Seran de la Tour A.: “Histoire d Epaminondas general des Thebains,avec des remarques critiques et historiques et les observations.” Leiden 1741 First and only edition, small 8vo 16x10cm, contemporary full leather slightly rubbed, upper joint weak, complete [62],350p.[2] and the famous folded map of Greece by Bellin, text clean and bright, overall very good. A very rare account, one of the very first worldwide of comparative examination of military events through different specters which mix military history and history of geography. Seran de la Tour, a French historian of the enligthment century passionate with the first defeat of the Spartians, the invincible army of the antiquity, tried to examine the reasons and edited the campaigns of Epaminondas through a new prisma. He tried to examine factors of geography and swift military tactics, with identification of concrete places. The historical events and the used military tactics have been analyzed in contrast with the his contemporary ones. For this reason the author had asked from Bellin, the best French Geographer of his time to provide a new map of southern Greece, the place of the described events. It was the best possible map of its time based on all the available measurements of the French Depot (as Bellin was its director) for the coastlines and of several travelers and the previous Venetian measurements for the interior of the lands. Every military battle has been analyzed within this context and the figure of Epaminondas has been praised, as an illustrious man. RARE