Expeditionis Alexandri Libri Septem et Historia Indica. Ex Bonav. Vulcanii Interpretatione Latina post variam aliorum …

One volume folio (325 x 205 mm), gilt vellum, spine with six raised bands decorated with the title in gilt letters and richly decorated boxes, roulettes framing the boards with gilt irons at the corners, arms of the city of Amsterdam in the center of the boards. Binding soiled, traces of binding, a small hole in the upper board. A few browned leaves, some foxing.

(1) f. title, (4) ff, 376 pp, (6) pp. index, portrait of the author. Edition with corrections and remarks by Jacob Gronovius.

Copy illustrated with a full-page engraved portrait of Gronovius and two in-text illustrations.

The title engraved in black and red, and the text in Greek and Latin on 2 columns, with comments in Latin at the bottom of each page. Letters at the beginning of each book for both languages.

Flavius Arrien, Greek historian born in Nicomedia in Bithynia (Izmit in present-day Turkey) (c. 90-115), disciple of the famous philosopher Epictetus who had been exiled in Epirus, wrote the Manual and the Talks of his master, the only source we have of this philosopher. He also had a brilliant political and military career: he was legate of Cappadocia and repelled an invasion of the Alans. Considered a wise and skilful writer, Arrien is best known as the historian of Alexander, whose expedition he retraced in seven books, entitled the Anabasis, a work distinguished by great impartiality and judicious criticism [...] and in which he offers a reliable and detailed description of the military campaigns of Alexander the Great with a precision of strategic and geographical details. For this, he relies on authorities, the main ones being Aristobulus of Cassandreia, contemporary of Alexander who wrote his Memoirs, a historical source (now lost) of Alexander's conquests, and Ptolemy Soter, general of Alexander.

He attaches to his Expedition of Alexander, the Indica, a summary of the science of the time on the Indies, according to Megasthenes (diplomat, historian and geographer of ancient Greece, contemporary of Alexander) and according to the diary of the skilful navigator Nearchus (companion of Alexander the Great who piloted the expedition between the Indus and the Euphrates and explored the Arabian Sea and the Persian Gulf).

This book [...] contains [...] still valuable notions on the geography and history of the countries that the Macedonian conquest had almost revealed to Europe. (Le Grand Larousse, Tome I, p. 308 and 689; Hoeffer, Nouvelle biographie générale, Tome 3, p. 355-357, Tome 22, p. 153-156)The best editions of Arrien are those of Jacques Gronovius, Leiden 1704 [...] with a Latin translation by Bonaventure Vulcanius.

The best editions of Arrien are those of Jacques Gronovius, Leiden 1704 [...] with a Latin translation by Bonaventure Vulcanius. 

Jacques Gronovius (1645-1716), a famous Dutch philologist and son of the no less famous humanist Jean-Frédéric Gronovius, studied the authors of antiquity. He travelled extensively, taught Greek at the University of Pisa, and then returned to Deventer (Netherlands) where he devoted himself to the study of antiquity. In 1679 he took over the chair of belles-lettres previously held by his father at the Academy of Leiden, and in 1702 he was appointed Geographer of the Academy. He worked on Herodotus, Arrien and the Greek geographers. He is best known for his indispensable Thesaurus Antiquitatum Graecarum, a detailed work on the political organisation and customs of Greece. He also worked extensively on the Latin translation of Greek texts by ancient authors.

A few slightly browned leaves, some small old angular restorations.