Abraham Gronovius - Professor of Classical Philology

Son of Jacob Gronovius and Anna van Vredenburch. Grandson of Johannes Fredericus Gronovius (1611-1671), Professor of Classical Philology at Leyden. Brother of Johan Frederik Gronovius. In 1720 he married Dorothea Wijnanda van Asch van Wijck, with whom he had at least seven children, although few of them appears to have survived childhood. 

Gronovius was the librarian at the University Library in Leyden from 1741 until his death in 1775 and earned some fame in his own time as a classical scholar. He edited several classical Latin and Greek texts. His most famous work was a new edition of Marcus Junianus Justinus (3rd cent.).1

• 1Just over half a century later, the Danish scholar B. G. Niebuhr said in his famous lectures on ancient history that "Of all the scholars that have been occupied with Justin, scarcely one deserves honourable mention, with the exception of James Bongarsius, a French Protestant, whose library still exists at Berne. He was a clever man, and a distinguished commentator. Most of the others are quite incompetent; and the last, Abraham Gronovius, is the most incompetent of all. Yet his edition is the only one, that can in some measure be recommended because it contains a good collection of the various readings."(See Lectures on Ancient History, vol. 1 published in 1852)