναῖς αὐτοῦ τε σοῦ καὶ τῶν ἀδικούντων. ποῖ φέρων οἴσεις τὸ πῦρ; μετὰ τὴν χώραν ἐπὶ τὴν πόλιν; μετὰ τὴν πόλιν ἐπὶ τὴν ἑστίαν τὴν σήν; μετὰ τὴν ἑστίαν ἐπὶ τὰ ἱερά; δὸς χάριν, ὦ παῖ, κἀμοὶ καὶ τῇ πατρίδι παρακαλούσαις. ἡ μὲν δὴ τοσαῦτα εἶπεν, ὁ δὲ Μάρκιος οὐκ εἴα πατρίδα καλεῖν τὴν ἐκβαλοῦσαν ἀλλὰ τὴν ὑποδεδεγμένην· οὐδὲν γὰρ εἶναι φίλιον, ἂν ἀδικῇ, οὐδὲ ἐχθρὸν εὖ ποιοῦν· καὶ τὸ τῶν παρόντων ἐκέλευεν ὁρᾶν, πίστιν τε δόντων αὐτῷ καὶ λαβόντων, καὶ πολίτην πεποιημένων καὶ στρατηγὸν ἀποφηνάντων καὶ τὰ ἴδια ἐπιτρεψάντων. τιμάς τε ὅσων ἠξίωτο, καὶ ὅρκους οὓς ὤμοσεν αὐτοῖς, ἐπεξῄει, καὶ παρεκάλει τὴν μητέρα τοὺς αὐτοὺς ἐκείνοις τίθεσθαι πολεμίους καὶ φίλους.

ἡ δὲ ἔτι λέγοντος ἀγανακτήσασα καὶ τὰς χεῖρας ἐς τὸν οὐρανὸν ἀνασχοῦσα, θεοὺς γενεθλίους ἐμαρτύρατο δύο μὲν ἤδη πρεσβείας γυναικῶν ἀπὸ Ῥώμης ἐν μεγάλοις ἐστάλθαι κακοῖς, ἐπὶ Τατίου βασιλέως

Appian’s Roman History, Volume I: Book II

p. 49

sufficient penalty, so much of their territory had been laid waste and so many of their towns demolished, and themselves reduced to the extremity of sending their consuls and priests, and finally his own mother and wife, as ambassadors to him, and offering to rescind the decree and to grant him forgetfulness of the past and a safe return to his home. Do not, she said, cure an evil by an incurable evil. Do not be the cause of calamities that will smite yourself as well as those you injure. Whither do you carry the torch? From the fields to the city? From the city to your own hearthstone? From your own hearthstone to the temples of the gods? Have mercy, my son, on me and on your country as we plead. After she had thus spoken Marcius replied that the country which had cast him out was not his, but rather the land which had given him shelter. Nothing was dear to him that was unjust, nor was anybody his enemy who treated him well. He told her to cast her eyes upon the men here present with whom he had exchanged the pledge of mutual fidelity, who had granted him citizenship, had chosen him their general, and had intrusted to him their private interests. He mentioned the honors bestowed upon him and the oath he had sworn, and he urged his mother to consider his friends and enemies hers also.

While he was still speaking, she, in a burst of anger, and holding her hands up to heaven, invoked their household gods. Two processions of women, said she, have set forth from Rome in the deepest affliction, one in the time of King Tatius, 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.