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 XII

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Book III · Fragment XII

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Ancient Greek

p. 94

μόνων, αἷς ὁ Πύρρος διαφυγὼν ἐτίνυτο Λοκροὺς τοὺς ἐπιζεφυρίους, ὅτι φρουρὰν αὐτοῦ καὶ τὸν φρούραρχον αὐτῆς, ὑβρίσαντας ἐς αὐτούς, ἀνῃρήκεσαν. ὠμῶς δʼ αὐτοὺς καὶ πικρῶς κτείνων τε καὶ συλῶν ὁ Πύρρος οὐδὲ τῶν ἀναθημάτων τῆς Περσεφόνης ἀπέσχετο, ἐπισκώψας τὴν ἄκαιρον θεοσέβειαν εἶναι δεισιδαιμονίαν, τὸ δὲ συλλέξαι πλοῦτον ἄπονον εὐβουλίαν.

ἀναχθέντα δʼ αὐτὸν μετὰ τῶν σύλων χειμὼν ὑπέλαβε, καὶ τῶν νεῶν τὰς μὲν κατέδυσε καὶ διέφθειρεν αὐτοῖς ἀνδράσι, τὰς δʼ ἐς τὴν γῆν ἐξέρριψεν. τὰ δὲ ἱερὰ πάντα σῶα ὁ κλύδων ἐς τοὺς Λοκρῶν λιμένας ἐπανήγαγεν, ὥστε καὶ Πύρρον ὀψὲ τῆς ἀσεβείας αἰσθόμενον ἀναθεῖναί τε αὐτὰ ἐς τὸ ἱερὸν τῇ Περσεφόνῃ, καὶ θυσίαις ἱλάσκεσθαι τὴν θεὸν πολλαῖς. τῶν δὲ ἱερῶν οὐκ ἀπαντώντων ἔτι μᾶλλον ἐξεμαίνετο, καὶ τοὺς περὶ τῆς ἱεροσυλίας αὐτῷ συμβουλεύσαντας ἢ λέγοντι συνθεμένους, ἢ διακονησαμένους τὸ ἔργον, ἔκτεινεν. ὁ μὲν δὴ Πύρρος οὕτως ἐπεπράχει κακῶς.

Appian’s Roman History, Volume I: Book III

p. 95

twelve. Fleeing with these he took vengeance on the Italian Locrians who had put to death his garrison and their commanding officer, because of outrages commited upon the inhabitants. Such savage vengeance did he take on them in the way of killing and plundering that he did not spare even the temple gifts of Proserpina, saying by way of joke that unseasonable piety was no better than superstition, and that it was good policy to obtain wealth without labor.

Loaded down with spoils, a tempest overtook him, sunk some of his ships with the men in them, and cast the others ashore. The waves cast all the sacred things safe upon the Locrian beach. Wherefore Pyrrhus, perceiving too late the consequences of his impiety, restored them to the temple of Proserpina and sought to propitiate the goddess with numerous sacrifices. As the victims were unpropitious he became still more furious, and he put to death all those who had advised the temple-robbing, or had assented to it, or had taken part in it. Thus had Pyrrhus come to grief.

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.