Hyginus is said to have been a native of Alexandria,
or, according to others, a Spaniard. He was,
like Phaedrus, a freedman of Augustus; but, though
industrious, he seems not to have improved himself
so much as his companion, in the art of composition.
He wrote, however, a mythological history, under
the title of Fables, a work called Poeticon Astronomicon,
with a treatise on agriculture, commentaries on Virgil,
the lives of eminent men, and some other productions
now lost. His remaining works are much mutilated,
and, if genuine, afford an unfavourable specimen of
his elegance and correctness as a writer.
Celsus was a physician in the time of Tiberius,
and has written eight books, De Medicina, in which
he has collected and digested into order all that
is valuable on the subject, in the Greek and Roman
authors. The professors of Medicine were at
that time divided into three sects, viz., the
Dogmatists, Empirics, and Methodists; the first of
whom deviated less than the others from the plan of
Hippocrates; but they were in general irreconcilable
to each other, in respect both of their opinions and
practice. Celsus, with great judgment, has occasionally
adopted particular doctrines from each of them; and
whatever he admits into his system, he not only establishes
by the most rational observations, but confirms by
its practical utility. In justness of remark,
in force of argument, in precision and perspicuity,
as well as in elegance of expression, he deservedly
occupies the most distinguished rank amongst the medical
writers of antiquity. It appears that Celsus
likewise wrote on agriculture, rhetoric, and military
affairs; but of those several treatises no fragments
now remain.
To the writers of this reign we must add Apicius
COELIUS, who has left a book De Re Coquinaria [of
Cookery]. There were three Romans of the name
of Apicius, all remarkable for their (250) gluttony.
The first lived in the time of the Republic, the
last in that of Trajan, and the intermediate Apicius
under the emperors Augustus and Tiberius. This
man, as Seneca informs us, wasted on luxurious living,
sexcenties sestertium, a sum equal to 484,375 pounds
sterling. Upon examining the state of his affairs,
he found that there remained no more of his estate
than centies sestertium, 80,729l. 3s. 4d., which seeming
to him too small to live upon, he ended his days by
poison.
CAIUS CAESAR CALIGULA.
(251)
I. Germanicus, the father of Caius Caesar, and son
of Drusus and the younger Antonia, was, after his
adoption by Tiberius, his uncle, preferred to the
quaestorship [377] five years before he had attained
the legal age, and immediately upon the expiration
of that office, to the consulship [378]. Having
been sent to the army in Germany, he restored order
among the legions, who, upon the news of Augustus’s
death, obstinately refused to acknowledge Tiberius
Copyrights
The Lives of the Twelve Caesars, Complete from Project Gutenberg. Public domain.
