Signed J. (Joseph) Hopkinson (1770 - 1842) on the title page, "D. Junii Juvenalis et A. Persii Flacci Satyrae" (Johannis Baskerville, Birmingham 1761); contemporary boards with gilt details, damage and repairs along spine. From the W&M Law Library Website: "Juvenal wrote Satyrae (The Satires) c. 100-130 C.E.; scant datable references in the work make more precise dating impossible. The Satires is series of 16 satirical poems, divided between 5 books. The poems meditate on life in Rome under the Emperor Domitian, and his successors. The Satires are especially well known for their uniquely caustic style, which is often contrasted with the urbane and witty style of Juvenal’s predecessor, Horace. Some of Juvenal’s popular wisdom remains in common parlance today. We have Juvenal to thank for the maxims: "who will guard the guards themselves?" (sed quis custodiet ipsos custodies?), and "only two things does [the modern citizen] anxiously wish for—bread and circuses" (…duas tantum res anxius optat, panem et circenses). Persius (Aulus Persius Flaccus) was born in Volterrae, Etruria (close to modern-day Florence) on 4 December 34 CE. He was a member of a well-established family and came to Rome at the age of twelve to study under Cornutus (a Stoic, and a successful teacher of rhetoric and philosophy). A contemporary biographer described Persius as “infrequently” composing Roman satire, and only late in his short life. The entire corpus of Persius’s work runs to a mere 650 lines of hexameter verse. Persius died at the age of twenty-eight in 62 CE." From the Francis Hopkinson Family Archives