Born at
Augsburg, he studied at
Tübingen, and in 1558, when very short of money (caused, according to some, by his intemperate habits), he was appointed to succeed
Jakob Micyllus in the professorship of Greek at the
University of Heidelberg; he exchanged it for a chair of
logic (
publicus organi Aristotelici interpres) in 1562. In Heidelberg church and university politics, Xylander was a close partisan of
Thomas Erastus. Xylander was the author of a number of important works, including
Latin translations of
Dio Cassius (1558),
Plutarch (1560–1570) and
Strabo (1571). He also edited (1568) the geographical
lexicon of
Stephanus of Byzantium; the travels of
Pausanias (completed after his death by
Friedrich Sylburg, 1583); the
Meditations of
Marcus Aurelius (1558), the
editio princeps based on a Heidelberg manuscript now lost; a second edition in 1568 with the addition of
Antoninus Liberalis,
Phlegon of Tralles, an unknown
Apollonius, and
Antigonus of Carystus—all
paradoxographers; and the chronicle of
George Cedrenus (1566). He translated the first six books of
Euclid into German with notes, the
Arithmetica of
Diophantus, and the
De quattuor mathematicis scientiis of
Michael Psellus into Latin. ==Works==