Hyginus
Roman-era mythographer whose Fabulae preserves hundreds of concise Greek myth summaries
The Meaning of Hyginus
Hyginus — probably Gaius Julius Hyginus, a freedman of Augustus, though the attribution is debated — is the name attached to two invaluable mythographical compilations: the Fabulae, a collection of roughly three hundred brief myth summaries, and the Astronomica, which links constellations to their mythological origins. The Fabulae's terse, encyclopaedic entries preserve many variant traditions and obscure myths found in no other surviving source, drawn from lost Greek tragedies and Hellenistic handbooks. Though the Latin is plain and the summaries sometimes garbled by later copyists, Hyginus's compilations are essential reference works — scholars routinely turn to them for genealogical details, variant endings, and myths known only through his summaries.
Parents
None recorded
Symbols
Fun Fact
Many Greek myths survive today only because Hyginus bothered to summarise them in his brief Fabulae entries
Words We Inherited
English words and phrases that trace back to this myth. See our full guide to English words from Greek mythology.
Explore Further
Bibliotheca
💭 conceptLiterature
An alternative title for the mythological handbook attributed to Apollodorus, cataloguing the full scope of Greek myth
Apollodorus
💭 conceptMythography, compilation
Author of the Bibliotheca, the most comprehensive surviving handbook of Greek mythology
Library of Apollodorus
💭 conceptLiterature
A comprehensive ancient handbook cataloguing Greek myths, genealogies, and heroic narratives
Ptolemy Hephaestion
💭 conceptParadoxography, obscure myth
Alexandrian writer whose New History preserved bizarre and otherwise unknown mythological variants
Herodotus
💭 conceptHistory, ethnography, Persia
Father of History whose Histories records mythological traditions alongside the Persian Wars narrative
Diodorus Siculus
💭 conceptHistory, universal chronicle
Sicilian historian who compiled a universal history preserving many otherwise lost mythological traditions
Strabo
💭 conceptGeography, ethnography
Greek geographer whose seventeen-book Geography records mythological traditions alongside physical descriptions
Plato
💭 conceptPhilosophy, myth, forms
Athenian philosopher who both critiqued traditional myths and created powerful new ones in his dialogues
Homeric Hymns
💭 conceptLiterature
A collection of thirty-three ancient Greek hymns celebrating individual Olympian and chthonic deities
Theogony
💭 conceptLiterature
Hesiod's epic poem describing the origins and genealogies of the Greek gods
Palaephatus
💭 conceptRationalism, myth interpretation
Ancient rationaliser who explained myths as misunderstood historical events in On Unbelievable Tales
Dionysiaca
💭 conceptLiterature
Nonnus's sprawling epic poem narrating the life and conquests of the god Dionysus in forty-eight books