The Antiquity of the Batavian Republic, with the Notes by Petrus Scriverius.

Grotius, Hugo. The Antiquity of the Batavian Republic, with the Notes by Petrus Scriverius

(Bibliotheca Latinitatis Novae.) Assem: Van Gorcum, 2000. viii + 184 pp. illus, bibl, index. Dfl 75.00. ISBN: 90-232-3587-8.

This edition of Grotius's text is the second volume in the Bibliotheca Latinitatis Novae series, a new series of neo-Latin texts with English translations. The book -- using as its basis the 1610 edition of De Antiquitate -- is the Latin/English revised version of BLN's 1995 Latin/Dutch version, and includes a new and expanded introduction, as well as further background information. The Latin and a new translation into English are printed on facing pages, with notes at the end. In De Antiquitate Hugo Grotius (1583-1645), a Dutch lawyer and civil servant, gives an overview of the history of Holland from the time of the Batavians, inhabitants of the Rhine in the Roman period. The introduction claims that Grotius's history was "aimed at endowing the State's government with respectability as a sovereign power in the eyes of the outside world, and, no less importantly, at exhorting the Dutch to preserve their political accomplishments by steadfastly holding on to their ancient traditions and virtues." The notes b y Petrus Scriverius (1576-1660), "the indefatigable editor of archaeological, medieval and early humanist sources for the history of the Netherlands," were added to the 1630 edition of De Antiquitate and are included here; they display Scriverius's "numerous quotations from classical and medieval sources to demonstrate the historical correctness of Grotius's ideas." Notes, a full bibliography, and indices of names, subjects, and Latin words are included, as are illustrations and a genealogical family tree of the Counts of Holland.