The story of Granius Licinianus is murky and troubled. This historian — more than compiler — and antiquarian lived during the 2nd century CE, presumably in the post-Hadrianic age. He was unknown until the mid-19th century: in 1853, the fortunate discovery of fragments of his writing recovered him to classical historiography. They were identified by the orientalist Paul Boetticher (Boetticher 1854; Lagarde 1858) as scriptura ima in the bis rescriptus palimpsest parchment of the British Museum BL. Additional 17212, which came from Egypt.

    In brief: a 5th-century copy of a historical work by Granius Licinianus, written in Italy, in two columns of small and elegant uncial letters, had been overwritten with a Latin grammatical treatise in the 7th century, which in turn was also erased and overwritten in the Near East with a Syriac translation of John Chrysostom’s Homilies in 10th century. These 13 folia were then gravely damaged and rendered unusable when they were incautiously and unscrupulously exposed to ammonium hydrosulfide (NH4S4) by Georg Heinrich Pertz, the director of the Monumenta Germaniae Historica and a supporter of this deadly reagent, and his son Karl (who was, in 1857, the first transcriber and inexperienced editor of the text, although aided by Jacob Bernays and Theodor Mommsen). As a result, the following editors (Heptas 1858, Camozzi 1900, Flemisch 1904: and Criniti 1981, after the folia were reexamined with ultraviolet rays in 1972 and the palaeographer Mirella Ferrari confirmed that the text was illegible) had to use only the apograph, which is not always accurate, well-ordered, or correct.

      We know practically nothing of Granius Licinianus. His nomen and cognomen can be clearly read on the codex, but his praenomen is unknown (Pertz fancifully reconstructs it as ‘Gaius’). Of his biography, we know only that he was part of an ancient plebeian gens that originated in the ager Campanus (Pozzuoli) and later spread to Delos and Rome; while his cognomen may suggest that he was a Licinius adopted by a Granius, this cannot be definitely ascertained. He was learned and well-read, and may have been a ludimagister (the pedantic, sometimes prosaic style of his work could be a signaculum), but very few ancient authors quote him. There are two certain, late antique instances: Servius, Aen. 1,737, on the relationship between women/wine, refers to an unknown convivial work, Cena, on a framework confirmed by Aulus Gellius; and Macrobius, Sat. 1,16,30, concerning the nundinae Iovis, refers to the “liber secundus” of an ancient work, whether the Cena or another (Fasti?: Criniti 1993, 183-184). There are also two probable, though less certain, references (Criniti 1981, XII; 1993, 145-146, 184): Solinus, Collectanea 2,12 and 40, may invoke him on antiquarian etiological-religious subjects regarding Messapia and Calabria.

    In the 19th century — starting with the first editor —, Granius was often identified or confused with the late republican jurist Granius Flaccus, who was a scholar of pontifical law (indigitamenta). He shared with Granius Flaccus antiquarian-religious interests, but has nothing to do with him (Criniti 1981, XIII ss 1993, 151 ss.). Nonetheless, he was transformed into a hybrid Granius Flaccus Licinianus, thought to flourish during the late Republic. Granius Licinianus only reacquired his own personal identity through the work of editors early in the 20th century, although a better reconstruction of his life was still not possible. Even now, there are still some who — along the same lines as Comparetti 1858 — speak sic et simipliciter of one Licinianus, proposing identifications that are singular, to say the least: for example, with a Spanish scholar of the Hadrianic age and a friend of Martial.

   His dating in the middle of the 2^nd century CE has been accepted, almost without exception, since Linker 1858 (even ‘younger than Florus’, according to La Penna 2015, 3), which followed soon after K. Pertz’s late republican hypothesis and J. N. Madvig (1857)’s late imperial hypothesis. Doubts have sometimes been raised: these lack foundations, but they are based on the same uncertainty of Granius’ identity. It does not seem possible to discuss the reference to Hadrian’s dedication of the temple of Capitoline Jupiter in Athens (Olympieion) in 131-132 (Reliquiae XXVIII, 13), as data post quem.  [N. Criniti tr. C. Belanger]