tacitus

the greatest historian of Imperial Rome:

First complete edition in English of the works of Tacitus
in handsome contemporary binding

"A worke I take here in hande containing sundry changes, bloudie battailes, violent mutinees, peace full of cruelty and perill: four Emperors slaine with sword, three civil warres, forraine many more, and oft both at once: good success in East, bad in the West."-Tacitus, Histories

TACITUS, Cornelius. The Annales of Cornelius Tacitus. The Description of Germanie. 1604; The End of Nero and Beginning of Galba. Foure Bookes of the Histories of Cornelius Tacitus. The Life of Agricola. The Third edition. 1604. London: John Norton, (1605). Folio in sixes, contemporary full calf with gilt flower lozenge on center of both front and back
boards. $1900.

First complete edition in English of the works of Tacitus, arguably the greatest of all Roman historians.

Cornelius Tacitus was "the greatest historian of Imperial Rome. His first work was a dialogue that discussed the shortcomings of contemporary oratory. He followed this by a biography of his father-in-law Julius Agricola and by an ethnographical account of the German tribes. The former provides a useful description of Roman Britain, the latter contains one of the earliest representations of the Noble Savage. His fame rests however on his Annales (18 books, of which 11 and part of a 12th survive) and his Histories (12 books, of which 4 and part of a 5th survive), which related events from the death of Augustus to the Flavian period.

Tacitus' avowed aim was to keep alive the memory of virtuous actions so that posterity could judge them, and his great achievement was to have drawn a picture of how men must live under tyranny... The Agricola and the Histories were translated into English by Sir Henry Savile (1591), the Germania and Annales by Richard Greneway (1598); and after this Tacitus became in Donne's phrase the 'Oracle of Statesmen'..." (Drabble). The English translations by Greneway and Savile were hugely influential in Elizabethan England and are believed to have been significant Shakespeare sources. This 1604-05 edition brings the translations together in one edition for the first time.

Provenance: from the libraries of J.E.B. Mayor (1825-1910), noted Latin scholar and Roman historian (highly regarded for his edition of Juvenal) and Fellow of St John's College, Cambridge; and Robert George Windsor, the first Earl of Plymouth (1857-1923).

Neat underlining throughout (probably in Mayor's hand). Repaired tear to top margin of title (not affecting text). Light marginal damstaining to first ten and last four leaves. One folding chart. General wear to binding. A handsome copy, impressively bound in contemporary calf.