Hygīnus
1.
Gaius Iulius. A celebrated grammarian. He is mentioned by
Suetonius as a native of Spain, though some have supposed him an Alexandrian, and to have
been brought to Rome after the capture of that city by Caesar. Hyginus was a freedman of
Augustus Caesar, and was put by that emperor in charge of the library on the Palatine Hill.
(See
Bibliotheca.) He also gave instruction to
numerous pupils. Hyginus was intimately acquainted with Ovid and other writers of the day,
and was said to be the imitator of Cornelius Alexander, a Greek grammarian. Some suppose him
to have been the faithless friend of whom Ovid complains in his
Ibis. His
works, which were numerous, are frequently quoted by the ancients with great respect. The
principal ones appear to have been:
(a) De Situ Urbium Italicarum; (b) De Troianis
Familiis; (c) De Claris Viris; (d) De Proprietatibus Deorum; (e) De Diis Penatibus;
(f) A commentary on Vergil; (
g) A treatise on Agriculture.
These are all lost. Those which are extant, and are ascribed to Hyginus, were possibly
written by another individual of the same name. These are:
(a) Fabularum
Liber, a collection of 277 fables, taken for the most part from Grecian sources, and
embracing all the most important legends of antiquity. It is written in a very inferior
style, but is still of great importance for the mythologist. Text by Schmidt
(Jena,
1872), and see the paper by Wölfflin,
Zur Kritik von Hyg.
Fabeln, in the
Philologus, x. 303.
(b) De Astrologia,
also called
Poetica Astronomia. This, like the previous work, is in prose, and
consists of four books, being partly astronomical and mathematical, partly mythological and
philosophical in its character, since it gives the origin of the Catasterisms according to
the legends of the poets. The proëm of the work is addressed to a certain Quintus
Fabius. This work is written in a careless manner, but is very important for obtaining a
knowledge of ancient astronomy, and for a correct understanding of the poets. Text by Bunte
(Dresden, 1875), and see Robert's edition of the
Catasterismi of
Eratosthenes
(Berlin, 1878).
2.
A gromatic writer of whom nothing is known, but to whom are often ascribed two works
—one on legal boundaries (
De Limitibus Constituendis), and one on
castrametation (
De Munitionibus Castrorum), though they are really by two
different writers, as the language shows. They are to be assigned to the third century A.D.
The text is to be found in the Lachmann-Rudorff editions of the
Agrimensores (Berlin, 1848).
