Gaius Iulius Solinus is the author of the Collectanea rerum
memorabilium or Polyhistor, a late antique survey of memorable lands,
peoples, stones, plants, animals, and on life, the universe and
everything. He has been called the "chief Latin geographer to a
millennium", and a large number of manuscripts as well as a host of
early printed editions are witness to the long-lasting popularity of his
work. This changed after the end of that millennium: As we still have
Solinus' sources today, the Collectanea are in substance irrelevant
for us, thunders Pauly-Wissowa's Real-Encyclopadie. This lack of
interest in Solinus is also evident in the rarity of more recent
research on Solinus. New studies are certainly not amiss. Most of the
contributions to this volume were first presented at a dedicated
colloquium held in the University and Research Library Erfurt/Gotha,
which houses a large number of early editions of the Collectanea. The
lively conference showed that Solinus rewards the study of his text, his
sources, his position as an author, and his "Nachleben". A survey of the
contents of Solinus' work, a revised handlist of manuscripts
transmitting it and a full research bibliography complete this
collection of new studies. With contributions by Arwen Apps (Sydney),
Caroline Belanger (St Andrews), Kai Brodersen (Erfurt), Paul Dover
(Kennesaw), Francisco Javier Fernandez Nieto (Valencia), Tom Hillard
(Sydney), David Paniagua (Salamanca), Barbara Pavlock (Bethlehem), Felix
Racine (Montreal), Frank E. Romer (Greenville), Karin Schlapbach
(Ottawa), and Zweder von Martels (Groningen).
