CRITICAL COMMENTS ON CHRONOLOGY
VELLEIUS PATERCULUS.
Historiae Romanae duo volumina, ad M. Vinicium Cos. progenerum Tiberii Caesaris, per Beatum Rhenanum Selestadiensem ab interitu utcunque vindicata.
[(Colophon:) Basel, Johann Froben, November 1520.]
Folio, pp. [xii], 70, [14]; woodcut borders to title, p. [iii], and p. [1], large woodcut initials and ornaments, woodcut printer’s devices to verso of colophon and last page; three small wormholes running throughout (without loss of legibility), a few small marks, remains of fore-edge tab to title, a very good copy; in modern vellum over boards, manuscript title in ink to spine, yapp fore-edges; boards slightly bowed; marginal and interlinear annotations in a sixteenth-century German hand to c. 50 pp., notes in the same hand to three slips tipped in to pp. 5, 15, and 29, blank slip tipped in to p. 23, occasional manicules, some underlining, a few eighteenth-century marginalia, traces of old circular ink stamp to title verso.
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Historiae Romanae duo volumina, ad M. Vinicium Cos. progenerum Tiberii Caesaris, per Beatum Rhenanum Selestadiensem ab interitu utcunque vindicata.
Editio princeps of a summary history of Rome to AD 29 by the soldier-turned-historian Velleius Paterculus, edited from a now lost manuscript by the German humanist Beatus Rhenanus (1485–1547), with tipped-in notes by a contemporary student of Roman history displaying a remarkable concern for accuracy.
The only surviving Roman historian between Livy and Tacitus, Velleius served for several years with the army in Germany. Of his two-book history, the first, down to 146 BC, is almost entirely lost. His work ‘shows partiality for the imperial house of the Caesars and enthusiasm, reaching adulation, for Tiberius … His interest is in individuals and the biographical sketches are valuable e.g. that of Tiberius (which is in strong contrast with the picture given by Tacitus) and on a small scale those of Caesar, Pompey, and Maecenas. The history is notable also for its chapters on the evolution of Latin literature’ (Oxford Companion to Classical Literature).
Velleius’ text, taken from a manuscript discovered in the abbey of Murbach by Beatus Rhenanus and collated by his secretary Albert Bürer, was printed at Basel by Johann Froben, in whose house Rhenanus appears to have lived for some time. Froben’s attractive woodcut borders used in this edition incorporate representations of various virtues and vices. Dibdin remarks that when the edition appeared ‘it was considered throughout Italy to be a spurious work’.
The annotations within this copy show a remarkable critical engagement with the chronology given in Velleius’ text. Our annotator has marked various passages on pp. 4–5 from a to h, and his adjoining tipped-in note tackles each of these in turn with comments such as ‘Numeros a, d, g non intelligo’ and ‘numerum b falsum dico’. The tipped-in slips to pp. 15 and 29 carry notes in a similar vein, taking issue with Velleius’ dates regarding Scipio’s consulship and the Second Punic War, citing Livy and Solinus for comparison.
A very interesting comment on contemporary religious troubles appears on p. 13. Where Velleius writes at II.3, ‘This was the beginning in Rome of civil bloodshed … From this time on right was crushed by might … the disputes of the citizens which were once healed by amicable agreements were now settled by arms, and wars were now begun not for good cause but for what profit there was in them’ (Loeb), our annotator refers to both Catholics and Lutherans, writing ‘et papistis et Lutheranis observand’.
A few later marginal annotations refer to the eighteenth-century edition of Velleius by the Dutch classical scholar Pieter Burmann.
USTC 682237; VD 16 V 516.
