Translations of several minor historical and tactical writings may be mentioned here.
Vasque de Lucène translated in 1468 Quintus Curtius Rufus’s De rebus gestis Alexandri,
written in the 1st century A.D.; his version survives in at least thirty-six manuscripts and
an incunabu-lum. The Breviarium ab urbe condita by Eutropius, a 4th-century historian,
was translated twice in the 13th century, once by an unknown author (one manuscript),
and once by Jofroi de Watreford and Servais Copale (one manuscript). The Strategemata
of Frontinus (1st c. A.D.), a manual of historical examples of Greek and Roman military
strategy composed for officers, was translated for Charles VII by Jean de Rouroy ca.
1439 (nine manuscripts).
Translations of sentential and theoretical or educational texts, though representing the
smallest category in terms of the authors translated, circulated widely. These translations,
like those of historical and military sources, are often associated with royal patronage.
This is the case with the translation of the Facta et dicta memorabilia of Valerius
Maximus (1st c. A.D.), a collection of rhetorical exempla grouped under moral and
philosophical topics, which Simon de Hesdin undertook ca. 1375 for Charles V, the great
royal patron of learned culture and vernacular translation. Simon de Hesdin died in 1384,
leaving the translation unfinished; it was completed in 1404 by Nicolas de Gonesse at the
request of John of Berry, the brother of Charles V. This translation greatly amplifies the
source with commentary, new divisions and subdivisions, and borrowings from a host of
other sources, classical and medieval, pagan and Christian. In partial or complete form,
the translation survives in at least seventy-five manuscripts and five incunabula.
Two of Cicero’s works, De senectute and De amicitia, were translated in 1405 and
1416, respectively, by Laurent de Premierfait, a clerc from Champagne associated with
the intellectual circles of the papal court of Avignon. Laurent’s literary activity was
extensive: among other works, he translated Boccaccio’s Decameron and De casibus
illustrium virorum. He undertook the translation of De senectute (extant in twenty-five
manuscripts) at the request of Duke Louis of Bourbon; the De amicitia (fifteen
manuscripts) was presented to John of Berry. A number of other translations of Cicero’s
works also survive, among them an anonymous translation of the Pro Marcello
(uncertain date; one manuscript), a translation of the Epistola ad Quintum by Jean Miélot
(1468; two manuscripts); and three 15th-century translations of the De officiis (two
manuscripts and one incunabulum, one incunabulum, and one manuscript, respectively).
There is also a translation of the Ciceronian rhetorica (Cicero’s De inventione and the
pseudo-Ciceronian Ad Herennium), completed in 1282 by Jean d’Antioche (known also
as Jean de Hareng), which survives in one manuscript. The translation of the Ciceronian
rhetorics is interesting for a number of reasons: its stylistic aim at technical precision; its
prologue, which offers a classification of the sciences; and two appendices, which offer a
theoretical discussion of logic, translation, and linguistic difference. The translation is
directed to Guillaume de Saint-Étienne, who in 1296 was in charge of the order of St.
John of Jerusalem on Cyprus; Jean d’Antioche’s work seems to have emerged from an
Italian rather than a French literary milieu (cf. Brunetto Latini’s Rettorica, an Italian
version of the De inventione, written ca. 1260).
The moral works associated with Seneca the Younger received some attention,
although their circulation never compared with that of the translation of Valerius
Maximus. Seneca’s Epistolae ad Lucilium were translated by an unknown author ca.
1310 (extant in six manuscripts). The pseudo-Senecan De remediis fortuitorum was
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