Page:Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology (1870) - Volume 2.djvu/549

HYGINUS. V. 18; Serv. ad Virg. Apm. i. 281, 534, iii. 553, vii. 47, 412, 678, viii. 597 ; see also Plin. H. N. Elench. Auct. ad Lib. III.) 2. De Froprietatifms Dt'orum. (Macrob. Sat. iii. 8.) 3. De Diis Fe- nafibus. (Macrob. Sat. iii. 4.) 4. De Virgilio Lihri. In five books at least. This seems to be the same with the work quoted under the title of Commentaria in Virgilium. (Gell. i. 21, v. 8, vi. 6, X. 1 6, xvi. 6 ; Macrob. Sat. vi. 9 ; Serv. ad Virg. Ae?i. xii. 120.) 5. De Familiis Trojanis. (Serv, ad Virg. Aen. v. 389.) 6. De Agricidtura^ in two books at least. (Charis. lib. i. xxi. § 185, p. 115, ed. Putsch. ; comp. Columell. i. 2, ix. 2, 13.) To this treatise, in all probability, Pliny refers in his //. N. xiii. 47, xvi. 84, xviii, 63, xix. 27, xx, 45, xxi. 29. 7. Cinnae Fropempticoii. (Charis. lib. i. xxi. § 134, pp. 108, 109, ed. Putsch., where two sentences are extracted.) 8. De Vita Rebusque IlLvstrium Virorum, in six books at least. (Gell. i. 14; Joannes Sarisber. Folicrat. v. 7.) We may suppose that the De Vita et Rebus Africani, men- tioned by A. Gellius (vii. 1), formed one of the sections of this essay. (See also Ascon. Pedian. in Fison.; Hieron. de Script. Eccles. ^^v^iei.) 9. Ex- empla. (Gell. x. 18.) 10. De Arte Militari. (Joannes Sarisber. Folicrat. vi. 19.) 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, ap- parently without any authority from MSS., have prefixed the additional designations G. Jvlius. These are, I. Fabularum Liber, a series of 277 short my- thological legends, with an introductory genealogy of divinities. There are blanks from c. 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 co- pied from obvious sources, they occasionally present the tales under new forms or with new circum- stances, and hence are regarded with considerable interest by those who investigate such topics. II. Foeticon Asironomicon Libri IV., addressed to a certain M. Fabius. The first book, entitled De Mundi ac Sphaerae ac utriusque Fartium De- claratione, commences with a general outline of what the author proposes to accomplish, and is then devoted to a definition of the technical terms Mun- dus, Sphaera, Centrum., Axis., Fulus, &c., which are very briefiy explained ; the second book, De Sig- norum 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 Coeles- tium, contains a detailed account of the number and arrangement of the stars which constitute the diiferent portions of the fanciful shapes ascribed to the constellations previously enumerated ; the fourth book, which ends abruptly, De quinque Cir- culorum inter Corpora Coelestia Notatione, et Fla- netis, 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. 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 tbeir present shape from a man renowned for HYGINUS. 535 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 de- dication 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 Spliaera 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 Earth 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 Hy- ginus 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 (Z)e Rebus Tliebanis Mytliolo- gicis) 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 dis- coveries of Angelo Mai, who has published from MSS. in the Vatican three mythographers pre- viously 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 Secundus C. HNI. Fabularum, an ab- breviation of which the obvious interpretation is C. HiGiNi. These writers, together with a fuU account of the MSS-, will be found in the " Classic! Auctores e Vaticanis Codicibus," Rom. 1831, vol. iii. pp. 1 — 277. 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. The Editio Princeps of the Fahulae was pub- lished, under the inspection of Micyllus, at Basel, fol. 1535, in a volume containing also the Astro- nomica, Palaephatus and Phomutus, Fulgentius, Albricus, the Phaenomena of Aratus, and the Sphere of Proclus, in Greek and Latin, together with the paraphrase of the Phaenomena, by Ger- manicus. The best editions of both works are those in- cluded in the " Mythographi Latini " of Muncker, 8vo. Amst. 1681, and in the "Mythographi La- tini " of Van Staveren, Lug. Bat. and Amst. 4to. 1742. The best edition of the Fabvlae in a separate form is that of Schefer, 8vo. Hamb. 1674. (Suet, de lUust. Grumm. 20, and comment, of Vinetus; Isidorus, de Nat. Ser. 17; Honor. Au- gustodun. de Fhil. Mund. iii. 12; Raphael Volaterr. Comment, xvi. ; Reines. Var. Lectt. iii. 2, p. 273, iii. 8, p. 480 ; Scaliger, ad Manil. i. p. 34, ad Euseb. Chron. 10 ; Salmas. de Annis Climact. p. MM 4