The ''Fabulae'' is a Latin handbook of mythology, attributed to an author named Hyginus, who is generally believed to have been separate from

Gaius Julius Hyginus Gaius Julius Hyginus (; 64 BC – AD 17) was a Latin author, a pupil of the scholar Alexander Polyhistor, and a freedman of Augustus, and reputed author of the '' Fabulae'' and the '' De astronomia'', although this is disputed. Life and works ...

. The work consists of some three hundred very brief and plainly, even crudely, told myths (such as Agnodice) and celestial genealogies.

Date, authorship, and composition

In the earliest published edition of the ''Fabulae'', produced in 1535 by Jacob Micyllus, the work is attributed to "

, freedman of

Augustus Gaius Julius Caesar Augustus (born Gaius Octavius; 23 September 63 BC – 19 August AD 14), also known as Octavian (), was the founder of the Roman Empire, who reigned as the first Roman emperor from 27 BC until his death in A ...

", an ascription which may have been present in the manuscript itself, or may have added by Micyllus himself. There were numerous works which were attributed in antiquity to Gaius Julius Hyginus, and, though the work may not have been composed after his lifetime (1st century BC/AD), modern scholarship, for the most part, rejects the idea that this Hyginus was the author of the work. According to R. Scott Smith, it is reasonable to suppose that the Hyginus who authored the work lived during the latter half of the 2nd century AD. A handful of scholars, however, do hold that Gaius Julius Hyginus was in fact the author of the work. The author of the ''Fabulae'' is characterised by 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'', wondered "at the caprices of Fortune who has allowed many of the plays of an

Aeschylus Aeschylus (, ; ; /524 – /455 BC) was an ancient Greece, ancient Greek Greek tragedy, tragedian often described as the father of tragedy. Academic knowledge of the genre begins with his work, and understanding of earlier Greek tragedy is large ...

, the larger portion of

Livy Titus Livius (; 59 BC – AD 17), known in English as Livy ( ), was a Roman historian. He wrote a monumental history of Rome and the Roman people, titled , covering the period from the earliest legends of Rome before the traditional founding i ...

'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.

Content

Alongside the '' Bibliotheca'' of the Greek mythographer Apollodorus, the ''Fabulae'' is one of the most comprehensive handbooks of mythology to survive from antiquity. The work consists of various narratives and lists, which are organised into a number of distinct sections, rather than being presented in a continuous narrative. The work begins with a

theogony The ''Theogony'' () is a poem by Hesiod (8th–7th century BC) describing the origins and genealogy, genealogies of the Greek gods, composed . It is written in the Homeric Greek, epic dialect of Ancient Greek and contains 1,022 lines. It is one ...

(an account of the origin of the gods), which outlines a genealogy of the gods. It is a somewhat peculiar account, beginning with a figure unattested elsewhere, Mist ('' Caligo''), who is placed before even Chaos, the earliest being in the ''

Theogony The ''Theogony'' () is a poem by Hesiod (8th–7th century BC) describing the origins and genealogy, genealogies of the Greek gods, composed . It is written in the Homeric Greek, epic dialect of Ancient Greek and contains 1,022 lines. It is one ...

'' of

Hesiod Hesiod ( or ; ''Hēsíodos''; ) was an ancient Greece, Greek poet generally thought to have been active between 750 and 650 BC, around the same time as Homer.M. L. West, ''Hesiod: Theogony'', Oxford University Press (1966), p. 40.Jasper Gr ...

. This theogony, which is untitled in the text itself, may have been attached to the work at a later date. After the theogony comes a number of sections which tell of various mythical stories (sections 1–220), and then sections which consist of lists (sections 221–277), often of names of mythological figures, or of myths; a number of such lists are also present in the part of the work devoted mostly to mythical narratives (sections 1–220). Though composed in Latin, and reliant upon Latin literature to a limited extent, the work is almost entirely concerned with Greek mythology, with it containing little in the way of Roman mythical content. Among Hyginus' sources are the

scholia Scholia (: scholium or scholion, from , "comment", "interpretation") are grammatical, critical, or explanatory comments – original or copied from prior commentaries – which are inserted in the margin of the manuscript of ancient a ...

Apollonius of Rhodes Apollonius of Rhodes ( ''Apollṓnios Rhódios''; ; fl. first half of 3rd century BC) was an ancient Greek literature, ancient Greek author, best known for the ''Argonautica'', an epic poem about Jason and the Argonauts and their quest for the Go ...

' ''

Argonautica The ''Argonautica'' () is a Greek literature, Greek epic poem written by Apollonius of Rhodes, Apollonius Rhodius in the 3rd century BC. The only entirely surviving Hellenistic civilization, Hellenistic epic (though Aetia (Callimachus), Callim ...

'', which were dated to about the time of

Tiberius Tiberius Julius Caesar Augustus ( ; 16 November 42 BC – 16 March AD 37) was Roman emperor from AD 14 until 37. He succeeded his stepfather Augustus, the first Roman emperor. Tiberius was born in Rome in 42 BC to Roman politician Tiberius Cl ...

by Apollonius' editor R. Merkel, in the preface to his edition of Apollonius (Leipzig, 1854). In the work, there are also some passages which were translated from earlier Greek texts.

Textual history

In fact the text of the ''Fabulae'' was all but lost: a single surviving manuscript from the abbey of

Freising Freising () is a university town in Bavaria, Germany, and the capital of the Freising (district), with a population of about 50,000. Location Freising is the oldest town between Regensburg and Bolzano, and is located on the Isar river in ...

, in a

Beneventan script The Beneventan script was a medieval script that originated in the Duchy of Benevento in southern Italy. In the past it has also been called ''Langobarda'', ''Longobarda'', ''Longobardisca'' (signifying its origins in the territories ruled by t ...

datable , formed the material for the first printed edition, negligently and uncritically 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. Another fragmentary text, dating from the 5th century is in the Vatican Library.Review by Wilfred E. Major of P.K. Marshall, ''Hyginus: Fabulae. Editio altera.'' 2002
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Editions and translations

* Mary A. Grant, ''The Myths of Hyginus'', Lawrence, University of Kansas Press, 1960
ToposText
* Marshall, Peter K., ''Hyginus : Fabulae'', Bibliotheca Teubneriana, Munich and Leipzig, K. G. Saur Verlag, 2002. . . * Smith, Scott R., and Stephen M. Trzaskoma, ''Apollodorus' ''Library'' and Hyginus' ''Fabulae'': Two Handbooks of Greek Mythology'', Indianapolis and Cambridge, Hackett Publishing, 2007.
Internet Archive

Notes

References

* Fletcher, "Hyginus, ''Fabulae''", in ''The Oxford Handbook of Greek and Roman Mythography'', pp. 199–210, edited by R. Scott Smith and Stephen M. Trzaskoma, Oxford University Press, 2022. . * Hard, Robin (2004), ''The Routledge Handbook of Greek Mythology: Based on H.J. Rose's "Handbook of Greek Mythology"'', London and New York, Routledge, 2004. .
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* Hard, Robin (2015), ''Eratosthenes and Hyginus: Constellation Myths, With Aratus's Phaenomena'', Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2015. . * Marshall, Peter K., ''Hyginus : Fabulae'', Bibliotheca Teubneriana, Munich and Leipzig, K. G. Saur Verlag, 2002. . . * Rose, Herbert Jennings (ed.), ''Hygini Fabulae'' (Leiden: A.W. Sijthoff, 1934 nd ed. 1963. The standard text, in Latin. * Smith, R. Scott, "Mythography in Latin", in ''The Oxford Handbook of Greek and Roman Mythography'', pp. 97–114, edited by R. Scott Smith and Stephen M. Trzaskoma, Oxford University Press, 2022. . * Smith, Scott R., and Stephen M. Trzaskoma, ''Apollodorus' ''Library'' and Hyginus' ''Fabulae'': Two Handbooks of Greek Mythology'', Indianapolis and Cambridge, Hackett Publishing, 2007.
Internet Archive

External links

Online Text: Hyginus, ''Fabulae'' translated by Mary Grant

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Online Digital copy of the first Latin edition by Jacob Micyllus (Basel, 1535)
Mythography 1st-century books in Latin 2nd-century books in Latin