Caius Julius Hygīnus

, a grammarian, one of the freedmen of August us. He was a native of Alexandria; or, according to some, he was a Spaniard, very intimate with Ovid. He was appointed librarian to the library of mount Palatine, and he was able to maintain himself by the liberality of Caius Licinius. He wrote a mythological history, which he called fables, and Poetic on Astronomic on , besides treatises on the cities of Italy, on such Roman families as were descended from the Trojans, a book on agriculture, commentaries on Virgil, the lives of great men, . , now lost. The best edition of Hyginus is that of Munkerus, 2  vols. , 8vo, Amsterdam, 1681. These compositions have been greatly mutilated, and their incorrectne and their bad Latinity have induced some to suppose that they are spurious. Suet on i us , Lives of the Grammarians .