HEYNE, CHRISTIAN GOTTLOB (1729-1812), German classical scholar was born on Sept. 25, 1729, at Chemnitz, Saxony. In 1748 he entered the University of Leipzig. In 1752 he went to Dresden on the invitation of Count von Briihl, the prime minister, f ror_i whom, however, he got no more than a post as clerk in the count's library with a miserable salary. He published his first edition of Tibullus in 1755, and in 1756 his Epictetus. In the latter year the Seven Years' War broke out, and Heyne was com pelled to support himself by tutoring, being driven from place to place by the war. The bombardment of Dresden on July 18, 1760, destroyed all his possessions, including an almost finished edition of Lucian, based on a valuable codex of the Dresden library. In the summer of 1761, although still without any fixed income, he married, and at the end of 1762 he was enabled to return to Dresden, where he was coMmissioned by P. D. Lippert to prepare the Latin text of the third volume of his Dactyliotheca (an account of a collection of gems). In 1763 he obtained a professorship at Gottingen, and his growing celebrity brought him offers from other German Governments, which he persistently refused. He died on July 14, He was the first to attempt a scientific study of Greek mythology.
Of Heyne's numerous writings, the following may be men tioned. Editions, with copious commentaries, of Tibullus (ed. E. C. Wunderlich, 1817), Virgil (ed. G. P. Wagner, 183o-4I), Pindar (3rd ed. by G. H. Schafer, 1817), Apollodorus, Bibliotheca Graeca (1803 ), Homer, Iliad (1802) ; Opuscula academics (1785-1812), dissertations of which the most valuable are those relating to the colonies of Greece and the antiquities of Etruscan art and history. His Antiquarische Aufsatze (1778-79) is a valuable collection of essays connected with the history of ancient art.
See biography by A. H. Heeren (1813) which forms the basis of the interesting essay by Carlyle (Misc. Essays, ii.) ; H. Sauppe, Gottinger Professoren (1872) ; C. Bursian in Allgemeine deutsche Biographie, xii.; J. E. Sandys, Hist. Class. Schol. (2908), iii. 36-44.