Project | Global Thucydides
Catalogue | Digital catalogue
Entry | Orationes ex Historia Thucydidis et insigniores aliquot Demosthenis et aliorum …
Typology: Translation | Language: Latin | Place of publication: Wittenberg | Publisher: apud heredesGeorgii Rhau | Year: 1562
Greek Text: no
Content: Anthologies | Pericles’ Funeral Oration | The Debate on Mytilene | The Stasis at Corcyra
The volume comprises Latin translations of selected Greek passages, largely from Thucydides: Thuc. 1.32-43 (Speech of the Corcyreans and the Corinthians), 53 (Speech of the Corinthians), 68-71 (Speech of the Corinthians), 73-78 (Speech of the Athenians), 80-86 (Speech of Archidamus), 120-124 (Speech of the Corinthians), 140-144 (Pericles' First Speech); 2.11 (Speech of Archidamus), 35-46 (Pericles' Funeral Oration), 60-64 (Pericles' Third Speech), 87 (Speech of Brasidas), 89-90 (Speech of Phormio); 3.9-14 (Speech of the Mytileneans), 37-40 (Speech of Cleon), 42-48 (Speech of Diodotus), 53-59 (Speech of the Plataeans), 61-67 (Speech of the Thebans), 82.2-85 (The Stasis at Corcyra); 4.17-20 (Speech of the Lacedaemonians), 59-64 (Speech of Hermocrates), 85-87 (Speech of Brasidas); 6.9-14 (Speech of Nicias), 16-18 (Speech of Alcibiades), 20-23 (Speech of Nicias), 33-34 (Speech of Hermocrates), 36-40 (Speech of Athenagoras), 76-80 (Speech of Hermocrates), 82-87 (Speech of Euphemus), 89-92 (Speech of Alcibiades); 7.61-64 (Speech of Nicias), 66-68 (Speech of Gylippus), 77 (Speech of Nicias), along with notable excerpts from Demosthenes and other Greek orators.
The translations, carried out by Philipp Melanchthon, were published posthumously by Caspar Peucer (1525-1602), physician, mathematician, astronomer, and humanist. Peucer received his early education in Bautzen and later studied in Goldberg and in Wittenberg, where he matriculated in 1543. Among his teachers were Philipp Melanchthon, who welcomed him into his household. Peucer was appointed to the Wittenberg faculty of arts in 1548 and became Professor of Lower Mathematics in 1550, then Higher Mathematics in 1554. He also lectured on anthropology and medicine, receiving his doctorate in medicine in 1560, after which he became Professor of Medicine. Following Melanchthon's death, Peucer became his intellectual executor: he completed Melanchthon's Chronicon Carionis (1562, 1565), edited his works (4 vols., 1562-1564), and published several collections of his letters (1565, 1570, 1574). He became personal physician to Elector Augustus of Saxony in 1570 and was also valued as a political advisor. His career was abruptly halted in 1574, when the so-called "Philippists"– followers of Melanchthon – were denounced as covert Calvinists. DB
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