1509 1ST ALDINE SALLUST Jugurthine War Catiline ROME HISTORY CICERO p.-incunable

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1509 1ST ALDINE SALLUST Jugurthine War Catiline ROME HISTORY CICERO p.-incunable:
$1725.00

[Early Printing - Post-Incunabula - Venice - Aldus Manutius] [Latin Classics] [History - Ancient - Roman Republic]
[Jugurthine War] [Catilinarian Conspiracy] [Marcus Tullius Cicero]

Printed in Venice by Aldus Manutius & Andreas Asulanus, April 1509.
FIRST ALDINE EDITION.
Edited by Aldus Manutius himself.

This is the first of the two Aldine editions (1509 and 1521) of the Roman historian Gaius Sallustius Crispus (86 - 34 BC), \"which are compiled with great care, and throw considerable light upon Sallust\". (Dibdin)

The work is dedicated by Aldus to the Venetian general Bartolomeo Liviano d\'Alviano (1455 - 1515), whose brilliant victory in March 1508 over the imperialists near Cadore brought a false sense of security to Venice. In his dedicatory preface Aldus says that he dedicates this edition to Alviano, because he has equalled in courage and skill the generals whose deeds are described by Sallust, and because he has often urged Aldus to publish in handy format books of the deeds of great men, so that they can be more easily taken into battle.

Aldus also states in his preface that this edition is based on the two ancient Sallust manuscripts, more correct than other codices, which were brought to him from Paris by Janus Lascaris and Giovanni Giocondo of Verona.

The edition contains Sallust\'s two major works - Conjuratio catilinae and Bellum Iugurthinum - as well as the surviving fragments of his Historiae (including Mithridates\' epistle to Arsaxes, Lepidus\' invective against Sulla, Pompei\'s epistle to the Senate, etc). Also included are Sallust\'s orations to Caesar on the republic (Ad caesarem senem de republica) and an attack upon Cicero (Invectiva in Ciceronem) attributed to Sallust, and Cicero\'s counter-invective (both probably spurious, and believed by modern scholars to have been written by the rhetorician Marcus Porcius Latro). Also included are several additional works dealing with the relevant events of the Roman history, such as Portius Latro\'s invective against Catiline, Cicero\'s four orations against Catiline, etc.

Gaius Sallustius Crispus (86 - 34 BC), usually anglicised as Sallust, was an eminent Roman historian and statesman. He was a novus homo from a provincial plebeian family, born at Amiternum in the country of the Sabines, and was a popularis, opposer of the old Roman aristocracy throughout his career, and later a partisan of Julius Caesar. Sallust is the earliest known Roman historian with surviving works to his name, of which we have Catiline\'s Conspiracy (about the conspiracy in 63 BC of L. Sergius Catilina), The Jugurthine War (about Rome\'s war against the Numidians from 111 to 105 BC), and the Histories (of which only fragments survive). Sallust was primarily influenced by the Greek historian Thucydides and amassed great (and ill-gotten) wealth from his governorship of Africa.

He was a strong critic of the old Roman aristocracy and the senate, and most of his works dwell upon their degeneracy and feebleness. \"Tacitus spoke highly of Sallust, and Quintilian regarded him as superior to Livy and even put him on a level with Thucydides. On the whole the verdict of antiquity was favourable to Sallust as an historian. He struck out for himself practically a new line in literature, his predecessors having been little better than mere dry-as-dust chroniclers, whereas he endeavoured to explain the connexion and meaning of events, and was successful delineator of character.\" (Encyclopedia Britannica)

\"Sallust is now represented mainly by two historical monographs. That on the conspiracy of Catiline is apparently founded on personal knowledge and on hearsay, there being no trace of any indebtedness to literary documents or original authorities. It is not without chronological and historical inaccuracies, but the author aims at a strict impartiality. He treats Cicero with tact, neither overpraising nor over-blaming him, while he fully appreciates the high character of Cato, and displays a personal partiality for Caesar, taking pains to indicate that he was not implicated in the conspiracy. He touches on the general characteristics of the age and on the motives of its leading men, summing up his opinions on these and other topics with epigrammatic point. His monograph on the Jugurthine War has the same merits and the same defects, but is founded on more careful research, and is more even in its general plan, and more polished in its execution. The speeches inserted in his Catiline are not historically authentic, but (like those of Thucydides) are true to the character of the speakers. His brevity and abruptness, his archaisms and his Graecisms, were noted by ancient critics. Modern writers have traced his reminiscences of Thucydides, Demosthenes, and Xenophon, and have surmised his indebtedness to Poseidonius. [...] He was imitated by Tacitus, and, in a later age, admired by Fronto and by Gellius. He is the earliest scientific historian in Latin literature. His maturest work, the five books of his Histories, dealing with the years 78 - 67 BC, is now represented only by four speeches and two letters, together with a considerable number of fragments.\" (John Edwin Sandys, ed., A Companion to Latin Studies, p.661)

The Conspiracy of Catiline (Sallust\'s first published work) relates the history of the memorable year 63 BC. Sallust adopts the usually accepted view of Catiline, and describes him as the deliberate foe of law, order and morality. (Note that Catiline had supported the party of Sulla, which Sallust had opposed.) While he inveighs against Catiline\'s depraved character and vicious actions, he does not fail to note his many noble traits. In particular, Sallust shows Catiline as deeply courageous in his final battle. In writing about the conspiracy of Catiline, Sallust\'s tone, style, and descriptions of aristocratic behavior show him as deeply troubled by the moral decline of Rome. This subject gave Sallust the opportunity of showing off his rhetoric at the expense of the old Roman aristocracy, whose degeneracy he delighted to paint in the blackest colours.

The work was probably written between 44 and 40 BC. However, Louis MacKay proposed a different dating. According to him, the Catiline was prepared by Sallust in 50 BC as a political pamphlet, but wasn\'t published; after the civil war Sallust reviewed and finally published it.

Sallust\'s Jugurthine War is a brief monograph recording the war against Jugurtha in Numidia from c. 112 BC to 105 BC. Its true value lies in the introduction of Marius and Sulla to the Roman political scene and the beginning of their rivalry. Sallust\'s time as governor of Africa Nova ought to have let the author develop a solid geographical and ethnographical background to the war; however, this is not evident in the monograph despite a diversion on the subject, because Sallust\'s priority in the Jugurthine War, as with the Catiline Conspiracy, is to use history as a vehicle for his judgement on the slow destruction of Roman morality and politics.

Of Sallust\'s larger and most important work ,Historiae (\"Histories\"), only fragments are extant. The work, intended as a continuation of Cornelius Sisenna\'s work, presented a history of Rome from 78 to 67, and must have thrown much light on a very eventful period, embracing the war against Sertorius (died 72 BC), the campaigns of Lucullus against Mithradates VI of Pontus (75 - 66 BC), and the victories of Pompey in the East (66 - 62 BC).

Bibliographic references:

Adams S-139; Ahmanson-Murphy I, 86; Machiels S-67; Renouard p. 57, no.3; Dionisotti & Orlandi LXVIII.

Physical description:

Octavo, textblock measures 151 mm x 94 mm. Bound in 19th-century quarter-vellum over paper boards; flat spine ruled in git and with red leather gilt-lettered title-label; edges speckled blue.

Pagination: [16], 279, [1] pp. Signatures: a-s8 t4. Collated and complete.

Woodcut Aldine printer\'s device on title (a1r) and verso of the final leaf (t4v).

Italic type 1:80. 30 lines and headline, paginated. Initial spaces with guide-letters (many with initials supplied, somewhat awkwardly, in brown ink in a 16th-century hand).

Contents: title (a1r); dedicatory preface (a1v-a2r); extract on Sallust from Petrus Crinitus\'s De historicis ac oratoribus latinis (a2v-a4v), life of Sallust (a5r-a6r); extracts from De viris illustribus ascribed to Pliny the younger (a6r-a7r), extracts from Gellius (a7v-a8r), a8v blank. De coniuratione Catilinae (b1r-e1v); De Bello Jugurthino (e1v-l2r);l2v blank; various orations and invectives by Sallust, Cicero, Latro, et al, and extant fragments from Sallust\'s Historiae (l3r-t4r).
Colophon and register on t4r.

Provenance:

A 19th-century round armorial bookplate of Edward Cane on front pastedown.

A 20th-century bookplate of Edward Ingram Watkin on front free endpaper.Edward Ingram Watkin (1888 - 1981) was an English writer. A convert to Catholicism in 1908, he founded in 1936 with Eric Gill and Donald Attwater the inter-war Catholic pacifist movement Pax.

Condition:

Very Good antiquarian condition. Complete. Binding rubbed, some wear to edges and joints. Some early ownership inscriptions erased from title causing three small holes (affecting a few letters on verso, but without loss of legibility), faint traces of several other early inscriptions and doodles on a2r and the blank of l2v (where one can discern traces of a hand-drawn cote of arms). A few leaves with minor faded early marginal notes or underlining (quite infrequent). Light to moderate staining to inner margin of leaves towards the end of the volume from quire o on (almost entirely confined to margin), Title and the final page (blank except for the printer\'s mark) moderately soiled. Occasional light soiling. Generally a clean and solid example of this scarce Aldine.

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