Hyginus Gromaticus

Hyginus Gromaticus was a Latin specialist writer of the 1st and 2nd centuries AD.

Origin of the nickname gromaticus

Hyginus Gromaticus ( Gromaticus von groma , a measuring instrument of the old Roman surveyors ) is an intangible author except for his writing de constitutione limitum in the so-called corpus agrimensorum Romanorum , who was probably at the end of the 1st century AD at the time of the Roman Emperor Trajan lived. Its epithet is due to a wrong reading in the oldest codex, the Arcerianus (Guelferbitanus 2403 Aug. f. 36,23 fol. 161, saec. Vi-vii), in which the subscriptio of the text EXP. (= explicit) KYGYNI GROMATICI CONSTITVTIO FELICITER is. Other manuscripts, such as the Palatinus Vatic. lat. 1564, have LIBER HYGINI GROMATICVS as Explicit , so that the adjective gromaticus clearly goes to liber , thus designating a "gromatic" surveyor book. The convention of speaking of a "Hyginus Gromaticus", which has been in use until recently , should therefore be abandoned as misleading, and it was in the latest editions by Campbell, who made the author aware of another Hyginus also present in the gromatic writings "Hyginus 1" and "Hyginus 2" are different.

plant

Hyginus' writing constitutio <limitum> , whereby limitum is a supplement by Carl Olof Thulin ( Karl Lachmann titled it with de limitibus constituendis ), has only been passed down in a corrupted way. What has been preserved, however, offers extremely important and significant conclusions about the Latin reception of corresponding Greek astronomical and mathematical writings, since Hyginus does not only deal with the construction of the large axis or limitation cross from decimanus and cardo , but also dedicated himself to the construction of decimanus according to the method of Dedicates shadow dimensions and compares them with less precise methods (e.g. after sunrise and sunset). The relationship between a large section of this text and a Geometria incerti auctori edited by Nikolaus Bubnov has yet to be examined.

Another work ascribed to him, Liber gromaticus de divisionibus agrorum , with which the constitutio was perhaps to be continued, has only been handed down in the titulus .

literature

• F. Blume, K. Lachmann, K. Rudorff (eds.): Gromatici veteres. The writings of the Roman surveyors. 2 volumes. Berlin 1848–52, pp. 166–208. (on-line)
• N. Bubnov (Ed.): Gerberti postea Silvestri II papae Opera mathematica (972-1003). Berlin 1899. (Reprint: Hildesheim 2005).
• CO Thulin (Ed.): Corpus agrimensorum Romanorum (= Opuscula agrimensorum veterum. I). Leipzig 1913. (Reprint: Stuttgart 1971), pp. 131–171 (online)
• B. Campbell (Ed., Übers., Komm.): The writings of the Roman land surveyors. Introduction, translation and commentary (= Journal of the Roman Studies Monographs. 9). London 2000.
• M. Clavel-Lévêque, D. Conso, A. Gonzales, J.-Y. Guillaumin et al. (Ed., Transl., Comm.): Corpus Agrimensorum Romanorum V. Hygin, L'Œuvre gromatique. Luxembourg 2000. (online)
• J.-Y. Guillaumin (Ed., Transl., Comm.): Les arpenteurs romains. Tome 1: Hygin le Gromatique, Frontin. (= Les belles Lettres 1, Collection des universités de France Série latine ). Paris 2005.
• JO. Lindermann, E. Knobloch, C. Möller (Ed., Translator., Comm.): Hyginus - The Surveyor's Book. A masterpiece of late antique book art. Edited, translated and annotated , Darmstadt 2018.

Web links

Wikisource: Hyginus Gromaticus  - Sources and full texts

Individual evidence

1. ^ Edition Thulin, apparatus criticus p. 131.
2. ↑ Ibid.
3. ↑ Bubnov Appendix IV, esp. 363-364 u. Appendix VII 394-553.