II.

LITERARY NOTICE CONCERNING FULGENTIUS PLANCIADES.

1.

His life and writings.

Fabius Planciades Fulgentius, a most distinguished man; a Christian; perhaps an African, which can be deduced from the fact that he wrote his booklet for Cato of Carthage. He lived around the year 500 AD, when Bollandus, in the Acta SS. Acts of the Saints (Antwerp, January, Vol. I, p. 972), assigned him to the Fulgentius, Bishop of Spain, of the seventh century, for which he was criticized by Nicolaus Antonius in the Bibliotheca Hispana vetus Old Spanish Library, Vol. I, p. 273. Besides the books of Mythology and on the Exposition of Virgilian Content Virgilian themes to Chalcidius the Grammarian, he wrote the Exposition of Ancient Words Sermones Antiqui for Chalcidius the Grammarian with testimonies. Compare Fabricius, Bibliotheca Latina, Book II, ch. 2, p. [page number obscured]; Muncker in the preface to the Latin Mythographers, Leiden, 17[xx]; Hamberger, Reliable News, Vol. III, p. 335, sqq. "Furthermore," says Fabricius, "I do not know if he will find credit among learned readers," fearing the suspicion of Muncker, by which he conjectures that Fulgentius in this booklet took the liberty, in order to invoke the authority of many writers, to cite authors who never seem to have existed, or at least are unknown to others, because in his age, libraries were for the most part despoiled not only by the Goths but even by Christians themselves with perverted religious zeal. "More correctly," he continues, "learned men have noted that Fulgentius, when he cites Greek writers, used the old Latin translations of those Greek authors." The same person on p. 768 adds: "Phil. Labaeus, Vol. I of the New Library of Manuscripts, p. 668, published an Epistle prefixed to this booklet from a manuscript, if I am not mistaken..."