Gaeus Julius Hyginus (64 BC-AD 17) was a Latin author, a freedman of Caesar Augustus and a close friend of the poet Ovid. He is credited with many works, several of them very probably not his. His name is attached to a series of tales, the Fabulae, and a “Poetical Astronomy”, the Poeticon Astronomicon. The Fabulae is a collection of myths including genealogical tables of gods and heroes from different mythological cycles, and is invaluable for its use of the works of now lost Greek tragic poets. The Poeticon Astronomicon, based on Eratosthenes’ Catasterismi, is a handbook of astronomy, listing the constellations and relating the myths associated with them.