POLYBE - History of Polybius, newly translated from Greek by - Lot 615

POLYBE - History of Polybius, newly translated from Greek by Dom Vincent Thuillier. Avec un commentaire ou un corps de science militaire, enrichie de notes critiques et historiques, où toutes les grandes parties de la guerre, soit pour l'offensive, soit pour la défensive, sont expliquées, démontrées, et représentées en figures, par M. de Folard. Paris, Gandouin, Giffart, etc, 1727-1730. 6 vol. in-4, fawn marbled calf, spine with ornate nerves. BRUNET IV, 791. First edition of Folard's commentaries. Portrait of Minister of War Claude Le Blanc, 3 folding maps and 126 plates, most of them folding or on double page. Numerous vignettes by Rigaud or Mathey. Folard's two-column commentary occupies the greater part of the work, and is a treatise on military tactics for contemporary readers. At the head of the book is his Traité de la colonne (Treatise on the Column), in which he argues against the "ordre profond" (deep order) of attack, a writing that provoked much controversy.