Epistolarum Libri X [= Ten Books of Letters]; Notis integris Is. Casauboni . illustrati & accuratè recensiti, a Johanne Veenhusio

8vo. [52], 1-818, [28] pp. Full eighteenth-century red morocco with the spine in six and a half compartments, lettered and decorated in gold. Boards ruled in gold with the edges and turn-ins decorated with gold pointillé; all edges gilt. With a green silk ribbon bookmark bound in. Bound by Padeloupe in France. Illustrated with an engraved title page, a woodcut publisher's device on the printed title page, and with woodcut initials and headpieces. Early twentieth-century bookplate of Viscount Birkenhead on the front pastedown. Dibdin 331. Moss 494. Oxford Classical Dictionary 1198. Dibdin cites this imprint as one of the scarcest and most valuable of the octavo Variorum classics. This edition is praised for the elegance of its typography, the correctness of the text, and the usefulness of the commentary. Pliny the Younger was a soldier and a senator in the latter part of the first century A.C.E. into the second century A.C.E. During his lifetime he wrote and published nine books of literary letters, concerned with social, domestic, judicial, and political matters. These letters are rhetorically crafted with their syntax and semantics tooled to create a new literary style (new to Rome). His letters provide a history of quotidian matters in Rome, with plenty of anonymous criticisms (aimed at slave owners, political weasels, and the miserly). Senatorial debates, elections and trials, and other matters of public life are revealed in his letters. The final book is composed of letters between him and Trajan. These were likely first published after Pliny's death. These letters function as a historical source for understanding how the Romans governed their provinces. In one letter, Pliny describes one of the earliest accounts of Christian worship, and describes the prejudiced attitude of pagan people towards (what was then) the Christian minority in the Roman Empire. An illuminating history of Rome, beautifully bound. A Very Good or better copy with a touch of rubbing to the extremities, particularly to the bottom corners and the front joint. Bookseller's ticket on the verso of the free front endpaper.…