Johannes Meursius

Johannes Meursius (van Meurs) (9 February 1579 – 20 September 1639) was a Dutch classical scholar and antiquary.

Biography Meursius was born Johannes van Meurs at Loosduinen, near The Hague. He was extremely precocious, and at the age of sixteen produced a commentary on the Cassandra of Lycophron. For ten years he was the tutor to the children of Johan van Oldenbarnevelt, accompanying the family on Oldenbarnevelt's diplomatic missions to many of the courts of Europe. While on such a trip, in 1608 he obtained a doctorate of Law in Orléans. He died in Sorø and is buried in Sorø Abbey Church.

Meursius was the author of classical editions and treatises, many of which are printed in J.F. Gronovius's Thesaurus antiquitatum graecarum. Their lack of arrangement detracts from their value, but they are a storehouse of information, and Meursius does not deserve the epithets of "pedant" and "ignoramus" which Joseph Justus Scaliger applied to him. Meursius also wrote about the troubles in the Netherlands. one of the first dictionaries of Modern Greek.

Complete edition of his works by J. Lami (1741–1763). See Van der Aa's Biographisch Woordenboek der Nederlanden (1869), and J.E. Sandys, History of Classical Scholarship (1908), ii. 311.

Selected works 1612: Res Belgicae, Lugduni Batavorum 1614: Glossarium graecobarbarum, Lugduni Batavorum 1617: Lectiones Atticae, Lugduni Batavorum 1619: Eleusinia, siue, De Cereris Eleusinae sacro, ac festo: Liber Singularis, Lugduni Batavorum 1625: Athenae Batavae, Lugduni Batavorum 1630: Historia Danica, Hafniae 1684: Theseus; sive de ejus vita rebusque gestis liber postumus. Accedunt ejusdem Paralipomena de pagis Atticis, et excerpta ex ... Jacobi Sponii Itinerario de iisdem pagis. Ultrajecti: apud Franciscum Halma (On J. F. Gronovius's Thesaurus antiquitatum graecarum)