Platonici Sermones sive Disputationes XLI. (41 Platonic Sermons or Disputations).

Hardcover. Fine. 8vo. Bound in contemporary limp vellum with the title in 16th century manuscript upon the spine. Ex Officina Henrici Stephani Parisiensis typographi (Henri Estienne), AN. M. D. VII (1557). First Edition. (Schreiber 141, Renouard 116 and Adams 939). These lectures were eloquent exhortations to virtue, filled with quotations chiefly from Plato and Homer, their philosophical content deriving from Platonism and Cynicism. At the end are appended 19 pages of critical notes by Henri Estienne. (Schreiber). Maximus Tyrius (Maximus of Tyre) was a Greek rhetorician and philosopher who flourished in the time of the Antonines and Commodus, 2nd century A.D. After the manner of the sophists of his age, he travelled extensively, delivering lectures on the way. His writings contain many allusions to the history of Greece, while there is little reference to Rome; hence it is inferred that he lived longer in Greece, perhaps as a professor at Athens. Although nominally a Platonist, he is really an Eclectic and one of the precursors of Neoplatonism. There are still extant by him forty-one essays or discourses on theological, ethical, and other philosophical commonplaces. With him God is the supreme being, one and indivisible though called by many names, accessible to reason alone; but as animals form the intermediate stage between plants and human beings, so there exist intermediaries between God and man, viz. daemons, who dwell on the confines of heaven and earth. The soul in many ways bears a great resemblance to the divinity; it is partly mortal, partly immortal, and, when freed from the fetters of the body, becomes a daemon. Life is the sleep of the soul, from which it awakes at death. The style of Maximus is superior to that of the ordinary sophistical rhetorician. The Estienne (Latin Stephanus) printing house of Paris and Geneva has no equal in the annals of printing. The Estiennes produced the most significant Latin and Greek Bibles after the principes, as well as editions of Plato, Homer, Cicero and Herodotus that continue, in many respects, to be the standard 450 years later. Above this achievement, the Estiennes produced a series of editiones principes in Greek and Latin that can be rivaled only by the Aldine press. These include the principes of Appianus, Dio Cassius, Dionysius Halicarnassus, the Agamemnon of Aeschylus, Diodorus Siculus, Xiphilinus, Justin Martyr, and numerous others. Finally, in the monumental Latin and Greek Thesauri, Robert and Henri Estienne produced two of the greatest scholarly achievements in the full history of human literary endeavor. Vellum slightly worn at the edges and somewhat darkened. Internally, the volume is in excellent condition, with clean pages, clear print and wide margins throughout. The front endpapers are worn at the edges, but this does not extend into the text-block proper, save the edge of the blank lower outer corner of the title. There is also a very minor worm track in the blank gutter margin to g3, not affecting or approaching the text. Some minor foxing upon a couple of leaves, as well as a very light and unobtrusive damp stain in the lower outer margin through much of the volume, never affecting the text. Generally, this is quite an attractive example internally, particularly given the unusually wide margins.