Grotius
Hugo (Huig van Groot). A Dutch scholar and jurist of great
distinction, born at Delft, April 10th, 1583. As a boy he was extraordinarily precocious,
entering the University of Leyden in his eleventh year, having already become well known for
his skill in Latin versification. At Leyden he studied under Joseph JustusScaliger, and when
only fifteen years of age edited the very difficult, and, in fact, encyclopædic,
work of Martianus Capella
(Leyden, 1599). After a year spent in travel, he was
admitted to the doctorate in law, and entered upon regular practice as an advocate. Though
unusually successful in his chosen profession, he still reverted to letters, and in 1600
edited the remains of Aratus with the versions of Cicero, Germanicus, and Avienus. He also
wrote much excellent Latin verse, and three dramas in Latin, one of which (
Adamus
Exul) is thought to have furnished a number of suggestions to Milton for his
Paradise Lost. In 1614 he edited the
Pharsalia of Lucan, of
which edition a recension was published by Usener at Greifswald in 1862. Later, he put forth
an edition of Silius Italicus, and a celebrated translation of the
Anthologia Graeca
Planudea. In 1657 he composed
Annales et Historiae de Rebus Belgicis,
an historical work of much value, and recalling by its terse and pointed style the Latinity of
Tacitus. He is best known to the world at large, however, by his remarkable treatise
De Iure Pacis et Belli (1625)—a work of profound and
searching scholarship, which long remained the standard authority on international law. To
describe his stormy career as a theologian and statesman would be beyond the scope of the
present work. He died at Rostock, August 29th, 1645.
Few men have shown so great an aptitude for so many fields of intellectual labour. He was
profoundly learned as a classical scholar, uniting elegance to accuracy. As a theologian he
was probably the most soundly critical exegete of his age.
An able and acute historian, a philosopher of depth and ingenuity, an influential and
original statesman and diplomat, a poet of much distinction, and a jurist who will always rank
among the greatest in the history of jurisprudence—no wonder that an amazed
contemporary styled him “a monster of learning.”
The fullest biography of Grotius, with a complete list of his works, is that of Lehmann
(Delft, 1727). There is also a good life of him in English by C. Butler
(London, 1826). See L. Müller,
Gesch. d. class. Philol. in den
Niederlanden, p. 38
(Leipzig, 1869); and Pökel,
Philolog. Schriftstellerlexikon, s. v. “Grotius”
(Leipzig, 1882).
