EK TÔN POLUBIOU TOU MEGALOPOLITOU EKLOGAI PERI PRESBEIÔN. Ex libris Polybii Megalopolitani Selecta de legationibus; et alia quae sequenti pagina indicantur: Nunc primum in lucem edita. Ex bibliotheca Fulvii Ursini.

The Greek author Polybius, ca. 200 - 118 B.C., born at Megalopolis, is the historian of the rise of Rome to world power. After the lost battle at Pydna in 168, where Greece lost its independence, young Polybius was, among 1000 other eminent Achaeans, deported to Rome, and held hostage there. In Rome he became a member of the circle of the Roman magistrate Scipio Aemilianus, whom he accompanied on his campaigns through Spain and Africa. There he developed a warm admiration for the Romans. Of Polybius' 'Histories', consisting of 42 books, only the first 5 books are extant, the rest is lost, except excerpts, the so-called Constantinean Excerpts, or Selecta, which survived. 'His original purpose was to narrate the history of the 53 years (220-168), from the Hannibalic War to Pydna, which left Rome mistress of the world' (OCD 2nd ed. p. 853). He did so from a Roman point of view. Later in life he extented his work to the year 120. Polybius aim was didactic; he wanted to inform the statesman and to teach 'the general reader how to face disaster' (OCD). He narrated and analysed political and military events to bring out their causes. The rise of Rome to her deserved and destined supremacy over the civilized world was according to him the work of Destiny. He was the last Greek historian who may claim high rank. Polybius was widely read in Byzantine times, and after his 'rediscovery' in the West, the Florentine statesman Macchiavelli used him as a political thinker. He was edited and analysed by great philologists like Poliziano and Casaubon. § The Constantinean Excerpts, of which the 'Selecta de Legationibus', or 'Excerpta de Legationibus' (On diplomacy) form part, were compiled when the Byzantine emperor Constantine VII Porphyrogenitus, 913-959, ordered the creation of a kind of encyclopaedias of History, Agriculture and Medicine. They were to contain excerpts from the most important ancient texts, most of which are now lost.

Overall, a fascinating object with rich historical value and a key insight into lost texts. PRICE HAS BEEN REDUCED TO ALLOW FOR NECESSARY RESTORATION.