Sallustio - Bellum Catilinarium, et Jugurthinum - 1730

CATILINE AND JUGURTHA: SALLUSTIUS IN OXFORD'S ELEGANT 1730 EDITION
ABSTRACT
Elegant oxonian edition of 1730 of Gaio Sallustio Crispo’s two great historical monographs, devoted to the Catiline conspiracy and to the Jugurthine War. The text is presented according to Johann Wasse’s revision and accompanied by the extensive scholastic commentary of Johannes Minellius. A fundamental classic for understanding the moral, political, and institutional crisis of the Roman Republic in the 1st century BC. An interesting edition intended for the study of the classics, with the Latin text surrounded by a dense apparatus of explanatory notes.
A specimen preserved in an elegant parchment binding, with a green inlay on the gold-decorated spine.

WHY TO BUY
OXFORD 1730 – Interesting eighteenth-century university edition printed in Oxford for the Societas Stationariorum, emblematic of the great British tradition of classical studies.
CATILINE AND JUGURTHA – Brings together Sallustius’s two major works, indispensable testimonies on political corruption, civil wars, and the progressive crisis of the Roman Republic.
WASSE AND MINELLIUS – Text revised according to Johann Wasse’s edition and accompanied by the comments of Johannes Minellius, designed to facilitate linguistic and historical study of the classical authors.
ESTC T111400 – Edition identified in the English Short Title Catalogue, an important bibliographic reference for British book production of the period.

MARKET VALUE
Eighteenth-century school editions of Sallust are collected mainly for their typographic quality, scholarly provenance, binding, and completeness. The oxoniense edition of 1730 is bibliographically interesting, but does not belong to luxury or particularly rare editions of the author. For a complete specimen in the conditions shown, with the pleasant parchment binding, a reasonable antiquarian market range can be indicated at about €150-300. A particularly fresh specimen with significant provenance may justify a higher asking price.

PHYSICAL DESCRIPTION AND CONDITION
Full parchment binding, stiff boards, smooth spine with an elegant green inlay bearing in gold “SALLUST. / OXON. 1730”, framed by gold fillets and borders. Parchment with natural patina, tanning, small stains, and normal signs of use. Latin text accompanied by a dense apparatus of commentary arranged at the bottom and to the sides of the page, following the characteristic layout of school-use editions. Leaves with some browning and physiological foxing. In old books, with a long history, a few imperfections may be present, not always noted in the description. This listing contains AI Renderings. Please refer to the original photographs to verify the actual condition of the object. The images are an integral part of the description. Pp. (6); 4nn; 350; 26nn; (6).

FULL TITLE AND AUTHOR
Bellum Catilinarium, et Jugurthinum.
Oxonii [Oxford], Impensis Societatis Stationariorum, 1730.
Gaius Sallustius Crispus.

CONTEXT AND SIGNIFICANCE
Gaius Sallustius Crispo is one of the great interpreters of the crisis of the Roman Republic. Rather than merely recounting wars and conspiracies, Sallustius seeks to identify their moral and political causes: ambition, avarice, corruption, and the unrestrained struggle for power. The Bellum Catilinae reconstructs the conspiracy organized in 63 BC by Lucius Sergius Catilina against the Republic. Sallustius transforms the episode into a powerful analysis of the decay of the Roman ruling class, populated by figures such as Catiline, Caesar, and Cato. The Bellum Jugurthinum narrates the war waged by Rome against Jugurtha, king of Numidia, between 112 and 105 BC. Again, the military event becomes an occasion to denounce the corruption of the Roman aristocracy and to show the rise of new political and military actors, among them Gaius Marius. The 1730 edition belongs to the didactic tradition of Latin classics that spread widely in schools and European universities. The photographed page perfectly illustrates this function: a few lines of the original text are accompanied by a much more extensive apparatus of explanations, intended to clarify grammar, lexicon, syntax, history, and interpretation.

BRIEF BIOGRAPHY OF THE AUTHOR
Gaius Sallustius Crispo (c. 86 – 35/34 BC), native of Amiternum in Sabine territory, was a Roman historian and statesman. He directly participated in the turbulent political events of the late Republic and was close to Julius Caesar. After his political career he devoted himself mainly to historiography. His major surviving works are the Bellum Catilinae and the Bellum Jugurthinum; of the Historiae only fragments remain. His style, deliberately concise, archaising, and incisive, exerted a profound influence on Latin historiography and on European culture thereafter. Sallust did not conceive of history as a simple succession of events, but as an investigation into human passions and the moral causes of political crisis. Johannes Minellius, Latinized as Jan Minell, was a Dutch philologist and commentator active between the 17th and 18th centuries. His comments on the Latin classics were widely used in teaching and reprinted in numerous European editions. Johann Wasse (1672–1738) was an English classical philologist and scholar of great erudition, active in the British scholarly milieu, known for his critical work on ancient texts.

PRINTING HISTORY AND CIRCULATION
Sallust’s works were among the most frequently printed Latin historical texts from the early days of printing and soon became a stable part of European school curricula. In the 17th and 18th centuries, commented editions for students proliferated. The works of Johannes Minellius, characterized by abundant and readily accessible explanations next to the Latin text, enjoyed particular fortune. The Oxford edition of 1730 explicitly states that it was “ad ultimam Wassi editionem diligenter castigata,” i.e., carefully corrected on the basis of the latest Wasse edition, and to incorporate Minellius’s comments. The ESTC registration T111400 allows precise identification of this Oxford impression and its distinction from the numerous other eighteenth-century editions of the same text.

BIBLIOGRAPHY AND REFERENCES
ESTC – English Short Title Catalogue, T111400.
C. Sallustii Crispi, Bellum Catilinarium et Jugurthinum, Oxford, Impensis Societatis Stationariorum, 1730.
WorldCat, catalogs of eighteenth-century oxonian editions of Sallust.
Bodleian Libraries, University of Oxford, catalogs of classical editions printed in Oxford.
British Library, catalogs of eighteenth-century British editions of Latin classics.
COPAC / Jisc Library Hub Discover, census of copies in British scholarly libraries.
Bibliographies of Sallust editions and of the tradition of Johannes Minellius’s commentaries.
Bibliography of classical studies and the scholarly reception of Sallust in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries.