Appian: The mass of the people denounced the war

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Anti-war essays, poems, short stories and literary excerpts

Greek and Roman writers on war and peace

Appian: Selections on war

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Appian
Roman History
Translated by Horace White

“Why should we pay taxes when we have no part in the honours, the commands, the state-craft, for which you contend against each other with such harmful results? ‘Because this is a time of war,’ do you say? When have there not been wars, and when have taxes ever been imposed on women, who are exempted by their sex among mankind?…”

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The slaughter and the groans were terrible. The bodies of the fallen were carried back and others stepped into their places from the reserves.

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Whatever food was produced was consumed by the troops. Most of them committed robberies by night in the city. There were acts of violence worse than robbery which went unpunished, and these were supposed to have been committed by soldiers.

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About the same time the mass of the people denounced the war and the victory, because the grain was kept under guard for the soldiers. They broke into houses in search of food, and carried off whatever they could find.

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So Antony’s soldiers, and Octavian also, blamed him [Lucius Antonious] for working against Antony’s interests, and Fulvia blamed him for stirring up war at an inopportune time, until Manius maliciously changed her mind by telling her that as long as Italy remained at peace Antony would stay with Cleopatra, but that if war should break out there he would come back rapidly.