Appian

This volume presents the first comprehensive study in English of the Roman History by Appian of Alexandria. Appian was an Egyptian Greek and Roman citizen, who wrote his history of Rome in twenty-four books, covering the period from the foundation of the city to Trajan's wars, in the middle of the second century CE. Luke Pitcher explains and analyses what it is known about Appian's life, the structure of his work (which has not survived completely intact), and his use of sources. He then examines how Appian organizes and structures his material, and the considerations which inform his treatment of spaces, peoples, polities, and individuals within history. A full appreciation of Appian's achievement requires an awareness of the deeper structures of the Roman History as a whole: in particular, how the first half of the work (which, unusually, covers Roman conquests area by area, rather than in one long chronological sweep) lays the ground for the second, where towering personalities such as Julius Caesar bring an end to the Roman Republic in the five books of the Civil Wars. The closing chapters build on these arguments to create a picture of what Appian tries to achieve in his history, and what this says about him as a historian.