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 III · Fragment IV

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Book III · Fragment IV

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Ancient Greek

p. 64

ἀπανέστησαν αὐτοὺς ἀπὸ τῆς Φρεγέλλης. καὶ πάλιν ἐς Ῥώμην ἐπρέσβευον οἱ Σαυνῖται, νεκρὰ σώματα ἀνδρῶν φέροντες ὡς αἰτίους τοῦδε τοῦ πολέμου γεγονότας ἀνῃρηκότες, καὶ χρυσίον ὡς ἀπὸ τῆς ἐκείνων περιουσίας πεπορισμένον. ἐφʼ οἷς αὐτοὺς ἡ βουλὴ πάνυ νομίζουσα τετρῦσθαι, προσεδόκα κακοπαθοῦντας ἐνδώσειν περὶ τῆς ἡγεμονίας. οἱ δὲ τὰ μὲν ἄλλα ἐδέχοντο, καὶ εἴ τι καὶ ἀντέλεγον, ἢ παρῃτοῦντο καὶ παρεκάλουν ἢ ἐς τὰς πόλεις ἀνετίθεντο· περὶ δὲ τῆς ἡγεμονίας οὐκ ἀνασχόμενοι πάλιν οὐδʼ ἀκοῦσαι, οὐκ ἐκδωσόμενοι δὴ τὰς πόλεις ἔφασαν ἥκειν, ἀλλʼ ἐς φιλίαν συνάξοντες. λυσάμενοι δὴ τοῦ χρυσίου τοὺς αἰχμαλώτους ἀπῄεσαν ὀργῇ, καὶ τὴν πεῖραν ἔχοντες τὴν περὶ τῆς ἡγεμονίας.

καὶ Ῥωμαῖοι μὲν ἐψηφίζοντο μηδὲ πρεσβείας ἔτι παρὰ Σαυνιτῶν προσίεσθαι, ἀλλʼ ἄσπονδον καὶ ἀκήρυκτον πόλεμον αὐτοῖς πολεμεῖν ἕως κατὰ κράτος ἐξέλωσι, θεὸς δʼ ἐνεμέσησε τῆς μεγαληγορίας, καὶ ὕστερον ἡττήθησαν ὑπὸ Σαυνιτῶν καὶ ὑπὸ ζυγὸν ἤχθησαν οἱ Ῥωμαῖοι. ἐς γὰρ στενώτατον χῶρον τούτους συγκλείσαντες οἱ Σαυνῖται τοῦ Ποντίου σφῶν στρατηγοῦντος, καὶ λιμῷ πιεζομένων Ῥωμαίων, οἱ στρατηγοὶ σφῶν πρεσβευσάμενοι παρεκάλουν τὸν Πόντιον καταθέσθαι Ῥωμαίοις χάριν, ἣν οὐ πολλοὶ παρέχουσι καιροί. ὁ δὲ ἀπεκρίνατο μὴ δεῖν μηδὲ πρεσβεύειν ἔτι πρὸς αὐτόν, εἰ μὴ τὰ

Appian’s Roman History, Volume I: Book III

p. 65

the Daunii, slew 21,000 of their men, and drove them out of the Fregellian country. Again the Samnites sent ambassadors to Rome bringing the dead bodies of the men whom they had executed as guilty of causing the war, and also gold taken from their store. Wherefore the Senate, thinking that they had been utterly crushed, expected that a people who had been so sorely afflicted would concede the supremacy of Italy. The Samnites accepted the other conditions, or if they disputed any, they either entreated and begged for better terms, or referred the matter to their cities. But as to the supremacy, they could not bear even to hear anything on that subject, because, they said, they had not come to surrender their towns, but to cultivate friendship. Accordingly they used their gold in redeeming prisoners, and went away angry and resolved to make trial for the supremacy hereafter. Thereupon the Romans voted to receive no more embassies from the Samnites, but to wage irreconcilable, implacable war against them until they were subjugated by force.

A god humbled this haughty spirit, for soon afterwards the Romans were defeated by the Samnites and compelled to pass under the yoke. The Samnites, under their general Pontius, having shut the Romans up in a defile where they were oppressed by hunger, the consuls sent messengers to him and begged that he should win the gratitude of the Romans, such as not many opportunities offer. He replied that they need not send any more messengers to him unless they were prepared to surrender their arms

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.