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 · Fragments IX–X

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Facing Pages · Branch 39 of 315

Book III · Fragments IX–X

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Ancient Greek

p. 84

τῆς ἀποστάσεως ἐς Ῥώμην ἔπεμψεν, οἳ μαστιγωθέντες ἐν ἀγορᾷ μέσῃ τὰς κεφαλὰς ἀπεκόπησαν καὶ ἐξερρίφησαν ἄταφοι. Δέκιος δὲ φυλασσόμενος ἀμελῶς, οἷα πηρός, ἑαυτὸν διεχρήσατο.

ὅτι ὁ Πύρρος ὁ βασιλεὺς τῆς Ἠπείρου, νικήσας τοὺς Ῥωμαίους καὶ ἀναλαβεῖν χρῄζων τὴν στρατιὰν ἐκ μάχης εὐτόνου, καὶ Ῥωμαίους ἐλπίζων ἐς διαλύσεις τότε μάλιστα ἐνδώσειν, ἔπεμπεν ἐς Ῥώμην Κινέαν τὸν Θεσσαλόν, δόξαν ἐπὶ λόγοις ἔχοντα μιμεῖσθαι τὴν Δημοσθένους ἀρετήν. καὶ παρελθὼν ὁ Κινέας ἐς τὸ βουλευτήριον ἄλλα τε πολλὰ περὶ τοῦ βασιλέως ἐσεμνολόγει, καὶ τὴν ἐπὶ τῷ ἀγῶνι μετριοπάθειαν κατελογίζετο, μήτʼ ἐπὶ τὴν πόλιν εὐθὺς ἐλάσαντος μήτʼ ἐπὶ τὸ ἡσσημένον στρατόπεδον· ἐδίδου δʼ αὐτοῖς εἰρήνην καὶ φιλίαν καὶ συμμαχίαν πρὸς Πύρρον, εἰ Ταραντίνους μὲν ἐς ταῦτα συμπεριλάβοιεν, τοὺς δʼ ἄλλους Ἕλληνας τοὺς ἐν Ἰταλίᾳ κατοικοῦντας ἐλευθέρους καὶ αὐτονόμους ἐῷεν, Λευκανοῖς δὲ καὶ Σαυνίταις καὶ Δαυνίοις καὶ Βρεττίοις ἀποδοῖεν ὅσα αὐτῶν ἔχουσι πολέμῳ λαβόντες. καὶ γιγνομένων ἔφη τούτων Πύρρον ἀποδώσειν αὐτοῖς τοὺς αἰχμαλώτους ἄνευ λύτρων.

οἱ δʼ ἐνεδοίαζον ἐπὶ πλεῖστον, τῇ τε δόξῃ τοῦ Πύρρου καὶ τῷ συμβεβηκότι πάθει καταπλαγέντες, ἕως Ἄππιος Κλαύδιος, ὁ Καῖκος ἐπίκλησιν, ἤδη τετυφλωμένος, ἐς τὸ βουλευτήριον τοῖς παισὶν αὑτὸν ἀγαγεῖν κελεύσας, ἠχθόμην,

Appian’s Roman History, Volume I: Book III

p. 85

back to Rome. They were beaten with rods in the forum, then beheaded, and their bodies cast away unburied. Decius, being placed under strict guard, in the discouragement of a blind man, committed suicide.

Pyrrhus, king of Epirus, having gained a victory over the Romans and desiring to recuperate his forces after the severe engagement, and expecting that the Romans would be particularly desirous of coming to terms, sent to the city Cineas, a Thessalian, who was so renowned for eloquence that he had been compared with Demosthenes. When he was admitted to the senate-chamber, he extolled the king for a variety of reasons, and among others for his moderation after the victory, in that he had neither marched directly against the city nor attacked the camp of the vanquished. He offered them peace, friendship, and an alliance with Pyrrhus, provided the Tarentines should be included in the same treaty, and provided the other Greeks dwelling in Italy should remain free under their own laws, and provided the Romans would restore to the Lucanians, Samnites, Daunii, and Bruttians whatever they had taken from them in war. If they would do this, he said that Pyrrhus would restore all his prisoners without ransom.

The Romans hesitated a long time, being much intimidated by the prestige of Pyrrhus and by the calamity that had befallen them. Finally Appius Claudius, surnamed the Blind (because he had lost his eyesight from old age), commanded his sons to lead him into the senate-chamber, where he said: I

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.