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[ SOLD OUT ] PUBLILIUS SYRUS, Sententiae. Ad fidem codicum optimorum primum recensuit E. Woelfflin. Accedit incerti auctoris liber qui vulgo dicitur de moribus. Teubner, Leipzig, 1869. 165p. Rebound. Library number on tail spine and paste-down endpaper. (Rare). 'Publilius Syrus was brought to Rome (...) as a slave in the 1st cent. BC. According to Macrobius he was freed for his wit and educated by his master and composed and performed his own mimes throughout Italy. Invited by Ceasr to perform at the games of 46 BC he challenged other mime-writers to improvise on a given scenario and was declared victor by Caesar over his chief rival Laberius. (...) In the 1st cent. AD apophthegms uttered by various dramatic roles in the mimes were selected and alphabetically arranged as proverbial wisdom for schoolboyd to copy or memorize. (...) It is difficult to distinguish original Publilian sententiae from accretions due to paraphrase of genuine verses, or insertions of Senecan and pseudo-Senecan ideas, or distortions of the original iambic senarii and trochaic septenarii that led copyists to mistake them for prose. One would not expect a common ethical standard among maxims spoken by different characters in a mime. Some contradict others, as proverbs often do. Although many advacate selfish pragmatism, their prevailing terseness of expression gives them an undeniable attraction.' (ELAINE FANTHAM in The Oxford Classical Dictionary, 3rd rev.ed. 2003, p.1276). (Antiquarian) (approx. delivery time: undeliverable)