This review covers Loeb's 2-volume edition of The Civil Wars. This Amazon page is for the first volume. The second volume is
Appian: Roman History, Vol. IV, The Civil Wars, Books 3.27-5 (Loeb Classical Library No. 5)
. This Loeb edition presents the Greek source text on the left pages and the English translation on facing right pages, making it easy to compare any point of the translation with its original source.
I will first describe Appian's The Civil Wars, then will discuss the Greek text, then the English translation.
WHAT DOES "THE CIVIL WARS" COVER?
Appian of Alexandria, a Roman attorney and prominent public official, in about 145-165 A.D. wrote a history of Rome in 24 books. Seven books are lost. We have another seven only in fragments and ten books that are substantially complete.
Five of those ten surviving books cover the Roman civil wars and form the two Loeb volumes reviewed here. Appian provides the only surviving continuous history of Rome in the tumultuous years of 113 to 70 B.C., the end of the Roman republic. He starts with the violence against the Gracchus brothers and then tells the stories of the civil war between Marius and Sulla; the Social War; Cicero's suppression of the Catiline conspiracy; the first triumvirate of Pompey the Great, Marcus Crassus, and Julius Caesar; the civil war between Pompey and Caesar; Caesar's dictatorship and assassination; the constantly-shifting relationships between Cicero, Octavian Caesar, and Mark Antony after the assassination; the formation of the second triumvirate; the pursuit of Julius Caesar's assassins; Antony's encounter with Cleopatra; and, finally, the death of Sextus Pompey.
Appian covers one of the most eventful periods in history in a narrative filled with vivid personalities and dramatic conflicts. He draws from multiple sources, many of them lost to us now. He often gives both sides of an issue, which is rare among ancient historians.
Historian Jona Lendering sums up Appian's importance on the Livius website: "Appian is a far better historian than most twentieth-century classicists have been willing to accept. He identified good sources and used them with due criticism. . . It must be stressed that he is the only ancient author who recognized the social causes of the Roman civil wars, for which Appian remains one of the most important sources. He is also a fine writer, who can vividly describe events, and knows how to evoke the smaller and larger tragedies that are history. He includes nice digressions, has an eye for the better anecdote, and does not ignore the interesting detail. Never has the stylistic device of repetition been used more effectively than by Appian in his shocking account of the persecution of the enemies of the Second Triumvirate, which belongs to the finest [historical writing] that was ever written in Greek."
To sum up, Appian's The Civil Wars is essential for anyone studying the Roman republic, the Social Wars, Pompey the Great, Cicero, Antony, Octavian, or Sextus Pompey.
WAS THE GREEK TEXT USED AS SOURCE FOR THIS TRANSLATION ACCURATE OR CORRUPT?
Corrupt texts cause major problems for the works of some classical authors, not so much for Appian. For more than 100 years, the definitive Greek source for Appian was the text prepared by Professor Ludwig Mendelssohn of the University of Dorpat, Russia for the 2-volume edition of Appian's Historia Romana published by Teubner 1879-1882. For this book, Loeb used the Teubner Greek source text, with revisions made by Iliff Robinson in 1913. Later Teubner editions included edits to Mendelssohn's Greek text by P. Viereck in 1905, revised by A.G. Roos in 1936, with addenda and corrections by E. Gabba in 1962. (The Teubner editions are out of print.) Unfortunately, the Loeb volumes do not include the Viereck-Roos-Gabba revisions.
Another Greek text of Book I only was published by Oxford University Press in 1902, edited and with notes by J.L. Strachan-Davidson:
Appian: Civil Wars, Book 1 (1902)
Since then, parts of a newer Greek text have appeared. The first two volumes were published by Les Belles Lettres in 2008 and 2010: Guerres Civiles, Livre I (ISBN 9782251005508) with source text restoration, translation into French, and introduction by Paul Goukowsky and notes by François Hinard; and Guerres Civiles, Livre III (ISBN 9782251005584), with source text restoration, translation into French, and introduction by Paul Goukowsky, notes by Philippe Torrens.
These new texts have been praised by classical scholars. For example, Richard Westall, in his review of Guerres Civiles, Livre III in the Bryn Mawr Classical Review, wrote: "As a result of lavish attention to detail and the exercise of critical acumen, there is no doubt that this will henceforth be the standard edition of reference for anyone working on Appian and the convoluted history of the period extending from mid-March 44 to mid-September 43 BCE. . . . The Greek text established afresh by Goukowsky represents a marked improvement upon the past."
In addition, in a separate project Kai Brodersen of the University of Erfurt is working on a new edition of the Greek text of The Civil Wars for the Oxford Classical Texts series.
I will sum up by saying the Greek text in the Loeb edition is a good Greek text, but not the best. This will matter to serious scholars.
HOW ACCURATE AND READABLE IS THIS ENGLISH TRANSLATION? IS IT THE BEST ONE?
Surprisingly, in spite of the importance and enjoyableness of Appian's work, if you read only English, you have just two choices: this Loeb Classical Library translation by Horace White and the 1996 translation
The Civil Wars (Penguin Classics)
by John Carter. These are the only two English translations I can find.
White's translation was originally written in 1899 for the Bohn's Classical Library series. The Loeb version of White was revised by Iliff Robinson in 1913, almost a century ago. The vocabulary and sentence structure is a bit stiff, but White's translation is clear and surprisingly readable.
Carter does provides extra information to increase the usefulness of his edition: a 25-page introduction, a 5-page "Table of Dates" (really a list of events from 133 B.C. to 35 B.C. which matches each event up to a book and paragraph number), 735 footnotes, and 7 appendices to make Appian's text more clear for general readers.
IN CONCLUSION
If you are looking for Appian's Civil Wars in English only, I recommend John Carter's translation. His version is enjoyable for those of us who read history for pleasure and at the same time provides enough information to be valuable for scholars who cannot read Greek. But if you want The Civil Wars in ancient Greek, the Loeb edition is currently the only complete Civil Wars available, and it has the added benefit of English text on facing pages. The bilingual (Greek/French) edition published by Les Belles Lettres is not yet complete, so if you want Greek or Greek and English text for this important author, this Loeb edition is your best bet.
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