Euripides and the authorship of the Fabulae of Hyginus

Abstract

This study will focus on the Fabulae, a mythographic collection of short entries dating to approximately the second century CE and attributed in the manuscript tradition to C. Iulius Hyginus. There are two questions that this thesis will attempt to answer. First is the question of authorship. The Fabulae are not, as previously believed, the product of a single author. Numerous instances of repeated content, contradictory entries and evidence of different levels of comprehension of the Greek language indicate that at least two authors penned the Fabulae. The second question is one of source and directly relates to the plays of Euripides. Did the author(s) of the Fabulae have access to the plays of Euripides? Direct access to the plays does not seem likely in the case of most Fabulae, but evidence exists that didascalic information was available to the author(s). We can then compare the Fabulae to the fragments and testimonia of the non-extant plays to determine if the Fabulae constitute a useful tool in the reconstruction of lost tragedy. This is a process that must be carried out on an individual basis: some Fabulae appear to have drawn on non-extant tragedy, while others, as best as it can be determined, do not.