FULGENTIUS, FABIUS PLANCIADES, Latin grammarian, a native of Africa, flourished in the first half of the 6th (or the last part of the 5th) century A.D. He is to be distinguished from Fulgentius, bishop of Ruspe (468-533), to whom he was probably related, and also from the bishop’s pupil and biographer, Fulgentius Ferrandus. Four extant works are attributed to him. (1) Mythologiarum libri iii., dedicated to a certain Catus, a presbyter of Carthage, containing 75 myths briefly told, and then explained in the mystical and allegorical manner of the Stoics and Neoplatonists. For this purpose the author generally invokes the aid of etymologies which, borrowed from the philosophers, are highly absurd. As a Christian, Fulgentius sometimes (but less frequently than might have been expected) quotes the Bible by the side of the philosophers, to give a Christian colouring to the moral lesson. (2) Expositio Vergilianae continentiae (continentia = contents), a sort of appendix to (1), dedicated to Catus. The poet himself appears to the author and explains the twelve books of the Aeneid as a picture of human life. The three words arma (= virtus), vir (= sapientia), primus (= princeps) in the first line represent respectively substantia corporalis, sensualis, ornans. Book i. symbolizes the birth and early childhood of man (the shipwreck of Aeneas denotes the peril of birth), book vi. the plunge into the depths of wisdom. (3) Expositio sermonum antiquorum, explanations of 63 rare and obsolete words, supported by quotations (sometimes from authors and works that never existed). It is much inferior to the similar work of Nonius, with which it is often edited. (4) Liber absque litteris de aetatibus mundi et hominis. In the MS. heading of this work, the name of the author is given as Fabius Claudius Gordianus Fulgentius (Claudius is the name of the father, and Gordianus that of the grandfather of the bishop, to whom some attribute the work). The title Absque litteris indicates that one letter of the alphabet is wholly omitted in each successive book (A in bk. i., B in bk. ii.). Only 14 books are preserved. The matter is chiefly taken from sacred history. In addition to these, Fulgentius speaks of early poetical attempts after the manner of Anacreon, and of a work called Physiologus, dealing with medical questions, and including a discussion of the mystical signification of the numbers 7 and 9. Fulgentius is a representative of the so-called late African style, taking for his models Apuleius, Tertullian and Martianus Capella. His language is bombastic, affected and incorrect, while the lengthy and elaborate periods make it difficult to understand his meaning.
See the edition of the four works by R. Helm (1898, Teubner series); also M. Zink, Der Mytholog Fulgentius (1867); E. Jungmann, “De Fulgentii aetate et scriptis,” in Acta Societatis Philologae Lipsiensis, i. (1871); A. Ebert, Allgemeine Geschichte der Litt. des Mittelalters, i.; article “Fulgentius” by C.F. Böhr in Ersch and Gruber’s Allgemeine Encyklopädie; Teuffel-Schwabe, History of Roman Literature (Eng. trans.).
FULGINIAE (mod. Foligno), an ancient town of Umbria, Italy, on the later line of the Via Flaminia, 15 m. S. of Nuceria. It appears to have been of comparatively late origin, inasmuch as it had no city walls, but, in imperial times especially, owing to its position on the new line of the Via Flaminia, it must have increased in importance as being the point of departure of roads to Perusia and to Picenum over the pass of Plestia. It appears to have had an amphitheatre, and three bridges over the Topino are attributed to the Roman period. Three miles to the N. lies the independent community of Forum Flaminii, the site of which is marked by the church of S. Giovanni Profiamma, at or near which the newer line of the Via Flaminia rejoined the older. It was no doubt founded by the builder of the road, C. Flaminius, consul in 220 B.C. (See [Foligno] and [Flaminia], Via.)
(T. As.)
FULGURITE (from Lat. fulgur, lightning), in petrology, the name given to rocks which have been fused on the surface by lightning, and to the characteristic holes in rocks formed by the same agency. When lightning strikes the naked surfaces of rocks, the sudden rise of temperature may produce a certain amount of fusion, especially when the rocks are dry and the electricity is not readily conducted away. Instances of this have been observed on Ararat and on several mountains in the Alps, Pyrenees, &c. A thin glassy crust, resembling a coat of varnish, is formed; its thickness is usually not more than one-eighth of an inch, and it may be colourless, white or yellow. When examined under the microscope, it usually shows no crystallization, and contains minute bubbles due to the expansion of air or other gases in the fused pellicle. Occasionally small microliths may appear, but this is uncommon because so thin a film would cool with extreme rapidity. The minerals of the rock beneath are in some cases partly fused, but the more refractory often appear quite unaffected. The glass has arisen from the melting of the most fusible ingredients alone.
Another type of fulgurite is commonest in dry sands and takes the shape of vertical tubes which may be nearly half an inch in diameter. Generally they are elliptical in cross section, or flattened by the pressure exerted by the surrounding sand on the fulgurite at a time when it was still very hot and plastic. These tubes are often vertical and may run downwards for several feet through the sand, branching and lessening as they descend. Tubular perforations in hard rocks have been noted also, but these are short and probably follow original cracks. The glassy material contains grains of sand and many small round or elliptical cavities, the long axes of which are radial. Minerals like felspar and mica are fused more readily than quartz, but analysis shows that some fulgurite glasses are very rich in silica, which perhaps was dissolved in the glass rather than simply fused. The central cavity of the tube and the bubbles in its walls point to the expansion of the gases (air, water, &c.) in the sand by sudden and extreme heating. Very fine threads of glass project from the surface of the tube as if fused droplets had been projected outwards with considerable force. Where the quartz grains have been greatly heated but not melted they become white and semi-opaque, but where they are in contact with the glass they usually show partial solution. Occasionally crystallization has begun before the glass solidified, and small microliths, the nature of which is undeterminable, occur in streams and wisps in the clear hyaline matrix.
(J. S. F.)