4to. 2 volumes: (IV, frontispiece & title),(XX),808;420,(2),(34 plates),202,(5 index numismaticum in Caroli Patini figuris & notis),(1 blank) p.; p. 421-492;(204 indices),(1),(3 blank) p. Brown morocco. 27 cm (Ref: STCN ppn 183108442; Schweiger 2,979/80; Dibdin 2,442/43: 'a very valuable edition'; Moss 2,632; Fabricius/Ernesti 2,459; Brunet 5,583; Graesse 6/1,523; Ebert 21937) (Details: Backs gilt and with 4 raised bands. Boards with gilt quadruple fillets. Marbled endpapers and edges. Frontispiece produced by W. Jong, it depicts Father Time unveiling a monument for Suetonius in the middle of a kind of Pantheon; in the foreground sits a crowned woman writing a book; at her feet the spoils won in battles. Title printed in red and black. Engraved printer's mark on the title, depicting a mole, flanked by Athena and Hermes; the motto reads: 'Vulgo caeca vocor, video sed acutius ipso'. Occasional small engraved illustrations in the text) (Condition: Joint of the lower board of volume 1 starting to split. The back of volume 2 has been expertly repaired and laid down on brown cloth, a small piece of the leather is gone. The endpapers of the second volume have been renewed with new marbled endpapers. Some slight foxing) (Note: The Roman historian Suetonius, born c. 69 A.D, is the most influential and best known biographer in the Latin language. He was appointed secretary to the emperor Hadrian, a job that gave him access to the imperial records and archive. He made good use of his sources, writing the Lives of the XII Caesars, or 'De vita Caesarum'. The collection consists of the biographies of 12 emperors, from Caesar, the founder of the imperial line, to Domitian. 'Suetonius, like Plutarch, believed that a person's character could be revealed in small and insignificant details'. He 'organized his Lives by topics (per species) rather than chronologically'. (The Classical Tradition, Cambr. Mass. 2010, p. 912/13) Beyond simplicity and clearness he has no stylistic pretentions. He quotes verbatim from documents he knew, and shows critical ability. 'The great number of scurrilous anecdotes in most of the lives may be due to the nature of his sources'. (OCD, 2nd ed. p. 1020/1) Of another of his works, 'De viris illustribus', a collection biographies of famous Roman authors, the lives of Lucan, Horace, Vergil and Terence have survived, and his 'Liber de illustribus grammaticis', and his 'De claris rhetoribus liber'. Suetonius was read in the Middle Ages. The Frank Einhard wrote a biography of Charlemagne along the lines of a Live of Suetonius. § From the Renaissance onward Suetonius was neglected. Pioneering work was done by the French scholar Isaac Casaubon, who produced an excellent text and a valuable commentary. (Geneva 1595/1615) This work was continued by the Dutch scholar Johann Georg Graeve, or in Latin Johannes Georgius Graevius, 1632-1703, with his great Suetonius edition of 1672. This edition became, with her numerous reissues and revisions, the foundation for the widespread study of Suetonius in the Netherlands and in England, and in the next (18th) century the scholarly interest in Suetonius has been greater than ever before or since. § Gibbon praised Suetonius for his strict dedication to historical truth. Nowadays 'historians of Rome take him more seriously than do literary critics'. (The Classical Tradition, Cambr. Mass., 2010, p. 913) § This copious and excellent Suetonius edition of 1736 is a so-called 'Variorum' edition. It offers a 'textus receptus' which is widely accepted, accompanied with the commentary and the annotations of various specialists, taken, or excerpted from earlier useful, normative or renewing editions. Editions like these, 'cum notis Variorum', were useful, but never broke new ground. Their production was the specialty of Dutch scholars of the 17th and 18th century. § The Dutch latinist Petrus Burmannus based his edition on that of Graevius of 1672. It contains the complete notes of the best commentators, such as Egnatius, Glareanus, Torrentius, Casaubon and Gruter, and selections and excerpts from others. Burmannus added also many excellent notes of his own. Petrus Burmannus, 1668-1741, was professor of Latin at the University of Utrecht from 1696, and at Leiden from 1715. As an editor Burmannus was an industrious manufacturer of 'Variorum' Editions. He confined himself to the Latin classics. He edited Phaedrus, Horace, Claudian, Ovid, Lucan, and the Poetae Latini Minores, Petronius, Quintilian and Suetonius. (Sandys 2, p. 343/5)) (Provenance: On the front flyleaf in ballpoint the name of 'Lennart Hakanson', 1939-1987, professor of Latin at the university of Uppsala) (Collation: Volume 1: pi2, *-2*4, 3*2; A-5I4. Volume 2: A-3F4, 3G2, chi1; (34 plates) A- 2C4 (verso leaf 2C4 blank); *3H2, 3H-4S4; chi2 (chi1 recto: binder's instruction; leaf chi1 verso and chi2 blank)) (Photographs on request) (Heavy set, may require extra shipping costs)