GREEK AND LATIN CLASSICS II
87.
Plutarch. Plutarch’s Lives, translated from the original Greek; with notes historical and critical; and a life of Plutarch. By John Langhorne, M.D. and William Langhorne M.A. Carefully corrected, and printed from the last London edition. In four volumes. Philadelphia: James Crissy. 1825, engraved portrait frontispiece in vol. i, light foxing and soiling, pencil ownership inscription to initial blank of Lyonnel Tovey of St. Petersburg (prob. the borough of Pennsylvania), dated Sept. 3rd 1859, pp. xvi, 440; 465; 471; 435, 8vo., contemp. tree sheep, backstrips divided by double gilt fillets, red morocco labels in second compartments, vol. numbers gilt-lettered direct in fourth, a touch rubbed and scratched, boards slightly bowed outward, good £200.00 This American printing of the Langhornes’ popular translation (first edition 1770) of Plutarch is, perhaps understandably, scarce in the UK. We can trace no copy in COPAC , although Worldcat gives holdings in 26 USA libraries. Even in the USA , however, it is probably not usually found in such a pleasant contemporary binding.
88.
Casaubon’s editio princeps Polyaenus. Stratagematum libri octo. Is. Casaubonus Graece nunc primum edidit, emendavit, & notis illustravit. Lyons: Apud Ioan. Tornaesium. 1589, EDITIO PRINCEPS of the Greek text, with facing Latin translation, browned, a wormtrail in gutter of three gatherings (sometimes touching catchword but never text), large pink stamp of the Antonianum Pontifical University and a paper shelfmark label to title, pp. [xvi], 754, [30], 16mo., later limp vellum, backstrip lettered in ink, a little soiled, sound £600.00 (Adams P1799; Schweiger I 271; Dibdin II 348) First published in a Latin translation in 1549, the Stratagems of War by Polyaenus were first printed in their original Greek here, by Isaac Casaubon, whom Scaliger described as ‘the greatest living expert in ancient Greek, and as the most learned man alive’ ( ODNB ). The text is ‘from a very imperfect MS., which he procured at great expense. The preface affords an idea of the labour and trouble with which the work was composed’ (Dibdin). Polyaenus dedicated the Stratagems of War to Marcus Aurelius and Verus during the Parthian war in the second century AD. The books give accounts of stratagems used by famous generals, mostly Greek, but with a book each dedicated to Romans, foreigners, and women. At least five abridgements were made in the Byzantine period, demonstrating its popularity, but the original seems to have dropped from circulation after that; all the manuscripts currently known derive from one thirteenth-century version in the Laurentian Library.
89.
Polyaenus. Strategematum libri octo. Recensuit Justi Vulteii versionem Latinam emendavit et indicem Graecum adjecit Samuel Mursinna. Berlin: Sumtibus A. Haude et I.C. Speneri. 1756, some foxing, pp. [xii], 550, 8vo., nineteenth-century black calf, functionally rebacked, backstrip with five raised bands, label in second compartment, marbled edges and endpapers, the old leather chipped and rubbed at edges, crackled around the repair, sound £250.00 The third edition of the Greek text, following the 1589 editio princeps (q.v. supra ) and a 1690 Leiden printing. The editor, Samuel Mursinna (1717-1795), was primarily a theologian, and this seems to be his only classical work.
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