8vo. (XVI),411,(36 index),(1 blank) p. Vellum 16 cm (Ref: Not in Schweiger) (Details: Five thongs laced through both joints. Title in red & black. Engraved printer's device on the title, depicting Hermes and Athena, between them the fountain struck by Pegasus, it's motto: 'Ex hoc fonte licet cuique levare sitim') (Condition: Vellum soiled. 'Nepos' in curly ink letters on both boards. Some old ink annotations in the margins) (Note: This is a school edition with notes of the only surviving complete work of the Roman historian Cornelius Nepos, ca. 100-24 B.C., De excellentibus ducibus exterrarum gentium, also known as De excellentibus Viris. This very well preserverd schoolbook was produced after the manner of the Dutch schoolmaster Johannes Minellius, an industrious and successfull compiler of schoolbooks. He published the works of several classical authors with ample notes which were easy to understand by young schoolboys who were still inexperienced in Latin, or just lazy. Minellius, or Min-ellius, born ca. 1625, was educated at the Schola Erasmiana at Rotterdam, and was from 1650 onward till his death in 1683 a Praeceptor at that school. Minellius' schoolbooks with accompanying annotations were a tremendous success. In 1653 he published his first, Sallustius, then Valerius Maximus in 1661, Florus in 1664, Terence in 1665, Vergil in 1666, Horace in 1668 and Ovid in 1684. His books were reissued many times, and his manner was followed by schoolmasters all over Europe, who wanted to participate in his success and who produced school-editions ad modum Joanni Minellii. At the end of the 17th and in the 18th century his editions were widely used on Dutch grammar schools. After that they were barred from the schools because they were too unscientific, and offered too much help. They were esteemed to be pontes asinorum (Van der Aa 12,2 p. 873). Minellius never published a Nepos edition. The printer/bookseller of this Nepos nevertheless announces on the very first page of the Lectori that this is an edition cum notis Minellii. In the following preface the anonymous compiler however eases off the pedal, and explains that Minellius never touched Nepos, but that the publisher asked him to make a Nepos secundum ejusdem institutum. § Cornelius Nepos is the author of the first surviving ancient collection of biographies. De excellentibus etc. contains the lives of 20 Greek generals, and the Carthaginians Hamilkar and Hannibal. Nepos corresponded with Cicero and was close with Cicero's friend Atticus. The collection served probably as a model for Plutarch's Vitae Parallelae. In his own days and in late antiquity Nepos was considered to be a source of importance. The churchfather Hieronymus included him in his De viris illustribus (392 A.D.) in his list of great authors and historians) (Collation: *8, A-2E8 (leaf 2E8 verso blank)) (Photographs on request)