About a generation after Plutarch, Appian wrote. He was a jurist from Alexandria, who in the reigns of Adrian and Antoninus Pius, lived in Rome as an agent for his native town, and had the management of lawsuits. He was greatly befriended by Fronto, and by his interest got the office of a _Procurator Cæsaris_. Although he had lived a long time at Rome, and had a great opinion of his Latin, yet it is not to be supposed that he was very conversant with that language; as, owing to Adrian’s predilection for Greek, he surely was allowed to plead in it, especially for the _transmarini_. Having made a fortune at Rome, he returned to Alexandria, and was in his old age treated with much distinction by the Romans. According to one account, he has written twenty-four books on Roman history; among them four on Egypt, in which he treated with particular prolixity of the Lagides. It was not a continuous history, but arranged after the plan of the _Origines_ of Cato. The first book was called Βασιλική, the second Ἰταλική, the third Σαυνιτική. The first twenty-one books of his work went as far as the battle of Actium; then the subsequent times down to Trajan he disposed of in one book Ἑκατονταετία; besides which he wrote a book on the Dacian, and another on the Arabian war of Trajan. He is a compiler, and knew well how to choose his sources. In the earlier history he chiefly follows Dionysius; in the second Punic war, perhaps also in the first, he follows Fabius; then Polybius, and afterwards Posidonius. In using these sources, he displays great ignorance, particularly of geography. Thus, for example, he believes that Britain was quite close to the northern coast of Spain, and he places Saguntum on the northern bank of the Iberus. We must discriminate with regard to him. Wherever he copies without thinking, we find in his work the best sources for history. The greater half of the books of Appian are lost. We possess eleven of them, and besides these, there are extracts in the _Eclogæ de Legationibus_, and _de Virtutibus et Vitiis_, collected by Ursinus and Valesius. Spurious is the Παρθική, as Schweighäuser has correctly demonstrated. There are of Appian, properly speaking, only three editions, those of Stephens, Tollius, and Schweighäuser, the last of them being by far the best. Much remains to be done for the _Bellum Illyricum_, as Spaletti has kept his collation for it from Schweighäuser. A good source also made use of by the latter, is the Latin version of Petrus Candidus, which though barbarous is faithful.