Ex Trogi Pompeii historiis externis libri XLIIII. His accessit ex Sexto Aurelio Victore de vita et moribus Romanorum imperatorum epitome

RENAISSANCE BLIND-STAMPED BINDING; COPIOUSLY ANNOTATED IN AN EARLY HAND

8vo, pp. 350 [50]. Italic letter, little Roman. Woodcut printer's device on t-p and final leaf, historiated initials. Early annotations and underlining throughout, especially up to Book XIX. Later ownership autograph on t-p. Blind-stamped ornamental panels on both covers, contemporary calf, spine rebacked and refurbished, endpapers renewed (but not modern), recent C18th-style morocco label with gilt lettering. Author's ms. name written on foot fore-edge. A very good copy.

Dedicatory letter by the editor, German jurist and humanist Johann Sichard, to Peter Reich von Reichenstein, clergyman in Basel. Justin flourished in the third century AD. A Roman historian, he was the author of this Epitome, an abridgement of the Historiae Philippicae et totius mundi origines et terrae situs (Philippic Histories) by Pompeius Trogus, whose work is lost. Most of the abridgement is not so much a summary as passages quoted from Trogus. Nothing is known of Justin's personal history other than his work on Trogus's book (chiefly a history of Macedonia and the Hellenistic monarchies, with Parthia), which preserves material that has proved valuable to students of the Hellenistic world. The book was much used in the Middle Ages and survives in more than 200 manuscripts from that period. It was printed an incredible amount of times throughout the late 15th and the 16th centuries.

USTC 147416.