Polybii Lycortae F. Megalopolitani Historiarum libri qui supersunt.

POLYBIUS

Hieronymus Drovardus

Paris

1609

Text in Greek and Latin. With notes and translation into Latin by Isaac Casaubon. Two parts in one volume.

Polybius (200-c. 118 BC) was a Greek historian who describes here the Punic Wars as well as the Roman institutions that led to its domination of the Mediterranean sphere. Polybius is important for his analysis of the mixed constitution or the separation of powers in government, which was influential on Montesquieu's The Spirit of the Laws and the framers of the United States Constitution. A French classicist born of Huguenot refugee stock, Isaac Casaubon (1559–1614) was a Hebrew scholar too, taking a serious interest in Jewish studies. See Anthony Grafton & Joanna Weinberg: Isaac Casaubon, the Jews and a Forgotten Chapter in Renaissance Scholarship (2011).