Friedrich Sylburg

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Friedrich Sylburg (* 1536 in Wetter ; † February 17, 1596 in Heidelberg ) was a German classical philologist ( Graezist ) who became important primarily because of his editions of works by ancient authors, but also stood out as a poet in ancient Greek and a translator.

Friedrich Sylburg was the son of a farmer, but thanks to his lessons at the Wetter Stift school and the support of his teachers Johannes Fönilius and Justus Vultejus (also Elias Palingenius ) at the University of Marburg , he was able to study Greek, Latin and history. A stay in Paris following his travels to Jena and Geneva brought him to the acquaintance of the printer and humanist Henri Estienne in 1559 . Sylburg made some contributions to Estiennes Thesaurus Graecae linguae . After his return he became a teacher, first as the third of three teachers at the Latin school in Neuhausen , and later as the founding rector of the school in Lich . In 1581 he was appointed to the chair of Greek at the University of Marburg, but did not accept the call, as he did not want to limit his scientific work by the labor-intensive position. Two years later he gave up his teaching profession and went to Frankfurt am Main , where he began to edit works by ancient authors. Here he worked closely with the printer Johann Wechel . In 1591 he left Frankfurt to work at the Bibliotheca Palatina in Heidelberg, which he headed from 1595 until his death the following year. He compiled a catalog of the manuscripts that were still available in his day and thus performed an important work to this day, as it is still evident today which treasure was given to the library in Rome in 1623. Wechel's role in the collaboration was taken over by the printer Hieronymus Commelinus in Heidelberg . Until a few days before his death, he was again on the shortlist for the Greek professorship in Marburg, which was then transferred to Aemilius Portus (1550–1614) for fear of a renewed rejection . Sylburg was married to the daughter of his former teacher in Wetter, not much more is known about his private life. His important library went to his heir, the lawyer Johann Friedrich Gernandus , with whom the trace is finally lost.

Sylburg was not only fluent in Latin and French , but also in Greek at such a high level that he wrote poetry in Greek himself. He also translated works such as the Heidelberg Catechism into Greek. He also mastered Latin perfectly, as evidenced by the Latin prefaces that precede the Greek texts. Far more important, however, were his work as an editor of classical works of antiquity, especially in ancient Greek. In 1580 a new edition of the work Institutiones in Graecam linguam by Nicolaes Cleynaerts was published as the first significant work , which he annotated and expanded to include a Greek syntax . After Sylburg came to Frankfurt, he finished Guilielmus Xylander's work on his Pausanias edition. This was followed by separate editions of Herodotus (1584), Aristotle (5 volumes, 1584–1587), Dionysius of Halicarnassus (2 volumes, 1586–1587), the Scriptores historiae Romanae (3 volumes, 1588–1590, a compilation of Greek and Sylburgs Latin source works of the Roman imperial history with the first edition of Paianios ) and 1590 Perí syntáxios of Apollonios Dyskolos . In Heidelberg he devoted himself to Christian authors with Clemens von Alexandria (1592) and Iustinos Martyr (1593), followed by the Byzantine lexicon Etymologicum magnum (1594), the Scriptores de re rustica (1595) and Xenophon and Nonnos (both 1596). The Greek gnomics appeared posthumously in 1597 , including Theognis of Megara , Phokylides , Pythagoras and Solon . When it came to conjectures, Sylburg was a reluctant publisher, but was particularly innovative thanks to its language and subject indices. He dedicated his Aristotle edition to the Hessian landgraves Wilhelm IV , Ludwig IV and Georg I , which earned him an annual salary from Wilhelm. Many of his editions were important for a long time, the edition of Dionysius of Halicarnassus was still highly valued by Barthold Georg Niebuhr .

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SURNAME Sylburg, Friedrich
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German Graecist
DATE OF BIRTH 1536
PLACE OF BIRTH Weather
DATE OF DEATH February 17, 1596
Place of death Heidelberg