Appian

Born around 95 in Alexandria, Appian climbed the colonial ladder: senior posts in Roman Egypt, then west to Rome itself around 120, where he worked as an advocate pleading cases before emperors. By 147 he'd been named procurator — likely back in Egypt — a position reserved for the equestrian class, marking him as a man from means. Somewhere in those years he started writing. His "Roman History", finished before 165, runs to 24 books in Greek and works more like a stack of monographs than a single thread: each volume tracks a people or war from their start to the moment Rome absorbed them. The…