1631 Rare Latin Book - Silius Italicus War Against Hannibal, Second Punic War's Poem.
(Description)
Author: Silius Italicus.
Title: De Secundo Bello Punico.
Publisher: Amsterodami, Apud Guiljelmum Blaeuw, Anno MDCXXXI (1631).
Language: Text in Latin.
Size: 4.5" X 2.5".
Pages: 304 pages.
Binding: Attractive and very good contemporary full calf leather binding (hinges fine, overall slightly scuffed and worn - as shown) under a protective mylar cover.
Content: Very good content (bright, tight, and clean, rare light staining or foxing - as shown, small old bookseller stamp on the first endpaper - as shown, manuscript name on title page - as shown).
Illustration: Complete with the nice illustrated title page.
Estimate : (USD 200 - USD 300)
The book: A rare early 17th-century edition of Italicus' Poem. The Punica is a Latin epic poem in seventeen books in dactylic hexameter written by Silius Italicus (c. 28 – c. 103 AD) comprising some twelve thousand lines (12,202, to be exact if one includes a probably spurious passage in book 8). It is the longest surviving Latin poem from antiquity. Its theme is the Second Punic War and the conflict between the two great generals Hannibal and Scipio Africanus. The poem was re-discovered in either 1416 or 1417 by the Italian humanist and scholar Poggio Bracciolini.
The author: Silius Italicus, in full Tiberius Catius Asconius Silius Italicus (c. 28 – c. 103 AD), was a Roman consul, orator, and Latin epic poet of the 1st century AD (Silver Age of Latin literature). His only surviving work is the 17-book Punica, an epic poem about the Second Punic War or War Against Hannibal and the longest surviving poem in Latin at over 12,000 lines.