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Appian of Alexandria

Appian’s Roman History, Volume I

Ancient Greek with Horace White’s English translation

Appian’s Roman History, Volume IBook III · Fragment IX

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Book III · Fragment IX

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Ancient Greek

p. 82

ὅσοι ἐν Ῥηγίῳ Ῥωμαίων ἐπὶ σωτηρίᾳ καὶ φυλακῇ τῆς πόλεως, μή τι πάθοιεν ὑπὸ τῶν ἐχθρῶν, παρέμενον, αὐτοί τε καὶ Δέκιος ὁ ἡγεμὼν αὐτῶν, τοῖς ἀγαθοῖς τῶν Ῥηγίνων φθονήσαντες, καὶ φυλάξαντες αὐτοὺς εὐωχουμένους ἐν ἑορτῇ διέφθειραν, καὶ ταῖς γυναιξὶν ἀκουσίαις συνῆσαν. πρόφασιν δὲ τῆς παρανομίας ἔφερον ὅτι Ῥηγῖνοι τὴν φρουρὰν προεδίδοσαν Πύρρῳ. καὶ Δέκιος μὲν ἀντὶ φρουράρχου τύραννος ἦν, καὶ φιλίαν ἔθετο Μαμερτίνοις τοῖς ἐπὶ τοῦ πορθμοῦ τοῦ Σικελικοῦ κατῳκημένοις, οὐ πρὸ πολλοῦ κἀκείνοις ἐς ἰδίους ξένους ὅμοια δεδρακόσιν.

ἀλγήσαντα δʼ αὐτὸν τοῖς ὀφθαλμοῖς, καὶ τοῖς ἐν Ῥηγίῳ ἰατροῖς ἀπιστοῦντα, μετάπεμπτος ἀπὸ Μεσσήνης ἐθεράπευε Ῥηγῖνος ἀνήρ, μετῳκηκὼς ἐς Μεσσήνην πρὸ πολλοῦ, ὅτι Ῥηγῖνος ἦν ἀγνοούμενος. οὗτος αὐτὸν ἔπεισεν ἐπὶ ἀπαλλαγῇ συντόμῳ φαρμάκων ἀνασχέσθαι θερμῶν, καὶ χρίσας τοῖς κατακαίουσι καὶ δαπανῶσιν ἐκέλευσεν ἀνασχέσθαι τοῦ πόνου μέχρι αὐτὸς ἐπανέλθοι, καὶ λαθὼν ἔπλευσεν ἐς Μεσσήνην. ὁ δʼ ἐς πολὺ τῆς ὀδύνης ἀνασχόμενος ἀπενίψατο, καὶ εὗρε τοὺς ὀφθαλμοὺς δεδαπανημένους.

Φαβρίκιος δὲ ὑπὸ Ῥωμαίων ἐπὶ διορθώσει τῶνδε πεμφθεὶς τήν τε πόλιν τοῖς ἔτι Ῥηγίνοις λοιποῖς ἀπεδίδου, καὶ τῶν φρουρῶν τοὺς αἰτίους

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Appian’s Roman History, Volume I: Book III

p. 83

Some Roman soldiers were stationed in Rhegium for the safety and protection of the city against enemies. They, and their leader Decius, envying the good fortune of the inhabitants and seizing an opportunity when they were observing a public festival, slew them and violated their wives. They offered an excuse for this crime, that the citizens of Rhegium were about to betray the garrison to Pyrrhus. So Decius became supreme ruler instead of a prefect of the guard, and he contracted an alliance with the Mamertines, who dwelt on the other side of the strait of Sicily, and who had perpetrated the same kind of an outrage on their hosts not long before.

Suffering from an affection of the eyes and distrusting the physicians of Rhegium, Decius sent for a medical man who had migrated from Rhegium to Messana so long before that it was forgotten that he was a Rhegian. The latter persuaded him that, if he wished speedy relief, he should use certain hot drugs. Having applied a burning and corrosive ointment to his eyes, he told him to bear the pain till he should come again. Then he secretly returned to Messana. Decius, after enduring the pain a long time, washed off the ointment and found that he had lost his eyesight.

Fabricius was sent by the Romans to restore the city to those Rhegians who still remained. He sent the guards who had been guilty of this revolt

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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.