JUSTINUS, Marcus Junianus. [and] FLORUS, Lucius Annaeus. [with] LUCIAN OF SAMOSATA. [and] DIODORUS SYCULUS.

In the original C15 binding, two of the most important textbooks of the medieval period. The second work, largely untrimmed, opens with the second edition of Lucian of Samosata’s ‘Verae Historiae’ (2^nd cent.), considered the earliest surviving work of science fiction. A famous satirist, Lucian begins by stating his account is, in fact, a big lie, and proceeds to narrate the most surreal and fantastic adventures, described as ‘historiae’, which bring to exaggeration some of the classic commonplaces of ancient histories. The author and his fellow travellers go beyond the Pillars of Hercules. Flying through space, they reach the Moon – which Lucian describes – where they strive to avoid a war between the King of the Moon and the King of the Sun, and their armies made of alien creatures, for the colonization of the Morning Star. They are later swallowed by a whale so big its stomach is inhabited, they see gigantic insects, and meet the heroes of Troy on the Island of the Blessed, as well as speaking statues much resembling automata, and ‘intelligent’ lamps who have formed their own society. ‘With this celestial war, the wondrous and bizarre creatures, and Lucian’s ability to venture into space, the notion of utopian and even modern science fiction has been raised in the context of “Verae Historiae”’ (Clay, p.38), including such commonplace tropes as gigantic creatures or societies formed by sentient objects, with implicit comparison to human society. The second text, Diodorus Siculus’s (1^st cent.) ‘Bibliotheca historica’, is a history which encompasses the whole known world, from Mesopotamia to India, Egypt, Arabia, Africa and Europe, with great attention to the Empire of Alexander the Great.

First printed in 1470, the first work includes two ‘epitomae’, i.e., compilations. The Roman historian Justinus (2^nd cent. AD) compiled the most interesting and useful excerpts from Pompeius Trogus’ ‘Liber Historiarum Philippicarum’ (1^st cent. AD), here edited by the Bolognese humanist Philippus Beroaldus. It is a history of the Kings of Macedonia and an ethnographic and geographical account of the territories eventually conquered by Alexander the Great. It is followed by a compendium of Roman history by Lucius Annaeus Florus (c.1^st cent AD), a major historian born in Africa under Emperor Hadrian. The ‘epitome’ is based on Livy’s ‘Ab Urbe Condita’, and reaches down to 25BC, touching on the causes of Rome’s expansion and decline. Untrimmed, original copies.