ZOSIMUS.
Ιστοριας νεας βιβλοι ἑξ … Historiae novae libri sex, notis illustrate.
Oxford, Sheldonian Theatre, 1679.
8vo, pp. [viii], 384; copper-engraved Sheldonian device to title, printed in Greek and Latin in parallel columns; title a little soiled, occasional light foxing; contemporary calf, old rebacking, recornered, endpapers renewed; somewhat rubbed.
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Ιστοριας νεας βιβλοι ἑξ … Historiae novae libri sex, notis illustrate.
First Oxford edition of this history of the Roman Empire from Augustus to the year 410, by the fifth-century Greek historian Zosimus. The work is an important source particularly for the period 395-410 and its pagan author attributes Rome’s decline to its embrace of Christianity and rejection of the pagan gods.
This edition is the work of the Oxford clergyman and classical scholar Thomas Spark (1655–1692), and includes a dedication jointly to the Dean of Westminster, John Dolben, and to his former schoolmaster Richard Busby. He also produced editions of Herodian and Lactantius, soon after disparaged by Thomas Hearne as “a poor Performance, the Text being very uncorrect and the Notes from MSS. very mean, he having taken no pains to collate them accurately” (ODNB).
Provenance: the Chatsworth copy, with the gilt monogram stamp of William George Spencer Cavendish, sixth Duke of Devonshire (1790–1858) to spine and bookplate to upper pastedown.
ESTC R22314; Madan III, 3242; Wing Z15.
