Agrigentinorum tyranni epistolæ - Phalaris; Boyle, Charles Earl of Orrery 1674-1731 (Oxford Clarendon, 1718)
Sir Charle Boyle (1676-1731) published his edition of Phalaris at the request of the scholars of Christ Church, Oxford, as part of the controversy with Dr. Richard Bentley (1662 -1742), which led to Swift’s Battle of the Books.
Bentley's dissertation upon the epistles, published in 1699, proved that the letters in question, supposedly written in the 6th century BCE by the Sicilian tyrant Phalaris, were actually a forgery produced by a Greek sophist in the 2nd century CE.
Originally published in 1695
Ex libris C. J. Shakerley (plate)
Keywords: Classical Antiquity (8th Century BC-6th Century AD); 18th Century (1701-1800); History; Correspondence