The Life of Alexander the Great.

RUFUS, Quintus Curtius. Translated into English by Several Gentlemen at the University of Cambridge.

Item Number: 140203

London: Printed for Gilbert Cownly at the Popes-Head, 1687.

Rare 17th century English translation of the only surviving extant Latin biography of Alexander the Great. Octavo, bound in full period mottled calf with raised bands to the spine, all edges speckled red, wood-engraved frontispiece. In good condition.

The only surviving extant Latin biography of Alexander the Great, The Histories of Alexander the Great was written by the Roman historian Quintus Curtius Rufus in the 1st-century AD, but the earliest surviving manuscript dates to the 9th century. Curtius Rufus served as Consul Suffectus in AD 43 under the emperor Claudius. He must have written the Histories in the year or two before the consulship. Tacitus says that he was on the staff of the Quaestor of Africa during that time, which would have given him the opportunity to use the Library of Alexandria.