Gaius Julius Hyginus

Gaius Julius Hyginus ( * 64 BC, † AD 17 ) was living in Rome in the first century BC and was a Latin scholar and author.

Life

He was born either in Spain or in Alexandria and came to Rome, where he was Emperor Augustus freedom has been paid (this he also took over the gentile name Iulius ) as a war prisoner or slave.

According to Suetonius ( De Grammaticis, 20), he was appointed by Emperor Augustus Head of the Palatine library. Considered together with Marcus Flaccus Verrius as educators of the great-grandson of Augustus.

Hyginus was a student of Lucius Cornelius Alexander polymath and friend of Ovid. He wrote works on the Italian topography, the characteristics of the gods and Penates. Also a collection of exempla and a yellowing comment among his writings. Of his works we are only fragments survived.

The traditional under his name mythological fables and an astronomical handbook, however, date from the 2nd century AD (see Hyginus Mythographus ).

The lunar crater Hyginus is named after him.