DEDICATION.

...this happiness occurred, first among the successors of Alexander the Great—all of whom, except for Ptolemy the King of Egypt, were extinguished by violent death—and then among their sons, grandsons, and descendants, some of whom, like playthings of fortune, held kingdoms only to lose them, bloody and inexpiable wars had to be waged. Macedonia, Syria, and Egypt had to venerate the Roman eagle; the region of Judea, once illustrious by its scepter, also had to be subjected to the Roman rods referring to the fasces, the symbol of Roman magisterial authority.

Therefore, the fates of these most powerful kingdoms, brought about not by chance but by divine providence and long foretold by the Prophets, are correctly and orderly recounted by Justin in these books of the Philippic Histories. My singular benevolence toward you, as well as your constant zeal for propagating good literature and the arts, has impelled me to dedicate this new edition to your Most Illustrious and Most Esteemed Names—an edition I have rendered somewhat better than before, through the help of both handwritten and printed codices preserved in various libraries of Europe, but especially in the Batavian Library. I ask you again and again to accept this as a pledge of my obedience toward you; I will hold nothing more important than to execute your orders and commands willingly and joyfully.

Meanwhile, regarding the accession of the notable Marchand Library to the Batavian Library, the care of which falls to me by your decree, to you...