Appian (
Greek: '''')(
c. 95 –
c. 165), of
Alexandria was a Greek historian with Roman citizenship who flourished during the reigns of
Trajan, Hadrian and
Antoninus Pius.
He was born ca.
95 in Alexandria. He tells us that, after having filled the chief offices in the
province of
Egypt, he repaired to
Rome ca.
120, where he practiced as an
advocate, pleading cases before the
emperors. In
147 at the earliest he was appointed to the office of
procurator, probably in Egypt, on the recommendation of his friend
Marcus Cornelius Fronto. The position of procurator was open only to members of the
equestrian class.
His work (Ῥωμαικα, known in
English as the
Roman History) in twenty-four books, written in
Greek before
165, is more a number of monographs than a connected history. It gives an account of various peoples and countries from the earliest times down to their incorporation into the
Roman Empire, and survives in complete books and considerable fragments. In spite of its unattractive style, the work is very valuable, especially for the period of the
civil wars.
The civil wars, five of the later books in the corpus, concern mainly the end of the republic and take a conflict based approach to history.
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