BAUMAN RARE BOOKS 42 52SUETONIUS (HOLLAND, Philemon, translator). The Historie of Twelve Caesars, Emperors of Rome. WITH: JUSTINUS, M. Junianus. The Historie of Justine. London, 1606. Two volumes bound in one. Small folio in sixes (7-1/2 by 11 inches), contemporary full brown calf, raised bands. $24,000 First edition in English of Suetonius’ dramatic biographies of the Caesars, the important Holland translation, bound together with a 1606 edition of Justinus’ widely read abridgment of Pompeius Trogus’ Historiae Philippica. Suetonius’ work is “largely responsible for that vivid picture of Roman society and its leaders, morally and politically decadent, that dominated historical thought until modified in modern times by the discovery of nonliterary evidence. The biographies are organized by topics: the emperor’s family background, career before accession, public actions, private life, appearance, personality and death… The earlier lives down to Nero, especially those of Julius Caesar and Octavius Caesar, are much the fullest, perhaps because as an antiquarian Suetonius was drawn to the documentary byways of an earlier age… [it is] exciting reading” (Britannica). “Classical ‘lives’ became prototypes for later writings about individuals. A rival for Plutarch was Suetonius (flourished A.D. 112-121), whose Lives of the Caesars overflowed with anecdotes of lust, violence, and idiosyncrasy” (Boorstin, The Creators, 586). Holland was considered the “translator general in his age… while the plague raged at Coventry [where Holland lived] in 1605-06, Holland translated Suetonius’ Historie of Twelve Caesars” (DNB). Interior generally crisp and clean; paper flaw to leaf P5 of Suetonius, affecting letters but not the sense of the text, occasional light dampstaining to top edge of Justinus. Expert restoration to joints, which are cracked but holding firm. An exceptional copy. “Overflowed With Anecdotes Of Lust, Violence, And Idiosyncrasy”
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