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Diotimos Library · Greek Antiquity Collection · Bilingual Edition

Appian of Alexandria

Appian’s Roman History, Volume I

Ancient Greek with Horace White’s English translation

Appian’s Roman History, Volume IBook IV · Fragments XVIII–XXI

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English Page · Branch 57 of 315

Book IV · Fragments XVIII–XXI

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Ancient Greek

p. 122

τοῦ παρασπονδήματος ἀπολογουμένων, ὑποτοπήσας ἐνέδραν ὁμοίαν, ἐπιθέσθαι πρὸ τῶν ἀποκρίσεων.

εὐθὺς ἠρέθιζον τοὺς Βρεττανοὺς παρορκῆσαι, ἔγκλημα ἔχοντας ὅτι σπονδῶν σφίσι γενομένων ἔτι παρῆν τὸ στρατόπεδον.

δείσας ὁ Καῖσαρ περὶ τῷ Κικέρωνι ὑπέστρεφεν εἰς τοὐπίσω.

ὅτι ὁ Βριτόρης διέφθειρεν Αἰδούους Ῥωμαίων ἀποστῆναι, καὶ τοῦ Καίσαρος ὀνειδίσαντος αὐτοῖς φιλίαν ἔφασαν παλαιὰν ἐφθακέναι.

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Appian’s Roman History, Volume I: Book IV

p. 123

sent another embassy to explain this violation of good faith he suspected a similar deception, and made his attack before giving his answer.

Straightway they stirred up the Britons to violate the oath, complaining that while a treaty with them was in force the camp was still among them.

Caesar apprehending an attack on [Quintus] Cicero turned back.

Britores seduced the AEdui from their Roman allegiance. When Caesar reproached them for this, they said that an ancient alliance had the precedence.

[Here follow two fragments of only three words each.]

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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.