AISCHINOU TOU SÔKRATIKOU DIALOGOI TREIS. Aeschinis Socratici Dialogi tres. De novo recensuit, vertit, et animadversionibus suis auxit Petrus Horreus G.F. Accedunt ad calcem Fragmenta & Indices copiosi.

8vo. (XVI),181,(66 indices),(1 blank) p. Vellum. 21 cm (Ref: STCN ppn 15718997X; Hoffmann 1,29: ‘der Herausg. besserte zwar vieles, war aber nicht sorgsam genug in Benutzung der früheren Ausgg.’; Dibdin 1,234; Brunet 1,75; Ebert 177; Schweiger 1,6: ‘Selten’; Graesse 1,28) (Details: 6 thongs laced through the joints. Title in red & black. Woodcut printer’s mark on the title, in its center a medallion of Constantine the Great, the motto reads: ‘In hoc signo’, short for ‘in hoc signo vinces’; In a vision Constantine the Great heard these words, and saw in the sky a Cross, or the Greek letters Chi and Rho, before his conversion to Christianity, and the battle of Milvian Bridge in 312 AD; the cross in the sky is also depicted on the printer’s mark. Greek text with parallel Latin translation, commentary in 2 columns below the text. Thick paper of good quality) (Condition: Vellum slightly soiled and spotted. Small name on the front pastedown. Old calligraphed Latin inscription entitled ‘De Aeschine vel eius Dialogis’ on a leaf inserted before the front flylaef. On the front flyleaf an old ownership inscription in ink) (Note: Aeschines was born ca. 430/20 B.C. and died after 375/6. He was a pupil of the Athenian philosopher Socrates, and was present at his famous deathbed. He wrote 7 dialogues with Socrates as the main speaker, all of which have been lost. Presented here are three dialogues which already in antiquity were ascribed to him: ‘De virtute, an doceri possit’, ‘Eryxias, sive de divitiis’, and ‘Antiochus sive de morte’. They were first published in the Plato edition of Aldus Manutius in 1513, and repeated in the Stephanus edition of Plato of 1578. Le Clerc was the first to publish the 3 dialogues separately under the name of Socrates Scholasticus (Amsterdam, 1711). Brunet considers the edition of Le Clerc to be inferior to that of Horreus, ‘ou sont des notes meilleurs et plus concises’. Since Bekker (Heidelberg 1810) they are considered to be spurious again, and nowadays they are numbered among the spurious works of Plato. The genuine, but lost dialogues seem to have been full of Socratic irony. Hermogenes, ‘Peri Ideon’, considers Aeschines as superior to Xenophon in elegance and purity of style. Aeschines must have been much like his master. Ancient authors tell about him that he had his character, and that his dialogues are true accounts of the Socratic dialogues. (NP 1,346/7) § Petrus Horreus, 1695-1772, of Frisian birth, stayed close to home and began his studies at the University of Franeker. In 1718, when still a student, he published these 3 ‘spurious’ dialogues of Aeschines. In the praefatio Horreus explains that his Praeceptor Lambertus Bos, professor Greek since 1704, encouraged him to publish Aeschines Socraticus. Later in life, while a minister of the protestant church, he published his ‘Observationes criticae’ (Leeuwarden 1735), and 3 years later ‘Miscellanorum criticorum libri duo’. (Leeuwarden/Harlingen 1738) (NNBW 8,849)) (Provenance: Frisian provenance. On the front flyleaf: ‘Dono mihi dedit huncce librum vir Amplissimus ac gravissimus Hobbe Baerd â Sminia, Supremae Frisiae Curiae Senator Primarius, Ao 1718’. The donator of this book is Hobbe Baerdt van Sminia, member of a Frisian noble family. Hobbe, 1655-1721, was President Councillor at the Court of Justice of Frisia at Leeuwarden, i.e. ‘Consiliarius Primarius’ or ‘Senator Primarius’ of the ‘Suprema Frisiae Curia’. (NNBW 10,939) § He gave this book in the year it was published to one ‘? Reinalda, ? D:M: op ????’. The Reinalda family also belonged to the Frisian elite. § On the front pastedown in ink: ‘G.C. Gonggrijp, 1760’. Not much is known of this member of the Frisian family Gonggrijp. Mr. G.C. Gonggrijp was a jurist. He died before 1809, and was once the owner of real estate in Bakkeveen and in Leeuwarden. He made also the calligraphed inscription on the front flyleaf) (Collation: *8, A-M8, N-R4, S8 (leaf S8 verso blank)) (Photographs on request)