Beschrijving
Lugdunum Batavorum (Leiden), Elzeviriana, 1634, 1st edition, (24)+310+(37)pp. engraved titlepage by Cor. Cl. Duysent, top of titlepage cut off, below the engraving on the titlepage is written in ink (and crossed out): Georgii Henrici Lahrenii. There are names of previous owners in ink on the flyleaf in the front: ‘H.A. Oort’ and ‘J. Brugman’, engraved portrait at the end of the foreword, notes in ink in the text, ink stain on the edges of 100pp. full vellum binding (spitselband), block loose from binding in the front, in the back the connection between binding and book block is still intact. The loose binding in the front, makes it possible to look at how the book was constructed: old strips of parchment with gothic (medieval ?) handwriting (macculatuur) were used to reinforce the spine of the bookblock and contemporary waste paper with german printwork was used to cover the boards of the binding, underneath the parchment.
The book was written by Caius Sallustius Crispus (86-35 B.C). Gaius Sallustius Crispus or Sallust was a historian and politician of the Roman Republic from a plebeian family. Probably born at Amiternum in the country of the Sabines, Sallust became a partisan of Julius Caesar (100 to 44 BC), circa 50s BC. He is the earliest known Latin-language Roman historian with surviving works to his name, of which Conspiracy of Catiline on the eponymous conspiracy, The Jugurthine War on the eponymous war, and this book Histories (of which only fragments survive) remain extant. As a writer, Sallust was primarily influenced by the works of the 5th-century BC Greek historian Thucydides. During his political career he amassed great and ill-gotten wealth from his governorship of Africa.His last work, Historiae, covered events from 78 BC; none of it survives except a fragment of book 5, concerning the year 67 BC. From the extant fragments, he seemed to again emphasize moral decline after Sulla; he ‘was not generous to Pompey’. Historians regret the loss of the work, as it 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). Scarce first edition published by the famous publisher Elsevier of Leiden.
