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 · Fragment XIII

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Ancient Greek Page · Branch 54 of 315

Book IV · Fragment XIII

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Ancient Greek

p. 116

πολύανδρος ἐς τὴν γῆν τῶν Νωρικῶν ἐσέβαλε, καὶ ὁ Ῥωμαίων ὕπατος Παπίριος Κάρβων δείσας μὴ ἐς τὴν Ἰταλίαν ἐσβάλοιεν, ἐφήδρευε τοῖς Ἀλπείοις, ᾗ μάλιστά ἐστιν ἡ διάβασις στενωτάτη. οὐκ ἐπιχειρούντων δʼ ἐκείνων αὐτὸς ἐπέβαινεν αὐτοῖς, αἰτιώμενος ἐς Νωρικοὺς ἐσβαλεῖν, Ῥωμαίων ξένους ὄντας· ἐποιοῦντο δʼ οἱ Ῥωμαῖοι ξένους, οἷς ἐδίδοσαν μὲν εἶναι φίλοις, ἀνάγκη δʼ οὐκ ἐπῆν ὡς φίλοις ἐπαμύνειν. οἱ μὲν δὴ Τεύτονες πλησιάζοντι τῷ Κάρβωνι προσέπεμπον ἀγνοῆσαί τε τὴν ἐς Ῥωμαίους Νωρικῶν ξενίαν, καὶ αὐτῶν ἐς τὸ μέλλον ἀφέξεσθαι· ὁ δʼ ἐπαινέσας τοὺς πρέσβεις, καὶ δοὺς αὐτοῖς ὁδῶν ἡγεμόνας, κρύφα τοῖς ἡγουμένοις ἐνετείλατο μακροτέραν αὐτοὺς περιάγειν. τῇ βραχυτέρᾳ δὲ αὐτὸς διαδραμών, ἀδοκήτως ἀναπαυομένοις ἔτι τοῖς Τεύτοσιν ἐμπεσών, ἔδωκε δίκην ἀπιστίας, πολλοὺς ἀποβαλών. τάχα δʼ ἂν καὶ πάντας ἀπώλεσεν, εἰ μὴ ζόφος καὶ ὄμβρος καὶ βρονταὶ βαρεῖαι, τῆς μάχης ἔτι συνεστώσης ἐπιπεσοῦσαι, διέστησαν αὐτοὺς ἀπʼ ἀλλήλων, καὶ ὁ ἀγὼν ὑπὸ τῆς ἄνωθεν ἐκπλήξεως διελύθη. σποράδες δὲ καὶ ὣς ἐς ὕλας οἱ Ῥωμαῖοι διαφυγόντες, τρίτῃ μόλις ἡμέρᾳ συνῆλθον. καὶ Τεύτονες ἐς Γαλάτας ἐχώρουν.

Appian’s Roman History, Volume I: Book IV

p. 117

A numerous band of the Teutones bent on plunder invaded the territory of Noricum. The Roman consul, Papirius Carbo, fearing lest they should make an incursion into Italy, occupied the Alps at a place where the pass is narrowest. As they made no attempt in this direction he attacked them, complaining that they had invaded the people of Noricum, who were foreign friends of the Romans. It was the practice of the Romans to make foreign friends of any people for whom they wanted to intervene on the score of friendship, without being obliged to defend them as allies. As Carbo was approaching, the Teutones sent word to him that they had not known anything about this relationship between Rome and Noricum, and that for the future they would keep hands off. He praised the ambassadors, and gave them guides for their homeward journey, but privately charged the guides to take them by a longer route. He himself then marched by a shorter one and fell unexpectedly upon the Teutones, though they were still desisting

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.