POLYBIUS. EK TÔN POLUBIOU TOU MEGALOPOLITOU EKLOGAI PERI PRESBEIÔN. Ex libris Polybii Megalopolitani Selecta de legationibus; et alia quae sequenti pagina indicantur: (Fragmenta Ex Historiis Quae Non Extant: Dionysii Halicarnassei: Diodori Siculi: Appiani Alexandrini. Dionys. Cassii Nicaei De Legationibus. Dionys. Lib. LXXIX. Et LXXX. imperfectus. Emendationes In Polybium impressum Basileae per Ioannem Hervagium Anno M.D.XXIX) Nunc primum in lucem edita. Ex bibliotheca Fulvii Ursini. Antwerpen (Antverpiae), Ex officina Christophori Plantini, 1582. 4to. 2 parts in 1: (VIII),447,(1 blank);182 p. Calf 23 cm. 'Editio princeps' (Ref: Not in STCV; Hoffmann 3,270; Schweiger 1,272; Speeckaert/Sorgeloos no. 386; Voet, Plantin Press, 2081; Graesse 5,395: 'un jugement très honorable est porté sur cette éd. et sur le man. dont Ursin s'est servi, par Schweighaeuser'; Dibdin 2,351, note; Sandys, 'A history of classical scholarship' 1,405) (Details: Back with 5 raised bands, its compartments gilt with double fillet, and a starry ornament. Double fillet gilt borders on the boards. Edges marbled. Woodcut printer's device on title, motto 'Constantia et Labore'. The first part, p. 1-294, contains the Greek text of Polybius' 'Selecta de legationibus'; p. 295-447 contain the 'Selecta de legationibus' of Dionysius Halicarnassensis, Diodorus Siculus, Appianus and Dio Cassius. The first 148 pages of the second part contain the 'Fulvi Ursini notae in Polybium'; followed by 34 pages with Ursinus' 'emendationes in Polybium', taken from the Basle edition of Johannes Hervagius of 1529) (Condition: Binding worn. Back rubbed. Head & tail of the spine chafed. Boards scratched. Small surface damage on the lower board. Hinges cracking, but strong. Corners bumped. Small tear in the front flyleaf) (Note: The Greek author Polybius, ca. 200 - 118 B.C., born at Megalopolis, is the historian of the rise of Rome to world power. After the lost battle at Pydna in 168, where Greece lost its independence, young Polybius was, among 1000 other eminent Achaeans, deported to Rome, and held hostage there. In Rome he became a member of the circle of the Roman magistrate Scipio Aemilianus, whom he accompanied on his campaigns through Spain and Africa. There he developed a warm admiration for the Romans. Of Polybius' 'Histories', consisting of 42 books, only the first 5 books are extant, the rest is lost, except excerpts, the so-called Constantinean Excerpts, or Selecta, which survived. 'His original purpose was to narrate the history of the 53 years (220-168), from the Hannibalic War to Pydna, which left Rome mistress of the world' (OCD 2nd ed. p. 853). He did so from a Roman point of view. Later in life he extented his work to the year 120. Polybius aim was didactic, he wanted to inform the statesman and to teach 'the general reader how to face disaster' (OCD). He narrated and analysed political and military events to bring out their causes. The rise of Rome to her deserved and destined supremacy over the civilized world was according to him the work of Destiny. He was the last Greek historian who may claim high rank. Polybius was widely read in Byzantine times, and after his 'rediscovery' in the West, the Florentine statesman Macchiavelli used him as a political thinker. He was edited and analysed by great philologists like Poliziano and Casaubon. § The Constantinean Excerpts, of which the 'Selecta de Legationibus', or 'Excerpta de Legationibus' (On diplomacy) form part, were compiled when the Byzantine emperor Constantine VII Porphyrogenitus, 913-959, ordered the creation of a kind of encyclopaedias of History, Agriculture and Medicine. They were to contain excerpts from the most important ancient texts, most of which are now lost. This trend of excerpting and anthologizing was ulitmately responsible for the fragmentary form in which the text of Polybius has come down us, or to put it more mildly, thanks to the excerptors much of Polybius has been preserved. The encyclopaedia of History consisted of numerous extracts from the works of the leading Greek historians, then extant in Constantinople, beginning with Herodotus and ending with Theophylactus. It was organized under 53 headings, of which only 6 survive: 'De virtutibus et vitiis' (On virtues and vices), 'De sententiis' (On Aphorisms), 'De insidiis' (On ambushes), 'De stratagematis' (On stratagems), 'De legationibus gentium ad Romanos' (On foreign embassies to Rome), and 'De legationibus Romanorum ad Gentes' (On Roman embassies abroad). The most important of the Constantinean excerpts are those of Polybius. They preserved virtually all the surviving text that we have of the books 20-39 of Polybius. § The 'editio princeps' of the excerpts of Polybius was published in Antwerp in 1582 by the Italian humanist scholar Fulvius Ursinus (1529-1600). At the beginning of the preface to the edition Fulvius Ursinus tells us that he received some years before from his friend Antonius Augustinus, archbishop of Tarragona, a manuscript with 'Polybii quaedam fragmenta', collected by 'Iohanne quodam Constantinopolitano', in order to correct and publish it. (Leaf pi2 recto) § Ursinus became the librarian of 3 cardinals, and was a great collector of manuscripts and books. Sandys says of him that he 'was the centre of classical and antiquarian interest in Rome, and there was hardly any edition of a Latin author published in his time to which he did not contribute readings from his store of MSS'. (Sandys 2,153) The great German scholar Schweighaeuser, who published in 1795 his epoch-making edition of Polybius, had a high opinion of this work of Ursinus. It is of the highest importance and usefulness. Ursinus restored many corrupt places, and gave us the true Polybius, he said. (Schweighaeuser's Polybius, 1789-1795, volume I, p. XIII). According to Voet the edition of these exerpts, notwithstanding its importance, was not really a success: in 1642 as yet 407 copies remained unsold) (Collation: pi4, A-Z4, a-z4, Aa-Kk4 (leaf Kk4 verso blank); A-Z4 (leaf Z4 blank)) (Photographs on request)
Book number: 140008 Euro 950.00

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