Charles Rollin - Histoire ancienne des Égyptiens, des Carthaginois, des Assyriens, des Babyloniens, des Mèdes et des - 1731-1738

Charles Rollin
Ancient history of the Egyptians, the Carthaginians, the Assyrians, the Babylonians, the Medes and Persians, the Macedonians, the Greeks.
According to M. Rollin, former Rector of the University of Paris, Professor of Eloquence at the College Royal, and Associate of the Royal Academy of Inscriptions and Belles-Lettres.
Second Edition viewed and corrected by the Author
At Widow Estienne's, Bookseller: rue Faint Jacques, opposite rue du Plâtre, at La Vertu. 1731-38

with the coat of arms of College Louis-le-Grand (Jesuits, Paris), under royal patronage.
The golden coat of arms is the heraldic bookplate of the 'Collège de Louis-le-Grand' or a French royal institution linked to the Université de Paris.
Charles Rollin was indeed the rector of the Université de Paris and the Collège de France, and many copies of his works were printed for academic or royal use, bearing the French royal coat of arms or that of the college.
'La Veuve Estienne', one of the most prestigious French typographies of the 18th century.

Pages XLVIII, 609, (10); 630, (10); VI, 771, (13), 1tav; (8), 598, (17), 1tav; VIII, 650, (14); 732, (10), 1tav; 650, (10); 723, (17), 1tav; 613, (10); 571, (13); VIII, 394, (5), 1tav; 395-782, (4), 1tav; (10), 768, 10 sup., (2)b, (10); (8), 217, (9) suppl., 302.


Ancient History by Charles Rollin, published in the early decades of the 18th century, is one of the most extensive and influential works of historical dissemination from the Enlightenment era. Designed as a manual for teaching, it gathers in multiple volumes the history of the main civilizations of the ancient Near East and the Mediterranean world: Egyptians, Carthaginians, Assyrians, Babylonians, Medes and Persians, Macedonians, and Greeks. Rollin, already rector of the University of Paris and a professor at the Collège Royal, aimed to provide a comprehensive and morally uplifting view of the past, based on the classical sources available at the time. Although not a historian in the modern sense, Rollin combined broad erudition with a clear and accessible narration, which played a decisive role in spreading ancient culture among the educated European public.
The second edition of 1731 was revised and corrected by the author himself and published by the Widow Estienne, one of the most renowned booksellers and printers in Paris at the time. This edition further cemented the success of the work, which was reprinted for decades and translated into many European languages. Rollin's didactic and moralizing approach, rooted in Christian values and civic virtues, reflected the interpretation of history as magistra vitae, that is, as an educational tool to understand human nature and political dynamics.
Despite the limitations of archaeological knowledge at the time, Histoire ancienne had a strong influence on the cultural formation of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, becoming a reference point for generations of students, intellectuals, and teachers. The work remains today a valuable document of pre-critical historiography and the European imagination of antiquity before the great archaeological discoveries of the nineteenth century.

The bindings of the first two volumes have some defects; the rest are in good condition, the interior is in good condition, with some scattered browning. (See photo).