Gaius Julius Hyginus - Wikipedia Gaius Julius Hyginus From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Jump to navigation Jump to search "Hyginus" redirects here. For other uses, see Hyginus (disambiguation). Roman freedman and writer during the Age of Augustus Gaius Julius Hyginus (/hɪˈdʒaɪnəs/; c. 64 BC – AD 17) was a Latin author, a pupil of the scholar Alexander Polyhistor, and a freedman of Caesar Augustus. He was elected superintendent of the Palatine library by Augustus according to Suetonius' De Grammaticis, 20.[1] It is not clear whether Hyginus was a native of the Iberian Peninsula or of Alexandria. 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. Under the name of Hyginus there are extant what are probably two sets of school notes abbreviating his treatises on mythology; one is a collection of Fabulae ("stories"), the other a "Poetical Astronomy". Contents 1 Fabulae 2 De Astronomica or Poeticon Astronomicon 3 Legacy 4 Notes 5 References 6 External links Fabulae[edit] Fabulae consists of some three hundred very brief and plainly, even crudely told myths and celestial genealogies,[2] made by an author who was characterized by his modern editor, H. J. Rose, as adulescentem imperitum, semidoctum, stultum—"an ignorant youth, semi-learned, stupid"—but valuable for the use made of works of Greek writers of tragedy that are now lost. Arthur L. Keith, reviewing H. J. Rose's edition (1934) of Hygini Fabulae,[3] wondered "at the caprices of Fortune who has allowed many of the plays of an Aeschylus, the larger portion of Livy's histories, and other priceless treasures to perish, while this school-boy's exercise has survived to become the pabulum of scholarly effort." Hyginus' compilation represents in primitive form what every educated Roman in the age of the Antonines was expected to know of Greek myth, at the simplest level. The Fabulae are a mine of information today, when so many more nuanced versions of the myths have been lost. In fact the text of Fabulae was all but lost: a single surviving manuscript from the abbey of Freising,[4] in a Beneventan script datable c. 900, formed the material for the first printed edition, negligently and uncritically[5] transcribed by Jacob Micyllus, 1535, who may have supplied it with the title we know it by. In the course of printing, following the usual practice, by which the manuscripts printed in the 15th and 16th centuries have rarely survived their treatment at the printshop, the manuscript was pulled apart: only two small fragments of it have turned up, significantly as stiffening in book bindings.[6] Another fragmentary text, dating from the 5th century is in the Vatican Library.[7] Among Hyginus' sources are the scholia on Apollonius of Rhodes' Argonautica, which were dated to about the time of Tiberius by Apollonius' editor R. Merkel, in the preface to his edition of Apollonius (Leipzig, 1854).[8] De Astronomica or Poeticon Astronomicon[edit] Main article: De Astronomica De Astronomica was first published, with accompanying figures, by Erhard Ratdolt in Venice, 1482, under the title Clarissimi uiri Hyginii Poeticon astronomicon opus utilissimum. This "Poetic astronomy by the most renowned Hyginus, a most useful work," chiefly tells us the myths connected with the constellations, in versions that are chiefly based on Catasterismi, a work that was traditionally attributed to Eratosthenes. Like the Fabulae, the Astronomica is a collection of abridgements, and the style and level of Latin competence and the elementary mistakes (especially in the rendering of the Greek originals) were held by the anonymous contributor to the Encyclopædia Britannica (11th edition, 1911), to prove that they cannot have been the work of "so distinguished" a scholar as C. Julius Hyginus. It was further suggested that these treatises are an abridgment made in the latter half of the 2nd century of the Genealogiae of Hyginus by an unknown adapter, who added a complete treatise on mythology.[9] The star lists in the Astronomica are in exactly the same order as in Ptolemy's Almagest, reinforcing the idea of a 2nd-century compilation.[10] Legacy[edit] 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[edit] ^ 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. ^ "the Fabulae (more correctly Genealogiae) of Hyginus", according to H. J. Rose, "Second Thoughts on Hyginus" Mnemosyne, Fourth Series, 11.1 (1958:42–48) p. 42; the article is in the way of a set of marginalia to Rose's edition of Fabulae. ^ A.L. Keith, in The Classical Journal 31.1 (October 1935) p. 53. ^ A Codex Freisingensis, noted by Fitch, reviewing Rose, Hygini Fabulae 1934:421. ^ A. H. F. Griffin, "Hyginus, Fabula 89 (Laomedon)" The Classical Quarterly New Series, 36.2 (1986), p. 541 note. ^ One was discovered at Regensburg in 1864, another in Munich, 1942. Both fragments are conserved in Munich. See M.D. Reeve on Hyginus, Fabulae in L.D. Reynolds, ed., Texts and Transmission (Oxford) 1983, pp 189f. ^ Review by Wilfred E. Major of P.K. Marshall, Hyginus: Fabulae. Editio altera. 2002 ^ Noted by Rose 1958:42 note 3. ^ Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). "Hyginus, Gaius Julius" . Encyclopædia Britannica (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. ^ "Julius Hyginus Poeticon Astronomicon". Retrieved 2019-01-18. References[edit] Grant, Mary (transl.), The Myths of Hyginus (Lawrence: University of Kansas Press, 1960). Marshall, P.K. (ed.), Hyginus: Fabulae (Munich: Saur, 1993 [corr. ed. 2002]). Rose, Herbert Jennings (ed.), Hygini Fabulae (Leiden: A.W. Sijthoff, 1934 [2nd ed. 1963]). The standard text, in Latin. Smith, R. Scott & Trzaskoma, Stephen M. (transl.), Apollodorus' Library and Hyginus' Fabulae: Two Handbooks of Greek Mythology (Indianapolis/Cambridge: Hackett Publishing, 2007), ISBN 978-0-87220-821-6. This article incorporates text from Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). "Hyginus, Gaius Julius" . Encyclopædia Britannica (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. External links[edit] Wikisource has original text related to this article: Gaius Julius Hyginus Online Text: Hyginus, Fabulae translated by Mary Grant Online Text: Hyginus, Astronomica translated by Mary Grant Online Text of Hyginus. excerpted (in Latin) Online Digital copy of the first Latin edition by Jacob Micyllus (Basel, 1535) Poeticon Astronomicon, 1482—Full digital facsimile, Linda Hall Library. De Mundi et Sphere, 1512—Full digital facsimile, Linda Hall Library. Online Galleries, History of Science Collections, University of Oklahoma Libraries—High resolution images of works by Hermes Trismegistus in JPEG and TIFF formats Grammaticae Romanae Fragmenta, Gino Funaioli (a cura di), Lipsiae, in aedibus B. G. Teubneri, 1907, vol. 1, pagg. 525 sgg. Historicorum Romanorum reliquiae, Hermann Peter (ed.), Lipsiae, in aedibus B. G. Teubneri, vol. 1, 1906, pp. 72–77. Authority control BIBSYS: 95002403 BNE: XX984371 BNF: cb11886589r (data) CiNii: DA04388506 GND: 119437627 ISNI: 0000 0001 2096 7516 LCCN: n84175578 LNB: 000015046 NDL: 00985960 NKC: jo2014810235 NLA: 40227135 NSK: 000385803 NTA: 070224250 SELIBR: 245529 Trove: 445038 VIAF: 100181375 WorldCat Identities: viaf-100181375 Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Gaius_Julius_Hyginus&oldid=993866750" Categories: 17 deaths 1st-century BC Romans 1st-century BC writers 1st-century Romans 1st-century writers 60s BC births Ancient Roman astronomers Ancient Roman writers Golden Age Latin writers Julii Latin-language writers Hidden categories: Wikipedia articles incorporating a citation from the 1911 Encyclopaedia Britannica with Wikisource reference Articles with short description Short description matches Wikidata Articles with Latin-language sources (la) Wikipedia articles with BIBSYS identifiers Wikipedia articles with BNE identifiers Wikipedia articles with BNF identifiers Wikipedia articles with CINII identifiers Wikipedia articles with GND identifiers Wikipedia articles with ISNI identifiers Wikipedia articles with LCCN identifiers Wikipedia articles with LNB identifiers Wikipedia articles with NDL identifiers Wikipedia articles with NKC identifiers Wikipedia articles with NLA identifiers Wikipedia articles with NSK identifiers Wikipedia articles with NTA identifiers Wikipedia articles with SELIBR identifiers Wikipedia articles with Trove identifiers Wikipedia articles with VIAF identifiers Wikipedia articles with WORLDCATID identifiers Navigation menu Personal tools Not logged in Talk Contributions Create account Log in Namespaces Article Talk Variants Views Read Edit View history More Search Navigation Main page Contents Current events Random article About Wikipedia Contact us Donate Contribute Help Learn to edit Community portal Recent changes Upload file Tools What links here Related changes Upload file Special pages Permanent link Page information Cite this page Wikidata item Print/export Download as PDF Printable version In other projects Wikisource Languages Asturianu Azərbaycanca বাংলা Български Brezhoneg Català Čeština Deutsch Ελληνικά Español Esperanto فارسی Français 한국어 Bahasa Indonesia Italiano Latina Magyar Nederlands 日本語 Norsk bokmål Polski Português Română Русский Slovenčina Srpskohrvatski / српскохрватски Suomi Türkçe Українська 中文 Edit links This page was last edited on 12 December 2020, at 22:26 (UTC). 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