Early European History Part 27

Founded during the closing years of the Peloponnesian War, Rhodes soon distanced Athens in the race for commercial supremacy. The merchants of Rhodes framed admirable laws, especially for business affairs, and many of these were incorporated in the Roman code. Rhodes was celebrated for art.

No less than three thousand statues adorned the streets and public buildings. It was also a favorite place of education for promising orators and writers. During Roman days many eminent men, Cicero and Julius Caesar among them, studied oratory at Rhodes.

45. THE h.e.l.lENISTIC AGE

h.e.l.lENISTIC LITERATURE

These splendid cities in the Orient were the centers of much literary activity. Their inhabitants, whether h.e.l.lenic or "barbarian," used Greek as a common language. During this period Greek literature took on a cosmopolitan character. It no longer centered in Athens. Writers found their audiences in all lands where Greeks had settled. At the same time literature became more and more an affair of the study. The authors were usually professional bookmen writing for a bookish public. They produced many works of literary criticism, prepared excellent grammars and dictionaries, but wrote very little poetry or prose of enduring value.

THE MUSEUM AT ALEXANDRIA

The h.e.l.lenistic Age was distinguished as an age of learning. Particularly was this true at Alexandria, where the Museum, founded by the first Macedonian king of Egypt, became a real university. It contained galleries of art, an astronomical observatory, and even zoological and botanical gardens. The Museum formed a resort for men of learning, who had the leisure necessary for scholarly research. The beautiful gardens, with their shady walks, statues, and fountains, were the haunt of thousands of students whom the fame of Alexandria attracted from all parts of the civilized world.

THE ALEXANDRIAN LIBRARY

In addition to the Museum there was a splendid library, which at one time contained over five hundred thousand ma.n.u.scripts--almost everything that had been written in antiquity. The chief librarian ransacked private collections and purchased all the books he could find. Every book that entered Egypt was brought to the Library, where slaves transcribed the ma.n.u.script and gave a copy to the owner in place of the original. Before this time the ma.n.u.scripts of celebrated works were often scarce and always in danger of being lost. Henceforth it was known where to look for them.

[Ill.u.s.tration: LAOc.o.o.n AND HIS CHILDREN (Vatican Museum Rome) A product of the art school of Rhodes (about 150 B.C.). The statue represents the punishment inflicted on Laoc.o.o.n a Trojan priest together with his two sons. A pair of large serpents sent by the offended G.o.ds have seized the unhappy victims.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: VICTORY OF SAMOTHRACE (Louvre, Paris) Commemorates a naval battle fought in 306 B.C. The statue, which is considerably above life-size, stood on a pedestal having the form of a ship's prow. The G.o.ddess of Victory was probably represented holding a trumpet to her lips with her right hand. The fresh ocean breeze has blown her garments back into tumultuous folds.]

SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERIES

The h.e.l.lenistic Age was remarkable for the rapid advance of scientific knowledge. Most of the mathematical works of the Greeks date from this epoch. Euclid wrote a treatise on geometry which still holds its place in the schools. Archimedes of Syracuse, who had once studied at Alexandria, made many discoveries in engineering. A water screw of his device is still in use. He has the credit for finding out the laws of the lever. "Give me a fulcrum on which to rest," he said, "and I will move the earth." The h.e.l.lenistic scholars also made remarkable progress in medicine. The medical school of Alexandria was well equipped with charts, models, and dissecting rooms for the study of the human body. During the second century of our era all the medical knowledge of antiquity was gathered up in the writings of Galen (born about 130 A.D.). For more than a thousand years Galen of Pergamum remained the supreme authority in medicine.

ANCIENT AND MODERN SCIENCE COMPARED

In scientific work it seems as if the Greeks had done almost all that could be accomplished by sheer brain power aided only by rude instruments.

They had no real telescopes or microscopes, no mariner's compa.s.s or chronometer, and no very delicate balances. Without such inventions the Greeks could hardly proceed much farther with their researches. Modern scientists are perhaps no better thinkers than were those of antiquity, but they have infinitely better apparatus and can make careful experiments where the Greeks had to rely on shrewd guesses.

EXTENSION OF GEOGRAPHICAL KNOWLEDGE

During the h.e.l.lenistic Age men began to gain more accurate ideas regarding the shape and size of the habitable globe. Such events as the expedition of the "Ten Thousand" [17] and Alexander's conquests in central Asia and India brought new information about the countries and peoples of the Orient. During Alexander's lifetime a Greek named Pytheas, starting from Ma.s.silia, [18] made an adventurous voyage along the sh.o.r.es of Spain and Gaul and spent some time in Britain. He was probably the first Greek to visit that island.

ERATOSTHENES, ABOUT 276-194 B.C.

All this new knowledge of East and West was soon gathered together by Eratosthenes, the learned librarian of Alexandria. He was the founder of scientific geography. Before his time some students had already concluded that the earth is spherical and not flat, as had been taught in the Homeric poems. [19] Guesses had even been made of the size of the earth.

Eratosthenes by careful measurements came within a few thousand miles of its actual circ.u.mference. Having estimated the size of the earth, Eratosthenes went on to determine how large was its habitable area. He reached the conclusion that the distance from the strait of Gibraltar to the east of India was about one-third of the earth's circ.u.mference. The remaining two-thirds, he thought, was covered by the sea. And with what seems a prophecy he remarked that, if it was not for the vast extent of the Atlantic Ocean, one might almost sail from Spain to India along the same parallel of lat.i.tude.

[Ill.u.s.tration: PROGRESS OF GEOGRAPHICAL KNOWLEDGE IN ANTIQUITY Map, The World according to Eratosthenes, 200 B.C.

Map, The World according to Ptolemy, 150 A.D.]

PTOLEMY

The next two centuries after Eratosthenes saw the spread of Roman rule over Greeks and Carthaginians in the Mediterranean and over the barbarous inhabitants of Gaul, Britain, and Germany. The new knowledge thus gained was summed up in the Greek _Geography_ by Ptolemy [20] of Alexandria. His famous map shows how near he came to the real outlines both of Europe and Asia.

THE PTOLEMAIC SYSTEM

Ptolemy was likewise an eminent astronomer. He believed that the earth was the center of the universe and that the sun, planets, and fixed stars all revolved around it. This Ptolemaic system was not overthrown until the grand discovery of Copernicus in the sixteenth century of our era.

46. THE GRAECO-ORIENTAL WORLD

THE NEW LUXURY

The h.e.l.lenistic Age was characterized by a general increase in wealth. The old Greeks and Macedonians, as a rule, had been content to live plainly.

Now kings, n.o.bles, and rich men began to build splendid palaces and to fill them with the products of ancient art--marbles from Asia Minor, vases from Athens, Italian bronzes, and Babylonian tapestries. They kept up great households with endless lords in waiting, ladies of honor, pages, guards, and servants. Soft couches and clothes of delicate fabric replaced the simple coverlets and coa.r.s.e cloaks of an earlier time. They possessed rich carpets and hangings, splendid armor and jewelry, and gold and silver vessels for the table. The Greeks thus began to imitate the luxurious lives of Persian n.o.bles.

THE SEA ROUTE TO INDIA

These new luxuries flowed in from all parts of the ancient world. Many came from the Far East in consequence of the rediscovery of the sea route to India, by Alexander's admiral, Nearchus. [21] The voyage of Nearchus was one of the most important results of Alexander's eastern conquests. It established the fact, which had long been forgotten, that one could reach India by a water route much shorter and safer than the caravan roads through central Asia. [22] Somewhat later a Greek sailor, named Harpalus, found that by using the monsoons, the periodic winds which blow over the Indian Ocean, he could sail direct from Arabia to India without laboriously following the coast. The Greeks, in consequence, gave his name to the monsoons.

ORIENTAL INFLUENCE ON THE GREEKS

All this sudden increase of wealth, all the thousand new enjoyments with which life was now adorned and enriched, did not work wholly for good.

With luxury there went, as always, laxity in morals. Contact with the vice and effeminacy of the East tended to lessen the manly vigor of the Greeks, both in Asia and in Europe. h.e.l.las became corrupt, and she in turn corrupted Rome.

GREEK INFLUENCE ON THE ORIENT

Yet the most interesting, as well as the most important, feature of the age is the diffusion of h.e.l.lenic culture--the "h.e.l.lenizing" of the Orient.

It was, indeed, a changed world in which men were now living. Greek cities, founded by Alexander and his successors, stretched from the Nile to the Indus, dotted the sh.o.r.es of the Black Sea and Caspian, and arose amid the wilds of central Asia. The Greek language, once the tongue of a petty people, grew to be a universal language of culture, spoken even by "barbarian" lips. And the art, the science, the literature, the principles of politics and philosophy, developed in isolation by the Greek mind, henceforth became the heritage of many nations.

THE NEW COSMOPOLITANISM

Thus, in the period after Alexander the long struggle between East and West reached a peaceful conclusion. The distinction between Greek and Barbarian gradually faded away, and the ancient world became ever more unified in sympathies and aspirations. It was this mingled civilization of Orient and Occident with which the Romans were now to come in contact, as they pushed their conquering arms beyond Italy into the eastern Mediterranean.

[Ill.u.s.tration: ORIENTAL, GREEK, AND ROMAN COINS 1. Lydian coin of about 700 B.C.; the material is electrum, a compound of gold and silver.

2. Gold _daric_; a Persian coin worth about $5.

3. Hebrew silver _shekel_.

4. Athenian silver _tetradrachm_ showing Athena, her olive branch and sacred owl.

5. Roman bronze _as_ (2 cents) of about 217 B.C.; the symbols are the head of Ja.n.u.s and the prow of a ship.

6. Bronze _sestertius_ (5 cents) struck in Nero's reign; the emperor, who carries a spear, is followed by a second horseman bearing a banner.

7. Silver _denarius_ (20 cents) of about 99 B.C.; it shows a bust of Roma and three citizens voting.

8. Gold _solidus_ ($5) of Honorius about 400 A.D.; the emperor wears a diadem and carries a scepter.]

STUDIES

1. On an outline map indicate the routes of Alexander, marking the princ.i.p.al battle fields and the most important cities founded by him.

Note, also, the voyage of Nearchus.

2. On an outline map indicate the princ.i.p.al h.e.l.lenistic kingdoms about 200 B.C.

3. Give the proper dates for (a) accession of Alexander; (b) battle of Issus; (c) battle of Arbela; and (d) death of Alexander.

4. In what sense was Chaeronea a decisive battle?

5. How is it true that the expedition of the Ten Thousand forms "an epilogue to the invasion of Xerxes and a prologue to the conquests of Alexander"?