or HI'GINUS, C. JU'LIUS. Suetonius, in his lives of illustrious grammarians, informs us that
C. Julius Hyginus was a native of Spain, not, as others had less accurately stated, of
Alexandria, that he was a pupil and imitator of the celebrated Cornelius Alexander, surnamed
Polyhistor [ALEXANDER, p. 115], that he was the freedman of
Augustus, and that he was placed at the head of the Palatine library. We learn from the same
authority that he lived upon terms of close intimacy with the poet Ovid and with C. Licinius,
" the historian and consular," a personage not mentioned elsewhere, and that having fallen
into great poverty, he was supported in old age by the liberality of the latter, but no hint
is given of the causes which led to this reverse of fortune.
We find numerous references in Pliny, Gellius, Servius, Macrobius, and others, to various
works by "Hyginus" or "Julius Hyginus," which are generally supposed to have been the
productions of the Hyginus who was the freedman of Augustus. Of these we may notice,--
Lost works
1.
De Urbibus Italicis,De Urbibus Italicis, or
De Situ Urbium
Italicarum, in two books at least. (
Macr. 1.7
5.18; Serv.
ad Virg. Aen. 1.281, 534, 3.553, 7.47. 412,
678, 8.597; see also Plin.
H. N. Elench. Auct. ad Lib. III.)
2.
De Proprietatibus Deorum.De Proprietatibus Deorum. (
Macr.
3.8.)
3.
De Düs Penatibus.De Düs Penatibus. (Macrob.
St.
3.4.)
4.
De Virgilio Libri.De Virgilio Libri. In five books at least. This seems to be
the same with the work quoted under the title of
Commentaria in
Firfiliuim. (
Gel. 1.21,
5.8,
6.6,
10.16,
16.6;
Macr. 6.9; Serv.
ad Virg.
Aen. 12.120.)
5.
De Familiis Trojanis.De Familiis Trojanis. (Serv.
ad Virg.
Aen. 5.389.)
6.
De Agricultura,De Agricultura, in two books at least. (Charis. lib. i.
21.185, p. 115, ed. Putsch.; comp. Columell. 1.2, 9.2, 13.) To this treatise, in all
probability, Pliny refers in his
H. N. 13.47, 16.84, 18.63,
19.27, 20.45, 21.29.
7.
Cinnae Propempticon.Cinnae Propempticon. (Charis. lib. i. 21.134, pp. 108, 109,
ed. Putsch., where two sentences are extracted.)
8.
De Vita Rebusque Illustrium Virorum,De Vita Rebusque Illustrium Virorum, in six books at least.
(
Gel. 1.14; Joannes Sarisber.
Policrit.
5.7.) We may suppose that the
De Vita et Rebus Africani, mentioned by A.
Gellius (
7.1), formed one of the sections of this essay. (See also
Ascon. Pedian.
in Pison.; Hieron.
de Script.
Eccles. praef.)
9.
Exempla.Exempla. (
Gel. 10.18.)
10.
De Arte Militari.De Arte Militari. (Joannes Sarisber.
Policrat. 6.19.)
Surviving works
The whole of the above have perished; but we possess two pieces in prose, nearly entire,
which bear the name of Hyginus, to which editors, apparently without any
authority from MSS., have prefixed the additional designations C.
Julius. These are,
I.
Fabularum LiberA series of 277 short mythological legends, with an introductory genealogy of divinities.
There are blanks from 100.206-219; from 225-238; from 261-270; and two single chapters, 222
and 272, are also wanting. Although the larger portion of these narratives has been copied
from obvious sources, they occasionally present the tales under new forms or with new
circumstances, and hence are regarded with considerable interest by those who investigate
such topics.
Editions
The Editio Princeps of the [Fabulae](phi-1263.001) was
published, under the inspection of Micyllus, at Basel, fol. 1535, in a volume containing
also the Astronomica, Palaephatus and Phornutus, Fulgentius, Albricus, the Phaenomena of
Aratus, and the Sphere of Proclus, in Greek and Latin; together with the paraphrase of the
Phaenomena, by Germanicus.
The best edition of the [Fabulae](phi-1263.001) in a
separate form is that of Schefer, 8vo. Hamb. 1674.
II.
Poeticon Astronomicon Libri
IV.Addressed to a certain M. Fabius. The first book, entitled
De Mundi
ac Sphaerae ac utriusque Partium Declaratione, commences with a general outline of
what the author proposes to accomplish, and is then devoted to a definition of the technical
terms
Mundus, Sphaera, Centrum, Axis, Polus, &c., which are very
briefly explained; the second book,
De Signorum Coelestium Historiis,
comprises an exposition of the legends connected with forty one of the principal
constellations, followed up by a brief notice of the five planets and the Milky Way; the
third book,
De Descriptionibus Formarum Coelestium, contains a detailed
account of the number and arrangement of the stars which constitute the different portions
of the fanciful shapes ascribed to the constellations previously enumerated; the fourth
book, which ends abruptly,
De quinque Circulorum inter Corpora Coelestia
Notatione, et Planetis, treats of the circles of the celestial sphere, of the
constellations appertaining to each, of their risings and settings, of the course of the sun
and moon, and of the appearance of the planets.
Editions
The Editio Princeps of the Astronomica was published at Ferrara,
4to. 1475, and the second edition at Venice, 4to. 1475; besides which,
three other editions were printed at Venice before the close of the fifteenth century.
Assessment
These works exhibit in many passages such gross ignorance, and are expressed in
phraseology which, although not uniformly impure, frequently approaches so nearly to
barbarism, that no scholar now believes that they could have proceeded in their present
shape from a man renowned for erudition, who flourished during the highest epoch of Roman
literature; but the greatest diversity of opinion exists with regard to their real origin
and history. Raphael of Volaterrae, misled by the dedication to M. Fabius, asserted that the
author was contemporary with Quintilian; Schefer supposed that he lived under the Antonines,
attributing the startling expressions and harsh constructions which everywhere abound to
corruption and interpolation, while Muncker would bring him down to the last days of the
empire. Again, many critics regard both treatises as merely translations from Greek
originals; the astronomical portions, according to Scaliger, are taken from Eratosthenes,
according to Salmasius from the
Sphaera Graecanica of Nigidius Figulus;
Muncker imagines that we must consider them as abbreviations of works by the Augustan
Hyginus, executed by some unskilful hand, whom Barth decides to have been an
Avianus, or an
Ammianus, names which he found in a MS.;
Reinesius and Van Staveren look upon the whole as a mere cento, pieced together, without
care or discrimination, by an unlettered grammarian, who assumed the designation of the
celebrated Hyginus that he might the more effectually recommend his own worthless trash;
while, more recently, Niebuhr was led to believe that a fragment brought to light by himself
(
De Rebus Thebanis Mythologicis) was a portion of a much larger book,
and that this furnished the materials from which, with later additions, the Fables of
Hyginus had been worked up. The question has been rendered, if possible, still more
complicated by the recent discoveries of Angelo Mai, who has published from MSS. in the
Vatican three mythographers previously unknown, of whom the first may be as early as the
fifth century, and appears to have been known under the appellation of Hyginus, at least the
second book ends with the words
EXPLICIT LIBER
SECUNDIUS C. HNI. FABULARUM
, an abbreviation of which the obvious interpretation is
C.
HIGINI. These writers, together with a full account of the
MSS., will be found in the "Ciassici Auctores e Vaticanis Codicibus," Rom. 1831, vol. iii.
pp. 1-277.
Editions
The best editions of both works are those included in the " Mythographi Latini" of
Muncker, 8vo. Amst. 1681, and in the "Mythographi Latini " of Van Staveren,
Lug. Bat. and Amst. 4to. 1742.
(Suet. de Illust. Gramm. 20, and comment. of Vinetus; Isidorus, de Nat. Ser. 17; Honor. Augustodun. de Phil. Mund.
3.12; Raphael Volaterr. Comment. xvi.; Reines. Var.
Lect. 3.2, p. 273, 3.8, p. 480; Scaliger, ad Manil. i. p. 34, ad Euseb. Chron. 10; Salmas. de Annis Climact. p. 594. See also the introductions prefixed to the editions of Schefer, Muncker, and
especially of Van Staveren, who has collected almost every thing.)