Abstract:
Appian of Alexandria, noted for his success in the law courts in his adopted city of Rome during the
second century AD, wrote extensively both on the Roman civil wars and on her foreign campaigns.
Amongst modern scholars, Appian has not always been considered reliable as a historian, with much
attention having been given to his work on the civil wars. This thesis examines the reliability of
Appian in one important passage in The Mithridatic Wars, which forms a constituent part of his work
on the foreign campaigns.
In The Mithridatic Wars, Appian describes the events that took place during the wars between Rome
and Mithridates VI of Pontus, which had begun in 88 BC. It was later the same year that Lucius
Cornelius Sulla was appointed to his first consulship and assigned the command against Mithridates.
He sailed from Italy to Greece in early 87 BC and quickly received deputations and invitations from
most Greek states, but not from Rome’s erstwhile long-term ally, Athens. By that time, Athens had
formed a new alliance with Mithridates and was hosting a large part of his army in Attica. Sulla had
little choice but to lay siege to Athens and to the Piraeus. After Athens fell in March 86 BC, Sulla’s
men poured into the city and engaged in pillage and the indiscriminate slaughter of many of its
citizens.
In section 39 of The Mithridatic Wars, Appian describes the action taken by Sulla after the city fell
which, he asserts, included punishing the tyrant, Aristion, and his entourage with death, instituting
laws on the Athenians similar to those established for them when Rome had first conquered Greece,
and helping himself to their financial reserves from the treasury at the Acropolis. This thesis provides
broad consideration of the issues raised in this passage. Particular attention is given to the clause ‘he
instituted laws for everyone’ (νόμους ἔθηκεν ἅπασιν), which underlies much modern scholarship on
the issue of whether Sulla imposed a constitution on the Athenians. This thesis examines this issue in
detail, and concludes that several of the prominent assertions in this passage are unreliable. After
considering whether Rome had previously conquered Greece or established laws for the Athenians,
and then whether Sulla imposed a constitution on the Athenians, this thesis concludes with full notes
on the assertions made by Appian in this passage.