The Encyclopedia of Ancient Natural Scientists: The Greek tradition and its many heirs

(Ron) #1

C (1.1.14) praised. He ascribed the decline of viticulture in his day to an ignor-
ance of good practice on the part of growers, since his calculations showed that the income
from viticulture ought to exceed outlays even on poor land (cf. Columella 3.3.4–7, 4.3.1, 6).
He described the best soil for vines as slightly warmer and looser than average, recom-
mended dates for various activities, and maintained that vines can have a life-span of up to
600 years (3.12.1, 4.28.2–29.1; P 16.241). Columella (1.1.14) calls him a “student, as it
were,” of I A, and Pliny 14.33 reports that he closely followed C.


GRL §497.2; DPA 3 (2000) 493, M. Ducos; BNP 6 (2005) 1082 (#IV.9), E. Christmann.
Philip Thibodeau


Iulius Honorius (300 – 450 CE?)


A teacher who wrote a geographical treatise in Latin for the purpose of instructing students.
He says his text included a map (not extant). The text lists geographical objects (seas,
islands, mountains, rivers), as well as administrative divisions, cities, and peoples. In some
MSS the text begins with the report of a survey and measurement of the world made by
four Greeks, which continued from “the consulate of I C and Marc Antony”
until the time of A. The four surveyors explored the east, the west, the north, and
the south, and produced a description, which supposedly served as the basis for this treatise,
and probably its lost map. Modern scholars often connect this information to the survey
made by A by the order of Augustus. The story of the survey of the world was
repeated in later geographers (such as -A) and sometimes represented
on maps.


Ed.: GLM 21 – 55.
GRL §1060; RE 10.1 (1918) 614–628 (#277), W. Kubitschek; PLRE 2 (1980) 569; C. Nicolet and
P. Gautier Dalché, “Les ‘quatre sages’ de Jules César et la ‘mesure du monde’ selon Julius Honorius:
réalité antique et tradition médiévale,” Journal des savants (1986) 157–218.
Natalia Lozovsky


C. Iulius Hyginus (ca 30 BCE – ca 10 CE)


A learned, Greek-speaking slave from Spain or perhaps Alexandria who was brought by
I C to Rome (ca 45?), where he became a student of the scholar A
 M (Suet. Gram. 20). After Caesar’s death he passed into the possession of the
emperor A, who eventually freed him, and appointed him overseer of the Palatine
library (28 BCE or later). He became a friend of the poet O, and of the consular
historian Clodius Licinus, who supported him after he lost his post and fell into poverty.
(Ovid probably did not address him in the Tristia: Kaster 1995: 212.)
Most of his numerous writings, many cited by Gellius, Seruius, and M, were
devoted to topics of interest to the Augustan nobility, such as the genealogy of Italian
families (de familiis Troianis), the history of religious practice at Rome (de diis penatibus;
de proprietatibus deorum), and the customs of the Italic peoples (de origine situque urbium
Italicarum). He also wrote commentaries on V and Heluius Cinna, and fragments
from a biographical collection have survived. A work dealing with the geography of Greece,
Italy and perhaps other parts of the world was used as a source by P, 1.ind.3–6.
(Contrast the works on surveying attributed to one or another, later, H.)
Despite much controversy, a mythological compendium entitled Genealogiae (or Fabulae),


IULIUS HONORIUS
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