He tells us that, after having filled the chief offices in native place, he repaired to Rome, where he practised as an advocate. When advanced in years, he obtained, by the good offices of his friend Fronto, the dignity of imperial procurator--is supposed in Egypt. His work (?PwuaLKrff) in twenty-four books, written in Greek, is rather a number of monographs than connected history. It gives an account of various peoples and countries from the earliest times down to their incorporation 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.
See Editio princeps, 1551; Schweighauser, 1785; Bekker, 1852; Mendelssohn, 1878_1905. English translations: by W. B., 1578); J Davies, 1679; H White, 1899 (Bohn's Classical Library); bk. i. ed. by JL Strachan_Davidson, 1902.
Appian of Alexandria wrote an autobiography, but it is almost completely lost, and consequently we hardly know anything about the historian from Alexandria.
As Appian was still in Egypt by the end of the reign of Trajan, he must have moved to Rome at a later date, and the emperors whom he claims to have addressed must therefore have been either Hadrian and Antoninus Pius or Antoninus Pius and Marcus Aurelius.
Moreover, Appian is not faced with the problem that historians who strictly adhered to the chronological sequence of events had to cope with: if an enemy of Rome has a specific custom, they had to explain it twice or leave it unexplained.
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