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 IV · Fragments I–II

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Book IV · Fragments I–II

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Ancient Greek

p. 104

τοὺς δὲ ταξιάρχας καὶ λοχαγοὺς ἅπαντας· καὶ αὐτὸν ἐκεῖνον ἐς λόφον τινὰ μετὰ τῶν ὑπασπιστῶν πεφευγότα περιέσχον κύκλῳ. ὑπὸ δὲ τοῦ δεκάτου τάγματος αὐτοῖς ἐξόπισθεν ἐπιπεσόντος ἐφθάρησαν, ἑξακισμύριοι ὄντες. ἦσαν δὲ τῶν Κίμβρων καὶ Τευτόνων ἀπόγονοι. ἐκράτησε δὲ καὶ Ἀλλοβρίγων ὁ Καῖσαρ. Οὐσιπετῶν δὲ καὶ Ταγχαρέων τεσσαράκοντα μυριάδες, στρατεύσιμοί τε καὶ ἀστράτευτοι, συνεκόπησαν. Σούκαμβροι δὲ πεντακοσίοις ἱππεῦσι τοὺς πεντακισχιλίους ἱππεῖς τοῦ Καίσαρος ἔτρεψαν, ἐξαίφνης ἐπιπεσόντες, καὶ δίκην ἔδοσαν ἡττηθέντες μετὰ ταῦτα.

ἐπέρασε καὶ τὸν Ῥῆνον πρῶτος Ῥωμαίων ὁ Καῖσαρ, καὶ ἐς τὴν Βρεττανίδα νῆσον, ἠπείρου τε μείζονα οὖσαν μεγίστης καὶ τοῖς τῇδε ἀνθρώποις ἄγνωστον ἔτι. ἐπέρασε δὲ κατὰ τὸν καιρὸν τῆς ἀμπώτεως· ἄρτι γὰρ τὸ πάθος ἥπτετο τῆς θαλάσσης, καὶ ὁ στόλος ἐσαλεύετο, ἠρέμα πρῶτον, εἶτα ὀξύτερον, μέχρι σὺν βιαίῳ τάχει διέπλευσεν ὁ Καῖσαρ ἐς τὴν Βρεττανίαν.

ὅτι Ὀλυμπιάδων τοῖς Ἕλλησιν ἑπτὰ καὶ ἐνενήκοντα γεγενημένων, τῆς γῆς τῶν Κελτῶν οὐκ ἀρκούσης αὐτοῖς διὰ τὸ πλῆθος, ἀνίσταται μοῖρα Κελτῶν τῶν ἀμφὶ τὸν Ῥῆνον ἱκανὴ κατὰ ζήτησιν ἑτέρας γῆς· οἳ τό τε Ἄλπειον ὄρος ὑπερέβησαν, καὶ Κλουσίνοις, εὐδαίμονα γῆν ἔχουσι Τυρρηνῶν, ἐπολέμουν. οὐ πάλαι δὲ οἱ Κλουσῖνοι Ῥωμαίοις ἔνσπονδοι γεγονότες ἐπʼ αὐτοὺς κατέφυγον. καὶ οἱ Ῥωμαῖοι πρέσβεις συνέπεμψαν αὐτοῖς, Φαβίους

Appian’s Roman History, Volume I: Book IV

p. 105

slaughter, killing all of his tribunes and centurions. Caesar himself took refuge on a hill with his bodyguard, and there he was surrounded by the enemy. The latter being assailed in the rear by the tenth legion were destroyed, although they were 60,000 in number. The Nervii were the descendants of the Cimbri and Teutones. Caesar conquered the Allobroges also. He slaughtered 400,000 of the Usipetes and Tenchteri, armed and unarmed together. The Sicambri with 500 horse put to flight 5000 of Caesar’s horse, falling upon them unexpectedly. They subsequently paid the penalty for this in a defeat.

Caesar was also the first of the Romans to cross the Rhine. He also passed over to Britain, an island larger than a very large continent, and still unknown to the men of Rome. He crossed by taking advantage of the movement of the tide. As it rose the fleet was impelled by the waves, slowly at first, then more rapidly, until finally Caesar was carried with great swiftness to Britain.

In the 97th Olympiad, according to the Greek calendar, a considerable part of the Gauls who dwelt along the Rhine moved off in search of new land, that which they occupied being insufficient for their numbers. Having scaled the Alps they fell upon the territory of Clusium, a fertile part of Etruria. The Clusians had made a league with the Romans not long before, and now applied to them for aid. So the three Fabii were sent with the Clusians as

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.