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Gaius Julius Hyginus

For other uses, see Hyginus.

Gaius Julius Hyginus (/hɪˈdʒaɪnəs/; c. 64 BC – AD 17) was a Latin author, a pupil of the scholar Alexander Polyhistor, and a freedman of Augustus, and reputed author of the Fabulae and the De astronomia, although this is disputed.

Life and works

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Hyginus may have originated either from Spain, or from the Egyptian city of Alexandria.[1] He was elected superintendent of the Palatine library by Augustus according to Suetonius' De Grammaticis, 20.[2]

Suetonius remarks that Hyginus fell into great poverty in his old age and was supported by the historian Clodius Licinus. Hyginus was a voluminous author: his works included topographical and biographical treatises, commentaries on Helvius Cinna and the poems of Virgil, and disquisitions on agriculture and bee-keeping. All these are lost.[3]

Attributed works

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Two Latin works which have survived under the name of Hyginus are a mythological handbook, known as the Genealogiae or the Fabulae, and an astronomical work, entitled De astronomia.[4] Though there a handful of scholars who posit that Gaius Julius Hyginus was the Hyginus who authored these works,[5] there is general agreement that they were composed by a separate author.[6] In the earliest edition of the Fabulae, produced in 1535 by Jacob Micyllus, the work is ascribed to Gaius Julius Hyginus,[7] though it is unclear whether this attribution was added by Micyllus himself, or was there prior to him.[8]

Legacy

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The lunar crater Hyginus and the minor planet 12155 Hyginus are named after him.

The English author Sir Thomas Browne opens his discourse The Garden of Cyrus (1658) with a Creation myth sourced from the Fabulae of Hyginus.

Notes

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  1. ^ Brill's New Pauly, s.v. Hyginus, C. Iulius.
  2. ^ Not everyone is sure that the Hyginus of Fabulae was this freedman of Augustus; for one, Edward Fitch, reviewing Herbert J. Rose, Hygini Fabulae in The American Journal of Philology 56,4 (1935), p. 422.
  3. ^ Chisholm 1911.
  4. ^ Oxford Classical Dictionary, s.v. Hyginus (3).
  5. ^ Smith, p. 101.
  6. ^ Hard, p. 13.
  7. ^ Smith, p. 100.
  8. ^ Fletcher, p. 200.

References

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  • Brill's New Pauly: Encyclopaedia of the Ancient World. Antiquity, Volume 6, Hat – Jus, edited by Hubert Cancik and Helmuth Schneider, Brill, 2005. ISBN 9004122699.
  •   This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). "Hyginus, Gaius Julius". Encyclopædia Britannica. Vol. 14 (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. p. 175.
  • Fletcher, "Hyginus, Fabulae", in The Oxford Handbook of Greek and Roman Mythography, pp. 97–114, edited by R. Scott Smith and Stephen M. Trzaskoma, Oxford University Press, 2022. ISBN 978-0-190-64831-2.
  • Hard, Robin, The Routledge Handbook of Greek Mythology: Based on H.J. Rose's "Handbook of Greek Mythology", London and New York, Routledge, 2004. ISBN 020344633X. doi:10.4324/9780203446331. Google Books.
  • Oxford Classical Dictionary, edited by Simon Hornblower and Antony Spawforth, Oxford and New York, Oxford University Press, 2003. ISBN 0198606419. Internet Archive.
  • Smith, R. Scott, "Mythography in Latin", in The Oxford Handbook of Greek and Roman Mythography, pp. 97–114, edited by R. Scott Smith and Stephen M. Trzaskoma, Oxford University Press, 2022. ISBN 978-0-190-64831-2.

Further reading

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  • Smith, R. Scott, and Stephen M. Trzaskoma, Apollodorus' Library and Hyginus' Fabulae: Two Handbooks of Greek Mythology, Indianapolis and Cambridge, Hackett Publishing, 2007. ISBN 9780872208216. Internet Archive.
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