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 XIV–XVI

Swipe or use the arrow keys.

English Page · Branch 55 of 315

Book IV · Fragments XIV–XVI

Book Mode

Ancient Greek

p. 118

ὁ δὲ τοῖς σώμασι τῶν Κίμβρων ἀψαυστεῖν ἐκέλευεν, ἕως ἡμέρα γένγται, πολύχρυσα εἶναι δοκῶν.

ὅτι ἔθνη δύο Τιγύριοι καὶ Ἑλουήτιοι ἐς τὴν Ῥωμαίων Κελτικὴν ἐσέβαλον, καὶ τούτων τὸν στόλον ὁ Καῖσαρ Γάϊος πυθόμενος διετείχισεν ὅσα περὶ Ῥοδανόν ἐστι ποταμὸν ἐς ἑκατὸν καὶ πεντήκοντα σταδίους μάλιστα. καὶ πρεσβευσαμένοις ἐπὶ διαπείρᾳ τοῖς πολεμίοις ὑπὲρ σπονδῶν ἐκέλευεν ὅμηρα δοῦναι καὶ χρήματα. ἀποκριναμένων δʼ εἰθίσθαι ταῦτα λαμβάνειν, οὐ διδόναι, βουλόμενος φθάσαι τὴν ὁμαιχμίαν αὐτῶν, ἐπὶ μὲν τοὺς Τιγυρίους ἐλάσσους ὄντας ἔπεμπε Λαβιηνόν, αὐτὸς δὲ ἐπὶ τοὺς Ἑλουητίους ἐχώρει, προσλαβὼν Γαλατῶν τῶν ὀρείων ἐς δισμυρίους. καὶ γίγνεται Λαβιηνῷ τὸ ἔργον εὐμαρές, ἀδοκήτοις Τιγυρίοις περὶ τὸν ποταμὸν ἐπιπεσόντι, καὶ τρεψαμένῳ καὶ σκεδάσαντι τοὺς πολλοὺς ἐν ἀσυνταξίᾳ.

ὅτι Ἀριόουιστος, Γερμανῶν βασιλεὺς τῶν ὑπὲρ Ῥῆνον, ἐπιβαίνων τῆς πέραν Αἰδούοις ἔτι πρὸ τοῦ Καίσαρος ἐπολέμει φίλοις οὖσι Ῥωμαίων. τότε μὲν δή, τοῖς Ῥωμαίοις κελεύουσι πεισθείς, ἀνέζευζεν ἀπὸ τῶν Αἰδούων, καὶ φίλος ἠξίωσε Ῥωμαίοις γενέσθαι. καὶ ἐγένετο, ὑπατεύοντος αὐτοῦ Καίσαρος καὶ ψηφισαμένου.

ὅτι Ἀριόουιστος ὁ Γερμανῶν βασιλεύς, φίλος

Appian’s Roman History, Volume I: Book IV

p. 119

He ordered them to leave the bodies of the Cimbri intact till daylight because he believed they were adorned with gold.

Two nations, the Tigurini and the Helvetii, made an incursion into the Roman province of Gaul. When Caesar heard of this movement he built a wall along the river Rhone about a hundred and fifty stades in length to intercept them. When they sent ambassadors to him to endeavor to make a treaty, he ordered them to give him hostages and money. They replied that they were accustomed to receive these things, not to give them. As he wished to prevent them

Ariovistus, the king of the Germans beyond the Rhine, crossed to this side before Caesar’s arrival and made war against the AEdui, who were friends of the Romans. But when the Romans commanded him to desist, he obeyed and moved away from AEdui and desired to be accounted a friend of the Roman people also, and this was granted, Caesar being consul and voting for it.

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.