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GREEK & LATIN
~ CLASSICS 
& THE ANCIENT WORLD AT LARGE
Incorporating also occasional NEO-LATINITY
A-B
C-E F-H
I-Lt
Lu-Q R-S
T-Z
(A
Renaissance Caesar). Caesar,
Julius. Julius der erst
römisch Keiser von seinem Leben und Krieg, erstmals uss dem Latein in Tütsch
gebracht vnd mit andrer Ordnung der Capittel und uil zusetz nüw getruckt.
[Strassburg: Durch Joannem Grüninger, vff sant Adolffs des heiligen Bischoffss,
1508]. Folio (31 cm; 11.5"). A6 Aa8 B6 C4
D–N6 O4 P–Z6 Zz6; [148]
ff., illus.
$7950.00
All images of this book enlarge, via single-click.

First translation of Julius Caesar's Commentaries into German, here in the second edition, which appeared one year after the first. The Commentaries are the translation of Matthias Ringmann, and the work has supplemental lives by Suetonius, Plutarch, and others.
This handsome and
SCARCE book is famous for its woodcut illustrations: It has one quarter-page, four half-page, one three-quarter page, and
eleven full-page woodcuts. These include battle scenes, the assassination, camp life, etc., all of the figures being dressed anachronistically in Renaissance garb.
The text is printed in large gothic in double-column format.
Both the first and the second editions in German are scarce/rare.
Of the first edition we find only two copies in the U.S. (Harvard and Stanford), and of the second we trace three (Brown, Duke, and Trinity College), all being incomplete except the Brown copy.
Index Aurel. 128.654; Schmidt, Repertoire bibliographique Strasbourgeois, no. 91, p. 40–41; Schweiger, II, 51; not in Adams (who only lists much later editions in German). Recased in an 18th-century vellum-over-boards binding. Sophisticated copy in all likelihood, with several leaves apparently supplied from a different copy, those leaves being either slightly smaller than the others or more heavily sized. Occasional light waterstains in from a very few margins; two leaves with old scribbling in ink in margins; minor worming in lower margin of last six leaves.
A very nice copy of a very scarce book that is clearly difficult to find complete, incomplete, or sophisticated.
This entry is repeated in the
“CE” section of this
catalogue . . .


Académie des Inscriptions et Belles-lettres. Choix des mémoires de l’Academie Royale des inscriptions et belles-lettres. Londres: T. Becket & P. Elmsly, 1777. 4to (27 cm, 10.6"). 3 vols. I: [2], iii, [1], lx, 656 pp. (pagination skips 17–32, text uninterrupted). II: [2], iii, [1], ccviii, 495, [1 (blank)] pp. III: [2], iii, lxviii, [1], 696 pp.; 1 fold. plt., 2 plts.
$1250.00

Sole edition thus: Three-volume set of selected pieces from the Histoire et mémoires de l’Académie, a massive collection of French-language commentary and criticism on Greek and Latin classics. The printing of the Histoire et mémoires commenced in 1717 and ran through 1809, with the total number of volumes coming to 51; the present compilation offers especially noteworthy treatises from the beginning of the series through 1763.
Click the image to the left
for an enlargement.
The third volume includes two plates and one oversized, folding plate reproducing two inscriptions and a frieze, engraved by E. Malpas.
Uncommon outside of Great Britain.
ESTC T113913; Brunet, I, 26; Lowndes, I, 5. Contemporary treed calf, spines gilt extra, with gilt-stamped leather title and volume labels; leather worn at edges and moderately rubbed with joints cracking. Front pastedowns with private bookplates and signs that a plate was removed on front free endpaper (one vol. endpaper holed); impressions of old pencilled shelf numbers on title-pages (and one lightly inked old date). First two leaves of vol. III with upper margins stained and final leaf browned; some pages with a few spots of faint foxing, most clean and crisp.
Aelianus, Claudius. [4 lines in Greek, then] Aeliani de natvra animalivm.... Londini: Gulielmus Bowyer, 1744. 4to (26.2 cm, 10.4"). 2 vols. I: xiv, xxvii, [35 (index)], 603, [1] pp. II: [605]–1128, [88 (index and addenda)] pp.
$500.00
Attractive 18th-century printing of Abraham Gronovius’s edition, here presented in the original Greek with Conrad Gesner’s Latin translation and comments on facing pages, and with additional commentary by Daniel Wilhelm Triller. Dibdin calls this an “excellent and ample edition” of the Natura Animalium, an entertaining collection of animal-related tales and folklore compiled by Aelian, a 2nd-century a.d. Roman scholar of rhetoric and Greek literature who borrowed much of the material from earlier Greek authors. The work includes one of the earliest known references to fly-fishing, a description of the Macedonian fashion of catching river fish with lures constructed of feathers and bright red wool.

Provenance:
Neat ownership signature of “J.W. Blakesley, Trin. Coll.”
— very likely the Dean Blakesley who, among other things, wrote the first
English life of Aristotle and edited Herodotus.
ESTC T88657; Dibdin, I, 232; Schweiger, I, 2. Contemporary vellum-covered
boards, covers framed and panelled in blind with central blind-stamped strapwork
medallions, spines with gilt-stamped leather title and volume labels; front
joints repaired and now strong, vellum soiled. Front free endpapers with early
inked owner's name as above; shadow of shelf number once pencilled on title-page,
erased. Spotting of various sorts and minor smudging in upper margins of some
pages; leaves otherwise clean.

Neat Pairing. Striking Illustrations.
Aeschylus & Percy Bysshe Shelley. Prometheus bound & Prometheus unbound. Haarlem: Pr. by Joh. Enschede en Zonen for the Limited Editions Club, 1965. 4to.
$100.00

Aeschylus's classic play and Shelley's poem, here with a preface by Rex Warner, who translated the Aeschylus into English, and tinted line-and-wash illustrations by John Farleigh. This is copy number 444 of 1500 printed; unusually for the Limited Editions Club, most copies are unsigned, as Farleigh passed away before receiving the colophon sheets.
Click the interior image for an enlargement.
Bibliography of the Fine Books Published by the Limited Editions Club 370. Publisher's gilt-stamped tan and light blue buckram, the colors “split” horizontally across the covers, in a slipcase lightly sunned and with an old waterspot to the label (but sturdy). In original glassine dustwrapper, with upper edges a bit chipped; book clean and fresh, (13313)

The
FIRST
Latin Gradus
Aler, Paul. Gradus ad Parnassum, sive Novus synonymorum epithetorum, et phrasium poeticarum thesaurus ... Lipsiae: Apud Michaelem Blochbergerum, 1738. 8vo (17.7 cm, 7"). [8], 48, 768 (i.e., 760) pp.
$250.00

Expanded 18th-century edition of this dictionary of Latin prosody, originally published in 1602 by Aler, a French Jesuit, schoolmaster, and poet. The title “Steps to Parnassus” (home of the Muses) was later applied to a variety of literary, artistic, and musical instruction manuals, with Gradus becoming a sort of shorthand signifier for any such dictionary-style guidebook; but Aler's work marked the first appearance of both this title and this style of Latin reference book.
DeBacker-Sommervogel, II, 1092–95 (for other eds.). Contemporary vellum, spine with inked title; lightly soiled, front cover with partially effaced early inked ownership inscription and back cover with faded early inked inscription. Front pastedown institutionally rubber-stamped, front free endpaper lacking, title-page with early inked ownership inscription partially effaced (resulting in small holes). Pages age-toned, with occasional foxing. (24349)

A Handsome
Dated Binding — Initials, “A.W.” — 1539
Arrianus. [three lines in Greek, romanized as] Arrianou Peri Alexandrou anabaseōs historiōn biblia oktō. [then in Latin] Arriani De expeditione sive Rebus gestis Alexandri Macedonum regis libri octo, nuper & reperti, & quàm diligentissimè in lucem editi. Historiam quoque eandem, olim quidem a Bartholomaeo Facio latinitate donatam, nunc vero ... mendis repurgatam, hic adiungi curavimus ... Basileae: [Robertus Winter, 1539]. Vol. 1 of 2. 13, [1] pp., [321] ff. (lacks last 8 leaves).
$950.00
Click the middle and righthand images for enlargement.
The author's most important work, written after the example of
Xenophon's Anabasis, this is an account of Alexander the Great, and of
India and Iran in his time. The edition bears a prefatory epistle by Nicolaus
Gerbel (1485–1560), its editor.
Present here is vol. I containing the original Greek text, the Latin translation
having been printed in a separate volume. Incomplete at the end, it
lacks the final eight leaves or the last part of the Indica (37.3–43.14),
only, with Arrian's Anabasis Alexandrou (Campaigns of Alexander)
appearing
complete
as Books 1–7.
Binding:
Contemporary alum-tawed pigskin over bevelled boards, remnants of the metal
closures. Covers elaborately blind-embossed with several rolls and devices.
Front cover has in its center panel the initials “A. W.,” the
date 1539, and medallions of Manfred of Saxony and Luther, while the rear
cover's center panel has medallions of Melanchthon and Erasmus.
Graesse, I, 227; Legrand, Bibliographie hellénique,
III, 388; Adams A2009. Binding toned to a pleasing dark tan. Old bookplate
on front pastedown. Front free endpaper torn with loss. Vol. I only, and lacking
those final eight leaves; the Anabasis complete. (20418)
Uncommon
AMERICAN
Tragedy
Bailey, John J. Waldimar. A tragedy, in five acts.
New York: [Pr. by J. Van Norden?], 1834. 8vo (24 cm, 9.4"). 124, [2], 6 pp.
$250.00
Bailey's privately printed drama ("Not Published," the title-page trumpets)
seems to have been well received, judging by the appended reviews; many of
the contemporary critics made particular mention of their desire to support
the piece as an outstanding American effort at tragedy.
The historically
inspired plot is set at Thessalonica during the fourth century, and revolves
around the love of popular soldier Claudius for Hersilia, daughter of the
despotic general Waldimar.
Sabin 2736. Publisher's textured cloth, front with gilt-stamped title,
greatly faded with extremities rubbed and worn, spine with paper shelving
label and some loss of cloth. Title-page and some others lightly stamped by
a now-defunct institution. Two short edge tears, some corners slightly crumpled.
Anacharsis
in English
Anything
But Dry!
[Barthelemy, Jean-Jacques].
Travels of Anacharsis the younger in Greece. During the middle of the
fourth century, before the Christian æra.... The first American edition.
Philadelphia: Pr. by Bartholomew Graves and William McLaughlin for Jacob Johnson
& Co., 1804. 8vo signed in 4s (22 cm, 8.625"). Vol. I: xviii, 419, [1 (blank)]
pp.; fold. map; II: [1] f., iii, [1 (blank)], 403, [1 (blank)] pp.; III: vii,
[1 (blank)], 463, [1 (blank)] pp. (lacking half-title); IV: vii, [1 (blank)],
496 pp. (lacking half-title).
$750.00
Click the images for enlargements.
Translated from the French by William Beaumont for the original
English printing. Really a textbook on
the
daily life and culture of ancient Greece, primarily centered
around Athens, this lengthy work is "so written, that the reader may frequently
be induced to imagine he is perusing a work of mere amusement, invention, and
fancy" (p. iii). Footnotes citing a multitude of classical sources back up Barthelemy's
imagined journey, which is illustrated with an attractive engraved map by du
Bocage.
Shaw & Shoemaker 5809. Recently rebound in period-style
tan cloth over light blue paper sides, spines with paper labels. Contemporary
ownership inscription to front fly-leaf in each volume. Map with light offsetting
and short tear just starting along one fold. First 20 leaves of vol. II waterstained
and last 10 foxed; scattered incidences of spotting in all volumes, pages
generally clean.
A
nice-looking set, and still as it always was! a work offering
a pleasant way to absorb ancient history.
Baudius, Dominicus. Amores, edente Petro Scriverio, inscripti Th. Graswinckelio. Lugduni-Batavorum: Francisci Hegerus & Hackius, 1638. 12mo. [6] ff., 518 pp., [1] f.; illus.
$400.00
Click the interior images for enlargements.
Compilation of prose and poetry on the many facets of love: writings on the death of a wife, on the choice of a wife, on marriage, and on classical writers and their views of love. Writers include Pieter Schrijver (1576–1660), Lelio Capilupi (1497?–1560?), Jean Gaspard Gevaerts (1593–1666), Ausonius, Erasmus, Sir Thomas More, and Daniel Hiensius. The text is printed in roman and italic type and there is one full-page engraving — a portrait of Baudius.
This work is the first listed in all bibliographies under Louis Elzevir’s press at Amsterdam. In fact both the Elzevir edition of 1638 and this have the same colophon: “Lugduni-Batavorum: Typis Georgii Abrahami vander Marse, MDCXXXVIII.” And both collate the same, the only difference being the printer’s device and imprint information on the title-page.
Uncommon: Searches of OCLC, RLIN, & NUC locate fewer than ten copies in U.S. libraries.
Provenance: The Rev. Edward A. Dalrymple (Baltimore collector, mid–19th century); his collection given to the Maryland Diocesan Library; that library sold in 2006.
Rahir 1876; Willems 961 note. Contemporary vellum over light boards; spine delicately and lightly tooled in gilt. Ex–Maryland Episcopal Diocesan Library with stamp on front pastedown. One natural paper flaw; occasional early underlining.

This Classicist
Crushes
Collins?
Bentley, Richard. Remarks upon a late discourse of free-thinking: In a letter to F.H. D.D. by Phileleutherus Lipsiensis. Part the second. London: John Morphew & E. Curl, 1713. 8vo (19.7 cm, 7.75"). [4], 82, [2] pp.
$750.00


First edition of the second portion of one of the best-known responses to Anthony Collins's landmark Discourse of Free-Thinking. Bentley here takes up where he left off in the first part of the Remarks (considered a crushing rebuttal of Collins's treatise, and of deism as interpreted in the Discourse), moving on to assess many of the citations and classical references from p. 90
onwards of Collins's work. Writers whose words Bentley feels Collins misrepresented include Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, Epicurus, Plutarch, Cato, and Cicero.
Click the interior image for an enlargement.
ESTC T53381. On Bentley's response to Collins, see: Dictionary of National Biography. Recent marbled paper–covered boards, front cover with gilt-stamped leather title-label. Faint crease lines occasionally visible, pages otherwise clean. (20751)

A Not-So-Brief History of
Time
Brady, John. Clavis calendaria; or, a compendious analysis of the calendar: Illustrated with ecclesiastical, historical, and classical anecdotes ... second edition. London: Pr. for the author & sold by Longman, Hurst, Rees, Orme, & Brown, et al., 1812–13. 8vo (21.6 cm, 8.5"). 2 vols. I: xxxvi, 387, [1] pp.; 1 plt. II: [2], 395, [1] pp.
$325.00
Second edition of this popular survey of the history of time and calendars from the ancient world onwards, following the first edition of 1812. Brady here describes the rituals and lore associated with the regulation of time, in all its divisions and subdivisions; much material from the lives of the saints is present. Allibone quotes the London Quarterly Review's assertion that “Especially to students in divinity and law, [the work] will be an invaluable acquisition; and we hesitate not to declare that, in proportion as its merits become known to the public, it will find its way to the libraries of every gentleman and scholar in the kingdom.” Contemporary opinion seems to have borne that prediction out, as the subscribers list here (carried over from the first edition) is substantial and the work went through several editions in the first few years after its initial publication.
Click the images for enlargements.
Vol. I is illustrated with one wood-engraved plate depicting a Saxon almanac, and seven in-text engravings depicting Odin, Frigga, Thor, and the other deities with days named in their honor.
Provenance: Signature on title-pages of George Buckton, vol. I dated 1812 and vol. II dated 1813.
Allibone 237 (listing 1813 & 1814 eds. only); NSTC B4120. Contemporary treed calf, rebacked preserving original spines with gilt-stamped titles, gilt-ruled and -dotted compartment bands, and gilt-stamped compartment decorations; original spine leather chipped, cracked, and darkened as by fire. Covers with corners and edges unobtrusively rubbed; portions nearest spines showing evidence of heat exposure; hinges (inside) reinforced. Front pastedowns each with institutional bookplate, vol. I front pastedown with bookseller's ticket and affixed early cataloguing slip, vol. I back pastedown and vol. II front pastedown with inked library inscription. Title-pages with inked ownership inscriptions as above. Offsetting from plate and to endpapers from binding, pages otherwise clean though with all edges (i.e., of closed book) darkened.
A particularly handsome exemplar of popular scholarship of the day. (25436)

ROMAN Political Science in its
Original State
Bilhon, Jean Fréderic Joseph. Du gouvernement des Romains, considéré sous le rapport de la politique, de la justice, des finances, et du commerce. Paris: Chez Louis (pr. by Pierre Didot l'Ainé), 1807. 8vo (21.2 cm, 8.4"). viii, 312 pp.
$500.00
Click the interior images for enlargements.
Sole edition, here unopened and uncut in the publisher's paper wrappers, of this treatise on ancient Roman government and economics. Bilhon also published Principes d'administration et d'économie politique des anciens peuples, appliqués aux peuples modernes and Éloge de J.J. Rousseau.
Uncommon: OCLC and NUC Pre-1956 find only eight U.S. holdings.
Goldsmiths'-Kress 19346.100. Publisher's rose paper wrappers, rebacked in paper wrapper edges chipped and hinges (inside) reinforced. Half-title and title-page institutionally rubber-stamped, front pastedown with institutional bookplate and early inked numeral, half-title with small inked ownership inscriptions. Signatures unopened, edges untrimmed; pages age-toned throughout, some with a little foxing; a nice copy. Now housed in a neat rose-maroon cloth clamshell case with gilt-stamped leather title-label. (25268)
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