 Chapter 28 of Hellenic History The Organization and Administration of the Hellenistic States 3.37-30 BC Local Organization of Alexander's Empire Our knowledge of the local organization of Alexander's Empire, inherited from the Persians, and modified by himself and his successors, is extremely scant, accepting for Asia Minor and Egypt. The conqueror began the work of reorganization soon after the victory of Granicus, when the Hellenic cities along the western coast of Anatolia came onto his hands. These communities he treated with the utmost consideration, the oligarchies and tyrannies which had favored Persia he overthrew, and recalling the exiles he established democracies. The cities were left autonomous under a body of laws approved by the king. They were to recognize him as their leader in war and to furnish naval and land forces to serve under his command. Those especially favored were exempt from all payments, whereas the free city-states which had not won their way to the king's good graces rendered an annual payment made honorable by the title of contributions. All classes of cities thus far mentioned were looked upon as allies. Others which had dared resist his arms were held at least temporarily in subjection and compelled to pay the ordinary tributes. Among the Greek cities to profit most by the conquest were those along the western coast and on the neighboring islands of Asia Minor, not only through their enlarged opportunity for commerce, but also through the paternal favor of the kings. The most brilliant city of the region was Rhodes, which are taking the place of Peraeus as the commercial center of the Aegean area and had extended her lines of traffic throughout the Mediterranean world. In 170, her revenue from imports and exports, probably at the uniform rate of 2%, was 1 million drachmas, which represents a commerce diminutive according to modern standards, but splendid for that age. This state maintained her independence by the bravery of her citizens and her policy was to cultivate peace and friendship with the entire world. As a result, wealth abounded. The poor were provided for by the government and the rich lived luxuriously in some shoes dwellings. The city was not only a storehouse for merchandise, but the home of art and eloquence. The citizens were intelligent and maintained a high sense of public honor. Temple Estates In the interior of Asia Minor, the task of adapting existing conditions to the will of the conquerors remained to the Seleucidae. Here were found two forms of feudal estates, centering respectively in the square turreted castles of the grandees and in the temples. The castles had existed from the 8th century BC and had been tolerated per force by Lydian and Persian kings. In the course of centuries, the Hellenistic rulers suppressed them and either incorporated these states in the royal domain or assigned them to cities. In the temple estate, the priest had control of the extensive lands belonging to it, and exercised authority over the people, who in some communities were numbered by the thousands. Among them were attendants on the deity, but the great majority cultivated the soil as peasants. At the annual festival in honor of the deity, there was held a fair, at which the peasants could display their produce for sale and make purchases of the traders who came in from neighboring lands. The gathering of the people from near and far for worship, trade and pleasure, was a source of profit to the priests. The Hellenistic kings dare not suppress these religious potentates, but deprive them of political power and in some instances of a part of their territory. Often the king settled a colony on the temple estate and subjected the priest to the government of the new city. Alexander's plan of colonization. Alexander founded a great number of colonies, more than 70 as Plutarch states, distributing them over the empire in accordance with its needs, and the Seleucidae, following in his footsteps, planted an equal number. They were to provide homes for the worn-out veterans to garrison the conquered country, and at least in Alexander's plan to hellenize the empire. As a rule, therefore, they included a nucleus of retired soldiers and of Greek businessmen, around whom clustered a multitude of natives. Among the mercenaries of the Seleucidae, however, were a few Greeks, and in general it may be said that Hellenic civilization penetrated but a little way beyond the walls of the colony. Among the largest, Alexandria numbered 300,000 free souls and perhaps 100,000 slaves. Antioch, the Seleucid capital, was but slightly inferior, whereas Seleucia, on the Tigris, continued to grow till in the first century of our era, the population numbered 600,000. The wealth of Egypt. The importance of Alexandria came not merely from her position as capital of a wealthy kingdom, but even more from her commercial activities. Her harbors brought her into touch with the whole Mediterranean world, while her canal, which connected her with the Nile, was the first stage in the long voyage to India. From the Nile it was possible to convey merchandise to the Red Sea, either by canal or overland. Usually, however, the merchant fleets of Egypt sailed along the coast of Arabia, till they met and exchanged cargoes with the fleets of India. Under the late Ptolemies, this traffic declined to be magnificently revived by Augustus. In addition to commerce, Egypt derived great wealth from her manufacturers. Her shops produced substantially all the papyrus used throughout the world, and with the vast number of riders in the city, the publication of books became a thriving business. The aromatics imported from Arabia and from far off India were here transformed into incense and toilet perfumes. Drugs and medicines were prepared for use. In the neighborhood an abundance of vitrifiable earth was employed for the production of glass of very rich colors. Equally important were the textiles, including tapestries and both coarse and fine dress materials. The fine linens of biblical renown were woven in various localities and brought down to Alexandria for export. Doubtless many articles of use and luxury were manufactured here for home consumption or export of which we have no knowledge. The greatest product of the country was wheat. The hard labor of millions of peasants under the strict supervision of the Ptolemies yielded not only enough to supply home needs but an enormous quantity for exportation. Antioch and Seleucia In like manner, Antioch, situated on the Arantes River, about 12 miles from the Mediterranean, was not only an imperial capital but the beginning of a great caravan route from the sea to Mesopotamia and Persia. With the conquest of the Orient, the Greeks had ceased to be a purely maritime people and were conducting an extensive overland trade along the network of roads built by the Persian kings and their Hellenistic successors. East of Antioch, the route passed through Seleucia, which was also the chief trading intermediary between the Persian Gulf and the upper waters of the Tigris and Euphrates rivers. It was the successor of Babylon and the parent of Baghdad. Blending of nationalities The proportion of Greek to foreigners must have varied greatly according to circumstances. Naucratus, Egypt, for example, contained natives, but the Greeks of that city held aloof from social and marital relations with them and therefore maintained their language in relative purity. Ptolemies, Egypt, seems to have been equally exclusive. Alexandria, on the other hand, was exceedingly mixed. Two Greeks and Macedonians must be added Egyptians, Semites, Persians, and many other nationalities. These people were by no means equal. As a rule, the Macedonians and Helens, generally grouped together as Greeks, were the only citizens. They had their tribes and deems like those of Athens, their magistrates, council, and assembly. People of other speech were only medics with such rights as the city and the king assured them. In the country and the native towns, the Greeks formed but a small percentage of the population. Mercenaries of that nationality on lands held directly from Ptolemy and small businessmen scattered widely along the Nile Valley were more inclined to intermarry with the natives, and from these unions arose a hybrid class who spoke two tongues and bore both Greek and native names. Satrapies The subject territory, as distinguished from the three Hellenic cities, was organized as under Persian rule in great administrative districts termed satrapies. It was clearly the conqueror's intention to employ both natives and Macedonians as satrips while taking the precaution of transferring their military powers to special officers of his own nationality. This attempt to win the Persian aristocracy in his conflict with Darius proved a failure, and in the end he was obliged to substitute Macedonians as governors. A check on the satrips was found in keeping the commanders of great cities and fortresses directly dependent on the king and even more in the separation of the financial from the military and civil administration. The finances of Egypt, for example, Alexander placed in the hands of Cleomenes, a Greek of Naopactus. During the long absence of the conqueror in the northeast and east, Cleomenes, through his absolute control of the revenue, made himself in reality dictator of Egypt and used his authority for frightful extortions. The treasury of the empire was established at Babylon in charge of Harpalus, a friend of the conqueror's youth. During the long absence of the king, Harpalus squandered a great part of the treasury and escaped with the rest to Greece. In greed and disloyalty he was but a type of the high officialdom of the new empire. Failure to assimilate European and Asiatic troops. No obstacle, however, discouraged Alexander from his purpose of blending Asiatics and Europeans in one race socially and politically equal. He had married Roxana, a Bactrian princess, and afterward added a wife from each of the two royal Persian lines. At the same time, his great field marshals, Predicus, Ptolemy, Silucus, and Nearchus, and other high officials to the number of eighty, took to themselves Persian brides. On all without exception, Alexander bestowed Dauris. At the same time, he made presence to the ten thousand Macedonian troops who had married Asiatic women. From the beginning of his campaigns, Alexander had introduced native troops into his army, and the majority of the force with which he invaded India were Asiatics. After his return, he planned to dismiss the aged and crippled Macedonians and to substitute for them thirty thousand native youths trained and equipped in Macedonian style. The veterans, fighting themselves about to be displaced by men of a race whom they despised, were mortally offended and broke out in mutiny. The king yielded to the extent of giving his Macedonian forces the higher honor and pay. Despite every effort, the attempt to assimilate Europeans and Asiatics in the army proved a failure, and it was abandoned after his death. A Universal Empire While temporizing with his Macedonian troops, Alexander steadily advanced toward the goal of his ambition. A universal empire emancipated from every national restriction, an empire that knew no distinction of race or people. It was a new conception far broader than anything the world had known before, and formed the political basis for a larger idea of humanity afterward taking form in Stoicism and Christianity. Although there survived feebly a spark of popular sovereignty in the military assembly of Macedonians, the source of power had become the person of the monarch. The absolute idea grew upon Alexander throughout his conquest largely as a product of his own experiences. The young king's extreme exertions, his incessant activity night and day, his physical sufferings from numerous wounds, and his excessive inclination to drink while impairing his physical condition cooperated with his marvelous successes in greatly affecting his mind. Month by month, his companions saw in him a growing love of flattery and an increasing irritability at every opposition, however slight. No longer content with ordinary subservience, he demanded worship. For that is what prostration meant to a Greek or a Macedonian. Most of those who followed him through Asia, dependent as they were upon his caprice, granted him the honor with varying sincerity. Not satisfied with their homage, he permitted it to be made known to the Hellenic cities of the homeland that they ought to decree him a god. With characteristic independence, the Lacedaemonians replied, since Alexander wishes to be a god, let him be one. At Athens, Demosthenes at first protested, but afterward, changing sides advised his countrymen to give the bubble. Let us acknowledge him the son of Zeus for all I care, or the son of Poseidon if he prefers it. Athens, accordingly, decreed to place him as Dionysus among the gods of the city. Other states took similar action. Temples for his worship arose in various places, and on his return from Babylon, he gave audience to, quote, sacred legations, rather than political embassies, come from Hellas to pay him divine honors. The god king introduced into Europe. Among the Greeks, the boundary between human and divine had never been sharply drawn. Great men in death became heroes, and the god Dionysus had lived as a man on earth. Every Greek state rested on a religious foundation. And it was but natural that Alexander should seek such a basis for his empire. The Orient supplied the atmosphere of servile adoration of the king as Superman or God. To this condition, Hellenic thought and usage had to be adapted. Among the Greeks, the motive to his deification was fear, or the desire to flatter, or the hope of gaining favor. A common sentiment, too, was the desire for protection or gratitude for deliverance from peril. Hence, the frequent epithet, Savior, applied to Hellenistic kings. Alexander must have assumed the title of divinity not merely to satisfy his craving for honors, but as the last step towards absolutism. Even on the throne, a mere man was bound at least by the general laws of humanity, and was responsible to public opinion. But a god was above all law and accountability. After some hesitation, his successors followed his example, and thus perpetuated the god king. In this manner was introduced into Europe an essentially oriental idea of the relation between the state and the individual. While Egyptians and Asiatics were groveling in the dust before their kings, the Greek republics had created for at least a part of their population a condition of freedom under self-government. In the individual, the result was the perfection of manliness, the development of a high type of self-control and self-respect, in society and government, a recognition of the dignity and worth of the individual souls that made up the body politic. The Hellenistic kingdom, however, put an end to the growth of freedom, and in its stead universalized the oriental slavery of the people, and gave it an indefinite lease of life. However sagacious, men were no longer to govern themselves or to give expression to their views for the improvement of state and society. Government was to rest in the hands of a god, or of a superior sacred human being with a mandate from god, who brooked no opposition and needed no control, who selfishly or benevolently devised and executed with divine wisdom whatever he pleased for mankind. The idea passed on from Alexander to the Roman principles and the Byzantine emperors, and to the modern monarchs who ruled by divine right. While the government of Macedon rested on the traditional basis of nationality, that of the Seleucid realm and of Egypt was an artificial structure. The administrative system was an organization of Greek conquerors for the exploitation of the natives and was wholly devoid of national or patriotic feeling. The masses might sincerely accept the godship of the sovereign, but his appeal to the higher officials could only reach their self-interest, their hope of reward or fear of punishment. The want of moral fiber that only patriotism and national feeling could supply was a fundamental weakness of both kingdoms. The Italian League, the Achaean League. With the Hellenistic kingdoms we may contrast the federations of the Greek homeland. The union established by Philip arbitrarily created an abounding in discord, proved short-lived. Soon afterward the Italian League came into prominence. Originally an ethnos of primitive character, Italia began toward the close of the fourth century to assume the character of a union of cities. Early in the third she annexed Delphi and thereafter employed the influence of the Amphic Theoni in rapidly extending her League till it came to include nearly all central Greece, southern Thessaly and temporarily various cities of Peloponnese. In like manner Achaea, beginning as an ethnos, changed somewhat more slowly to the federal organization of city-states. It was not till the inclusion of Ciccian in 251 that the Achaean League could count as a power in Greece. Thereafter followed the admission of Corinth and other neighbors in rapid succession till, early in the second century, it included all Peloponnese. There was rivalry between the two leagues, involving the shifting of cities back and forth, together with frequent Macedonian interference. Although both leagues engaged in forcible annexations, the great majority of admissions were at the request of the incoming states. Government of the leagues. The general principles of organization were the same for the two leagues. The fundamental institution of government was the assembly of all the citizens, like that of the city-state. It is known that in the Achaean League the voting was by cities, presumably all present from a given city determined among themselves the attitude to be taken by their states, which thereupon probably cast a single vote, whatever its population. By the side of the assembly, as in the city-state, was the council, in the Italian League and probably in the Achaean, representing the cities according to their population. Elections of magistrates and other matters of primary importance fell to the assembly, whereas the council with its more frequent sessions gave attention to lesser business and to such as could not await the gathering of the people. The chief magistrate was the general. In the Achaean League there were at first two and afterward one, the commander of the army and highest civil executive. The abandonment of the old republican board of officers in favor of a single magistrate added efficiency to the administration. Federal government. The federal government had control of weights, measures and coinage. It conducted negotiations with foreign powers, declared war, and contracted alliances. In sole command of the military forces, it gave orders to the members to furnish their several contingencies. Each constituent city was guaranteed autonomy under a republican constitution, implying security and justice for herself and her individual citizens. Her chief obligation was to put into the field the number of troops demanded and to support them at her own expense. In the preservation of liberty, the federal union contrasted favorably with the kingdoms of that age. And in the development of strength, it was a great improvement upon the city-state. A solution of the most difficult of Hellenic problems was at length found in the creation of a system of organization adapted to the Greek character. It is true that in time of war, the federal government, in entrusting to the states the levy and support of soldiers, remained excessively weak. And it was a misfortune that the two rival leagues existed side by side, often at war with each other, while their freedom was menaced by the greatly superior powers of the Hellenic kingdoms and the Roman republic. Their inability to survive under these adverse conditions does not detract from the truth that the federal union was the most highly developed political creation of the world before the rise of modern representative democracies, such as those of Great Britain and the United States. Royal Domains The gigantic empire of Alexander and his successor's kingdoms rested on a condition of the laboring masses which verged closely upon serfdom. Round about the three cities in western Asia Minor and more extensively in other parts of the realm were the great domains of the Persian king which Alexander sees for himself. They were cultivated by peasants who lived in villages and were bought and sold along with the lands they tilled, who were not absolutely bound to the soil, but could move about from one locality to another, evidently with the permission of their lord. Not wholly at the mercy of their local master, they were under the jurisdiction and legal protection of judges appointed for them by the king. They paid their sovereign a tribute in money or in kind, a tenth of the annual produce. There were peasants too on the feudal estates and on the communal lands of cities who rendered their dues to the lord of the Commonwealth. These arrangements had existed under the Persian rule and were adopted with little modification by Alexander. Similar were conditions in Egypt. While retaining proprietorship of all the soil, Ptolemy gave the income of many large estates to his officials and other favorites. The temples also hailed and grand broad fertile tracts. To his mercenaries the king gave permission on fixed terms to reclaim and use wastelands. In peace these clerics, lot holders, made their living by agriculture, but stood ever ready to answer the sovereign's call to arms. Vast tracts of grain land, specifically described as royal domain, were leased in small lots to peasants who had to render a fixed number of measures to the acre. The king possessed the monopoly of the oil industry and required for his use the production of a certain number of oil plants in each gnome, administrative district. Oppression of laborers. The ordinary tributes, though heavy, were indurable, but the natives were subject to many other taxes and were required to perform in addition a variety of laborers for which they received no pay, including the erection of royal buildings, the entertainment of traveling officials and of soldiers quartered upon them, the building and repair of dams and embankments along the Nile, the maintenance and extension of the whole irrigation system, and the reclaiming of wastelands. The capricious and arbitrary enforcement of these laborers, which took no account of the peasants' necessities, proved exceedingly oppressive. The laborers were kept under continual watch, day and night custodians from the mercenary class guarded the crops lest the peasant take something for himself before the king has had his share. And while the aim of the administration was to confine the whole laboring population to its endless routine of toil, the growers of oil plants were the most rigorously bound to the soil. If they neglected their work to the extent of journeying to another gnome, they might be arrested and forced back to their wearisome tasks. Decline of Democracy. In fact, the most deplorable feature of life in the Hellenistic Orient was the abject condition of the laborers. The voiceless multitude meekly accepted the terms of rent, purchase, and sale imposed upon them by those in authority. Though not precisely serves, they were on the very brink of serve them. In Europe, with rare exceptions, the native laborers of a community, as distinguished from the slaves, were free, and in democracies enjoyed the right to vote. A characteristic feature of the change from the fourth century to the Hellenistic Age, however, was the decline of the democracy and of the laboring class. The masses were adversely affected by the economic developments attending the conquest of the Orient. Great wealth in land and money fell into the hands of Alexander's officers and of the aides and favorites of his successors, or of adventurers in business, while people of moderate means became fewer and the poverty of the masses increased. In every considerable city swarmed the proletarians who could find no adequate employment and lived on the edge of starvation. As a class, they were no more to be blamed for their poverty than the few were to be praised for their wealth. If left to themselves, they could but die of hunger. In the interest of self-preservation, therefore, various cities, not simply roads, samas, and carthage, but in time even Rome founded necessary to supply them with a cheap or free grain. In both Greece and Rome, reformers attempted the economic and political redemption of the masses, but they could not prevail over the opposition of the rich. At the opening of the Christian era, democracy had almost totally vanished from the civilized world and with it the thought that the poor might as a class be educated and treated with the consideration due to human souls. Three and a half centuries later, they were in a serfdom whose beginnings had been borrowed from the Orient and it has been but recently, during the early centuries of modern times, that they have regained their freedom. General decline of the homeland. The Greek homeland suffered through the easterly migration of her most ambitious and enterprising sons, which left the peninsula poor in creative energy and intelligence. Another factor that afforded a powerful impetus to her decline was the eastward shifting of commercial centers. From the 7th to the 4th centuries, the coast of Greece, washed by the Aegean Sea, belonged to the heart of Hellas, from which extended trade arteries to every part of the Mediterranean world. As the Hellenes expanded over Egypt and Western Asia, however, the center of commerce moved after them from Pyrrhaeus to Rhodes and Alexandria. The Athenian port lost nearly all its life and the greater part of the trade left to the vicinity shifted to Corinth, which attained a new splendor as the occasional residence of the Macedonian kings. These circumstances made it the largest, wealthiest, and most beautiful city of the peninsula, till its destruction at the hands of the Romans. Not least effective in thinning the population and destroying property were the wars between city-states or federal unions, or between the Macedonian kings and the Hellenes, wars not less frequent than before the days of Philip and Alexander. Doubtless too, the continued wasting of the soil and the spread of malaria tended further to rob the inhabitants of food and to sap their vitality. To all these destructive forces, we must add the rising standard of living, the love of comfort and luxury, which induced men either to remain single or if they married, to bring up few, if any, children, with the result that the number and the size of families rapidly diminished. Although not hopeless at the time of the Roman subjugation, 146, the condition of the peninsula under the Romans steadily deteriorated till, early in the Christian era, the Hellenic Strabo could only describe the homeland of freedom and science in terms of desolation. End of Chapter 28 Chapter 29 of Hellenic History This is a LibriVox contribution. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Hellenic History by George Willis Botsford Chapter 29 Hellenistic Culture Part 1 337-30 Before Christ First, City Construction and Art City Construction, Priene The Hellenistic Age, with its conquest and colonization, was a period of city construction. So far as the nature of the surface permitted, the builders applied the principle of straight streets crossing each other at right angles. The requirements of defence, however, still left the ways narrow and reduced the public squares to the smallest areas. The recent excavation of Priene, a town of about 4,000 inhabitants, has given us a clearer idea of this period that we could have been able to acquire in any other way. It stands on a hay with steep descents on every side, so that the need of fortification was minimized. The circuit wall of unknown height is 2 meters in thickness and is pierced by three gates covered with round arches. Arriving from the port, we pass through the cemetery and into the western gate, hence along a narrow street to the provision market, where the small dealers retail the bread, meat and other victors. Adjoining it is the great market, the centre of public life, and the middle is a large altar, and along the border, on all four sides, runs a colonnade, which fronts a succession of stores, temples and other buildings that surround the market. The north side is occupied by a circuit portico, in which the people held festival and sat on holidays at banquets provided by the city's expense. Other public buildings are the assembly hall, with a seating capacity of about 500, serving for the meetings of citizens and of the council, the theatre and various temples. That of Athena, the gift of Alexander, was elegant and artistic, the pride of the city. As a Greek community, the Pyreneans could not live without a stadium and a gymnasium. Public life. Although they drew their chief subsistence from their farms nearby, they also manufactured a few wares, which they shipped abroad through their port. Public life was wholesome. Candidates for office sold the votes of their fellow citizens, and as magistrates, they devoted the share of their private income to the improvement of the city and the entertainment of the people. In return, the citizens granted them exemption from public burdens, front seats at the theatre and festivals, and honorary statues, many of which were set up in the sacred portico. The people were industrious, intelligent, moral and happy. Larger cities differed chiefly in the proportionality greater attention to industry than commerce, and the increased contrasts between the few rich and many poor in the splendor of public buildings and of the homes of the wealthy. Temples showed, in an accentuated degree, the features whose beginnings were witnessed by the second half of the fourth century. A remarkable development of the age was the great altar of Zeus at Pergamum, about one hundred feet square. The construction may be studied in the picture. The actual altar stood on the top of this monument in the center of a court surrounded by an Ionic colonnade. The frieze is described below among the sculptures. Notable, too, was a gigantic lighthouse at Ecclesandria on the island of Farros, which gave its name to the structure. It was more than a hundred meters high. The summit was reached within by a ramp, surrounded in the open shaft in which an elevator conveyed the material for the light. Water supply and sanitation. In choosing a site for a city, regard was head to the water supply as well as to agricultural and commercial advantages. For example, Prien had abundant spring water brought into the city in large earthen pipes, filtered and distributed to the houses through smaller pipes. The larger aqueducts of more populous cities were subterranean channels lined with stone and cement. In this period increased attention was paid to sanitation. Reassetsmina, new built after lying for centuries in ruins, the refuse from the houses laying the streets to be washed about over the pavement by rains, Ephesus seems to have been well provided with sewers. And in some, if not in all cities, there were officials who had charge of sanitation. And in some dwellings at Prien have been found the sanitary arrangements comparable with those of today. Family life. Family life still secluded itself from the public gaze. A dwelling at Prien presented to the street a bare windowless wall, pierced at one end by a single door. In visiting the home of an average citizen, we passed through his door into a waiting room and then into an open court, with cemented floor. This space, when the family received the air and light, it surrounded by rooms. The one at the back, adorned with two columns, is the living room of the house. Here stands the altar, here guests were received, and here the family usually gathered at meals. In a house so sumptuous as to have a second story, the upper floor was occupied by the women. The houses of the wealthy, imitating the royal palaces, developed a system of two courts, each surrounded by a colonnade, and usually adorned with the fountain and flowers. In the inner court centred the private life of the family and the industrial activities of the household. About it were the rooms in which the female slaves lived and plied their labourers, such as spinning, weaving, grinding grain and baking. Here, too, was a sleeping room of the parents, another for the daughters and one or more dining rooms. The altar or front court, open as it was to guests, was only richer and more stately. The building, throughout, was beautified with statues, moral paintings and colored mables, with finally weaving and embroidered tapestries, and some of the floors with mosaics. The furniture was of bronze, ivory and rare imported woods. The construction and furnishing of such a home drew upon the resources of the whole civilized world, and was only rendered possible by an extensive commerce on sea and land. Sculptures of the age. Among the extant sculptures of the age are reliefs, which decorated public buildings. Perhaps the most striking representatives of this class are to be found at Pergamum. This city, the seat of Attalus and his dynasty, is the only Hellenistic capital thus far throughout the excavated. So much architecture and sculpture have been found there, so while are we acquainted with the material civilization of the place, that it must be taken as the starting point for a study of the royal capitals of the age. Attalus I, 241, 197, secured the peace of his kingdom by an overwhelming defeat of the Galatians. A memorial of this deed was the frieze, which adorned the exterior of the monument on which stood the great altar of Zeus. It represents the combat of gods and giants as a symbol of the struggle of civilization against barbarism. As the frieze is above seven feet in high, the colossal features give a physical impression of the superhuman. To the Pergaminis, it was a historical picture of living national interest. In facial expression and embodied attitude, in the animation of the gods and the fury of the giants, in tenseness of Moscow and heat of action, we see the spirit of Scopus highly accentuated. The whole scene may be well described as a mass of supermen compulsively struggling. A comparison with the frieze of the Parthenon or even the frieze of the mausoleum shows a marked degeneration of taste. Despite its imposing magnificence, this relief offends by its exaggerations and by the sacrifice of naturalness and simplicity to the desire for effect. The Dying Goal. A more realistic memorial of the same victory was a group of bronze features representing a battle between Greeks and Galatians. Although all originals have been lost, there remain marble copies of several features. Among the latter is the Dying Goal in the Capitol Museum at Rome. It has the advantage of being nearly contemporary with the original and of being itself the product of an Anatolian artist who either belonged to the Pergamini school or worked under its influence. Strongly realistic, it represents both the ethnic and the individual peculiarities of the warrior. The coarse hair partially straight up from the forehead, the moustache, the necklace, the hardened skin, the fortitude that overcomes the death pain of the ugly stab in his side. We admire the perfect anatomy made possible by the medical science of the age and in brief the fidelity to nature displayed by every part of the work. In the consideration of the Pergamini sculptures above us, but the characteristics of the age have been indicated. Although it is still possible here and there to find examples of restrained and dignified sculptures, the general features depart widely from the classical standard. The tendencies which we discovered in their infancy in the fourth century have become more pronounced. Self-restraint has waned and the emotions have grown strong even to exaggeration. In portrait sculpture and intense realism expresses and overemphasizes individual traits and even defects. The posture of human form becomes theatrical, sometimes violent, groupings, draperies and the general composition assume complex and elaborate forms. Patrons of art. The great patrons of art were the Hellenistic kings who ruled the divided empire of Alexander. While preserving a degree of Hellenic taste, they demanded an art commensurate with their own wealth and splendor, palaces, city halls, theatres and many other forms of architecture with the decorations of fitting intrigue and elaboration. To these demands the artist responded with a technique that was equal to every emergency. Aphrodite of Melos. Made of ansium. A statue which is still widely regarded as the most beautiful of the age is the Aphrodite of Melos. We do not know the sculpture of the reason for the peculiar attitude. Perhaps the right hand helped the drapery. The left foot is advanced set and rests on slightly elevated ground. The statue is made of two pieces of marble, the unclothed part of finer quality than the other. We see too, in the style, a combination of the heavy Phaedian drapery with a praxitilian head. Such eclecticism was common in the age, but seldom has it been affected with an equal skill. Grace and dignity are more nearly balanced than is usual in this period. Another woman figure of the age composed of two kinds of marble is the so-called mate of ansium. It was found in Nero's villa at ansium when it was removed in 1909 to the museum of the terme at Rome. The head and right shoulder are of pure white, the rest of the inferior material. She may be the daughter, or possibly the servant, of a priest of Apollo. On a tray, she carries the implements of divination and seems to be in the act of making a choice of the objects in an oracular response to an inquiry. The strong athletic form, the masculine proportions and the sturdy stride benefit an attendant tapunga polo for more than average girl. Though some have assigned it to the 5th century and others to praxiteles, it seems rather to be Hellenistic, and in that case it must be classed among the most distinguished statues of the age. The texture of the gown is unique, the attitude is natural, and the features and facial expression are charming. Amid the thousands of sculptures that people, the museums of Rome, it is a figure that impresses the visitor with its rare personality. Nikke of Samothrace Another female statue deserving of mention is the Nikke of Samothrace, which commemorates the naval victory of Demetrius Poliorcetes, stormer of cities, gained off Cyprus in 306. The monument was originally placed on a rocky high of Samothrace, once it has been removed to the Louvre. The goddess stands erect on the pro of a ship, her wings expanded, her garments clinging in magnificent messes about her gigantic form, and streaming wildly behind her, blown by the onrush of the vessel. The head and arms are lost, but from her image on a coin we learn that she held on her lips a trumpet, through which she relented the glorious deed of her fostering. It is the most splendid victory created by the ancient world. The Laocon The Laocon is a product of the Rodian School of Sculptures, which was clearly akin to that of Pergamon. This group belongs to the first century before Christ and is here offered as an example of violent institutionalism. Laocon and his two sons are being crushed in the falls of two enormous snakes. The intricate group thus formed is rocked with great technical skill. The violent death agonies of the three persons expressed in the convulsions of fascial and bodily muscles are amazingly realistic. The anatomy is perfect with one exception. For unknown reasons, the boys are given the forms of grown men. The chief fault lies in the choice of agony as a subject for sculptural treatment. The face of the father, too, should express not pain alone, but also horror and physical effort. The snakes are whole and true to nature. They are not large enough to crush a man, and serpents which depend upon choking the victims do not bite. Despite these and other falls, glaring indeed when measured by Faidian and Praxithelian standards, the group is a work of positive merit, as it would not have excited the admiration of Renaissance artists. Life at Rhodes was commercial, like that of today, and the prominent aim of art, as in our own time, was to display the resources of wealth and the mighty ambition of the trading people in the production of the intricate urnates and the stupendous. Thus, the Colossus of Rhodes finds its counterpart in our liberty and lightening the world, an appropriated gift to the United States. Children in art. Perhaps the most pleasing branch of Hellenistic art comprises representations of real life designated genre. For the first time in history, an interest began to be felt in children. Their physique was now carefully observed, their facial expressions and their playful attitudes were naturally reproduced. We cannot doubt that this artistic development corresponded to a real change in social life. As the centre of interest shifted from politics to the home, and the powerful impetus came from various directions to humanism, it was inevitable that children should attract their share of attention. At the same time, men sought a refuge from the artificiality of the city in the innocence and the simplicity of rural life and of childhood. Thus, it was in the spirit of the idylls of theocritus that the sculpture created in relief scenes of rustic simplicity or statues of peasants and fisherfolk as well as of children. Deification of cities. A contrast to these light subjects is the deification of cities. Throughout Greek history, impersonation had been common, and city-states had generally been represented by their totalary deities. In the 3rd century, Eutikides, a pupil of Lisippus, wrote for the people of Antioch a gilded bronze statue of the fortune, Tike, of their city. The deity was easily identified with Antioch itself. She is a city on a rock, as was the city, and the river flowing at her feet is represented by a swimming youth. The bunch of grain stalks in her hand symbolizes the fertility of the river valley, while the mural crown, the first known in art, signifies the walls of defense. The statue became an object of worship, and the idea was gradually extended toward the city and to Rome. Painting in the Hellenistic Age. The Hellenistic Age was as productive of painting as of every other form of art, but owing to the perishable material, our knowledge of it is imperfect. The most famous painter of the age was Apelles of Kos, a man of marvelous industry and a great master of technique. He used it but for colors, black, white, red and yellow. He alone had the art of covering the finished painting with the black glaze, that improved the work by toning down the colors while protecting it from dampness. His painting of Afrodite rising from the sea was especially celebrated. Brought to Rome with other booty from Hellas, it found a place in the temple of the deified Julius Caesar. We are fortunate in having a number of portraits on panels that had covered the faces of Greek and Jewish mummies in Egypt. Although belonging to the early Christian era, they well illustrated the work of the same kind in the Hellenistic period. The artists were without distinction, and yet the portraits are remarkably lifelike, and the colors are still bright. The wall paintings of Pompeii are also but a continuation of the house decorations of the Hellenistic age. They were hastily brought by mechanics, yet many of the features and groups are admirable. Doubtless the ultimate originals of many were the famous works of Hellenic masters. Of such lineage was the Medea, meditating on the murder of her sons. In a first struggle of soul, the mother instinct is overcome by rage against her unfaithful husband. Mosaics. An art new to the Greeks of this age, learned through contact with the Orient, was mosaic making. It could thrive nowhere, but amid an abundance of stones of various colors, and as the work was exceedingly slow and painstaking, it could be carried on only where labor was cheap. These conditions were met in Egypt, and Alexandria was the seat of manufacture of many mosaics now found in Greek and Roman lands. The pattern was either a piece of tapestry or a picture. For example, the original of the battle of Issus, found in a private house at Pompeii, was a painting of the conflict by Appellas or other great master. Darius, already beaten, is in flight. In his sphere he drives his chariot wheels over the dead and dying, but king like still, it turns about to order soccer to a fallen noble. Further to our left, the figure of Alexander, mounted on Buchefalus, stands out distantly as he charges in pursuit. It is remarkable that with scarcely more than to those men and horses, the artist has created the effect of a great battle. As we gaze upon the picture, we see the melee of combatants in deadly strife. We seem to hear the groans of the dying, the clash of the lances, the clamour of struggling horsemen. Undoubtedly the original was among the great historical paintings of the ancient world. It was but natural that the revolution in Hellenic government and society since the 4th century should be accompanied by a corresponding change in philosophy. All philosophic thought of the classic age had rested on two principles. First, the complete trust reposed in abstract thinking for the discovery of truth, and second, the perfect correspondence assumed between the inner man and the world without. This correspondence was supported by a religion which peopled nature with souls like those of men. It was partly this relation between the world and man which led the philosophers to believe that by mere thinking they could discover the principles of nature, and partly the circumstance that philosophic thought was as yet in its infancy with its limitations unknown and the value of its products untested. With the breaking down of the city-state and of traditional religion, and the concomitant growth of individualism and humanism, philosophy, abandoning her original foundation, attempted to lay a new basis in the changed conditions of life. The ground had been prepared by Antisthenes of Athens, a disciple of Socrates, and an older contemporary of Plato. From his teaching in the gymnasium of the Sino-Sarges, his school was called cynic. In his doctrine virtue is the only good, vice the sole evil. Wealth, social position, honour and country are nothing. A tattered mantle, a piece of barley bread and water, are all that a man needs. We should renounce everybody's pleasure and comfort for the spiritual contentment derived from the exercise of virtue. Through the contempt of this school for convention, for nearly everything mankind holds dear, the word cynic has degenerated to its present meaning. It is a strange thing that while the city-state was still strong, Antisthenes foreshadowed by a century or more those systems of thought that were to be founded upon the ashes of Hellenism. The Stoics, Xenon, founder of the school In the Hellenistic age, while the members of the cynic school degenerated to boorish and brutal tramp philosophers, its better elements were adopted by the Stoics. The founder of the school was Xenon, a Semite of Cyprus, who had come to Athens, 311. There, for a time, he studied with the cynics, but ten years later he began to teach independently in the painted porch Stoa Puikile, which gave its name to his school. His Semitic nationality shows itself, not in the content of his teaching, which is Hellenic, but in its utterance. Stoicism is less rational, more dogmatic than any previous philosophy. Xenon's object was the moulding of man's character to meet the difficulties of the world, and regardless of consistency he presented the doctrines suited to this end, implanting them in the minds of others less by reason than as the utterance of a prophet. It seemed to him, amid the wreck of religious and moral ideas formally sustained by the city-state, that mankind needed a higher degree of individual self-sufficiency. To reach this end it is necessary, he taught, to train the will into conformity with nature, to desire only those things that are certain of realization independently of ourselves. In order to prove that this central doctrine is rational and that it will assure happiness Xenon developed a whole system of philosophy. It consists of three branches, logic, physics, and ethics. Logic includes a theory of knowledge. While the skeptics of his age were denying the possibility of knowing, Xenon insisted that we could accept as the truth all grasping impressions, the sense perceptions that come to us with irresistible strength. Whereas to the acute thinker this dictum was childish folly, it sufficed for a common sense philosophy. Logic included also everything connected with the expression of thought and feeling, from grammar to rhetoric and music, as well as the forms of reasoning. In this department the Stoics contributed little to existing knowledge. In physics the study of nature, their most startling dogma is that everything is material, even God and the human soul. The qualities of objects, emotions, virtues and vices are all corporeal. In fact the purely practical object of his system seemed to him to demand that it be grounded upon ordinary experience which has to do primarily with material things. It is our common experience, too, that matter cannot move itself or take on living forms. Nothing but a soul can bring about such changes. The world, therefore, has a soul. This is God, the reason and motive power of the universe. He is a Providence who in loving care watches over the world and every part of it, who maintains it in physical and moral perfection. Everything in nature, therefore, is rational and good. Thus from physics we pass imperceptibly to ethics. The soul of man is a part of the divine soul and a virtuous life is conformity to nature. Everything that exists is advantageous to man, even sickness, noxious animals, earthquakes and the like, they are intended for our education. Thus we are gradually led back to the central idea of Stoicism, that happiness, the supreme good, is reached by conforming our will to the laws of nature, which are absolutely rational and just. Stoicism, a religion. Stress should be placed on the fact that Stoicism was a religion. The only motive to right conduct, conformity to nature, is nothing more than submission to the will of God. It is a pure monotheism, the worship of one supreme being. As he wishes only well for us, and blesses but never harms, we, who are parts of him, have no reason to fear him, but should only revere and love. For this worship there is no need of altars or temples or images or even of prayer, but only of purity in life and salt. The gods of popular belief, with their foibles and vices, are creatures of the imagination, and the many myths are worthy only of contempt. To a certain extent, however, to Stoics compromised with popular faith. Just as the Christians grant the existence of angels and devils, to Stoics assume the activity of superhuman beings, called gods, but subject to the supreme being. In like manner, while repeating the literal content of myths, to Stoics were able to save them for a useful purpose, by giving them an allegorical interpretation. In this activity they were but extending an invention of earlier philosophies. Necessarily, their interpretations were fantastical. For example, Heracles was not merely a strong man, but a great philosopher. His slaying of monsters signifies his conquest of human vices, and when he leads the three-headed dog from the netherworld to earth's surface, he is merely bringing to light the three heads of philosophy, logic, physics and ethics. The effect was to purify myth of all immoralities, and to preserve the traditional religion while endowing it with a holy new meaning. Effects of Stoicism The trend of Stoicism, while strengthening religious faith, was to make the individual self-sufficient, independent of all externals, human and material, and to give him an absolute mastery of himself. He is lord of his own life, and may put an end to it when he judges best. Though he may have been suddenly converted to Stoicism, it is possible to grow in character throughout life, but only a few men of old, such as Socrates, have attained to a perfection of virtue. Society, too, exists, and the individual has social instincts, which are natural and therefore good. All the members of one body, all the parts of one God, bound together in a common sympathy. In striving to benefit our fellows, we do but obey a law of nature. While working out the problem of virtue, many Stoics were driven into seclusion, or lived in a common wealth of their own imagining, out of space and time, where no sordid ambitions or passions or human weaknesses found entrance, but all dwelt in perfect harmony and content. Others, in the hope of impressing their fellow men, mingled in society or became statesmen and rulers. Their creed, though appealing to the intellectuals rather than the mass, has served us as a positive force in the history of thought and conduct. It moulded Roman law, it contributed to the humanism of Roman imperial times, at various points it proved akin to Christianity, and much of it, remaining in the ethics of today, still makes for strength and stability of character. Skepticism. In opposition to the Stoics there were powerful forces of disintegration. There were skeptics, who while accepting appearances as such, denied the possibility of real knowledge. Thoroughly typical of these disturbed conditions is the work of Hugh Hemerus of Messana. In a book called Sacred Inscription, composed about 270, he pretended that on a visit to a distant island he found in a temple of Zeus an ancient inscription which detailed the origin and doings of the gods. It was there set forth that Zeus was once a man who had distinguished himself as king and conqueror and had received divine worship in reward of his benefits, and similarly that all the deities, Apollo, Aphrodite and the rest, were once human beings who had attained to fame and had been raised to the rank of gods in human opinion, whereas in fact they died like all other mortals and are no more. While undermining what remained of the traditional faith, this book supported the deification of kings which was coming into vogue at that time. Epicurus System of Philosophy The philosophic system, however, which is rightly set down as the opponent of Stoicism, was that of Epicurus the Samhion founded in 310. His school, like the Stoa, was materialistic. He accepted substantially the atomic theory of Democritus. Even the soul, he asserted, is material and dissolves at death. As it is mortal we have nothing to fear from a future life. Gods exist but not those of popular faith. The real deities live apart from the world in unalloyed happiness, caring nothing for the human race. In the Epicurian system, as among the Stoics, the whole superstructure is occupied by ethics. The supreme good is apparently the same in both philosophies, happiness. With Epicurus, however, happiness is freedom from pain or from fear, which is mental suffering. The aim was not hedonism but quietism. Pleasures and pains differ in degrees, and in making choice, the wise men will aim to avoid the severest and the most lasting pains and to seek the highest and the most permanent pleasures. The delights of sensation are coarse and transitory, those of mind exalted and lasting. Hence, the wise men will choose poverty and bodily suffering, if necessary, to secure the highest pleasures. The intelligent Epicurian will be as virtuous as the Stoic, because through virtue he secures the utmost happiness. The founder of the school was himself an admirable character, and his object was undoubtedly to benefit his fellow men. His system, though it has many points of likeness to Stoicism, has been condemned by the tribunal of history. The reason is that it is essentially selfish. Individual man is his own all in all. Different from the Stoic, the Epicurian is subject to no spiritual ideal toward which he should strive. It is true that a system as originally taught produced a few eminently worthy characters, but its general effect has been demoralizing. The doctrine of happiness was too readily perverted, and Epicurianism became synonymous with the love of eating and drinking, with gluttony and the coarsest pleasures. 2. Hellenistic Science Progress of Science Fortunately for the progress of science, the task which Aristotle set for himself was not only the collection of facts and the organization of knowledge, but also the direction of his pupils to individual fields of research. His work continued, therefore, after his death. An added impetus to the study of geography and astronomy of plants and animals to discovery and invention in general was given by the marches of Alexander. Lastly, the interest of the Ptolemy's in art and science devoted a goodly share of Egyptian wealth to collections and institutions for the furtherance of scholarly and scientific progress. 3. Founding of Libraries One of the most necessary requisites to this work was the founding of a library. Under the earlier Ptolemy's a search for valuable manuscripts was made throughout the Hellenic world, and within a few years a collection was made of five hundred thousand books, volumes, roles, which in time was further increased. This was the Royal Library, the greatest in the ancient world. A smaller collection was made in the Temple of Serapis, Serapaean. Calimacus, a peripathetic of Cyrene, three hundred ten to two hundred forty, one of the chief librarians compiled a catalogue, said to have filled one hundred twenty volumes, comprising the authors and their works in order. It included two short biographies of the authors and a few critical data for the valuation of the books. Briefer aids to the choices and use of books were added by various scholars. Other Hellenistic kings established libraries in their respective capitals, notably in Pergamum and Antioch, none of which equaled that of Alexandria. The Museum of Alexandria The Museum of Alexandria was an association of scholars and investigators, like the Academy and the Lyceum, formed nominally for the worship of the Muses. Their president was a priest appointed by the king, who assigned them quarters in his palace, a large hall in which they took their meals in common, a garden with seats, and an agreeable place for walking. The members received money for support from the king's treasury. Critical Knowledge Members of Disassociation and other learned men in the Aristotelian spirit mapped out the fields of knowledge, which they vigorously cultivated according to their several tastes. Under grammar, nearly equivalent to our philology, maybe included everything relating to the study of language and of literature. Scholars, of whom we know scarcely more than the names, wrote histories of the various departments of literature, as the drama, poetry and philosophy, and biographies of famous authors. A most valuable service was the comparison and criticism of manuscripts with a view to purifying the texts of eras and interpolations. This textual criticism centered in the poems of Homer. It had begun as early as the fifth century, but the first scholarly edition of Homer was prepared by Zinodotus, the first librarian at Alexandria, 285-260. It put the text substantially in the form in which we read it today. The division of the Iliad and the Odyssey into books was made either by this scholar or by his immediate successors. In his judgment these were the only works of Homer, whereas others, the separatists, assigned the two poems to different authors. The texts of the classic poets and many prose writers were similarly treated, and minute commentaries on the language and the subject matter were prepared. Philology included also technical grammar, which had a relatively slow growth, prosody and lexicons. The science spirit of Alexandria was Aristotelian, whereas that of the rival Pergamene school was Stoic. The most famous master at Pergamum was Cretis from Cilicia, contemporary and opponent of Aristarchus. The Stoic love of allegory, prominent in this school's interpretation of the poets, blurred their scientific perception. This shortcoming is counterbalanced by greater attention to the subject matter of literature rather than to textual criticism, and in general to the collection and organization of facts. Euclid For the progress of physical science, a careful foundation in pure mathematics had to be laid. This service was performed by Euclid, Euclides of Alexandria, who continued the mathematical studies of Plato and the Academy. His chief work, named Elements, Still Extent, is a treatise on geometry, so precise, clear and logical that the moderns have been able to make little improvement upon it. Any textbook and geometry now studied in our schools is Euclid's Elements, with unimportant modification. Archimedes Most inventive was Archimedes of Syracuse, 287-212. His main interest was in pure mathematics, in the exact measurement of the circle, the sphere, the cone, conoids, spheroids and the cylinder. In some of his operations he has anticipated the principle of integral calculus, and in his applied mathematics he reveals a command of the principles of higher algebra. His work in applied science, though in his own judgment subsidiary, was in fact epoch making. He discovered a means of computing the specific gravity of objects, and of determining the center of gravity of complex forms. He invented engines for hurling great missiles with which his fellow citizens long kept at bay the besieging Romans, the helix for launching great ships and conveying other heavy weights, a pumping engine and other useful machines. In the application of power, Archimedes and other ancient mechanics made use of water, compressed air, pneumatics, with levers, screws, and cogged wheels. Some inventions added to the conveniences of life, such as water mills, automatic door openers, washing machines. Others were for entertainment, including fountains adorned with automatically moving figurines, and an automatic theater in which the figures performed their parts through five complicated acts. Eratosthenes The advance of mathematical and mechanical study inevitably led to a development of astronomy and of mathematical geography. The first Hellenistic master of this field was Eratosthenes of Cyrene, 275 to 195, the successor of Calimacus as chief librarian at Alexandria. There he was able to study the heavens in an observatory patterned after those of ancient Babylon. His most celebrated achievement was the computation of the circumference of the earth. By means of sundials placed at Cyene and Alexandria, five thousand stadia apart, he determined the positions of the sun from these two points, and with the angle thus formed, he computed the earth's circumference at 250,000 stadia, which is a seventh part in excess of the true distance of 25,000 English miles. He wrote a history of geography, from Homer to his own day, in which he recognized the limitations of earlier authors. It included his own map of the world with an explanation of it, in which he expressed a possibility of reaching India by sailing west across the Atlantic, providing the distance should not prove too great an obstacle. His achievements were vast and so accurate that until the beginning of modern times no improvements were made upon them, except in the correction and addition of minor geographical details. Aristarchus of Samos, Ptolemaic system No long time afterward, Aristarchus of Samos, circa 280, brought astronomy to the highest reach attained by the ancients. He discovered that the volume of the sun is many times greater than that of the world. It was this fact that led him ultimately to the conclusion that the earth annually revolves around the sun in the circumference of a circle, in the center of which the sun remains fixed. The discovery was too brilliant for acceptance, and the theory of the spheres continued with an important modification. Instead of assigning a plurality of spheres to the planet, it was found more practicable to assume that each planet moved in a little circle, whose center lay in a larger circle surrounding the earth. This theory of epicycles, circles upon circles, prevailed, and was accepted by the Egyptian Claudius Ptolemy, an encyclopedic compiler of sciences who flourished in the second century AD. After him it came to be known as the Ptolemaic system, and held its place till overthrown by Copernicus, 1473 to 1543. Zoology and Botany The permeation of Egypt and western Asia by the Greeks brought to their knowledge a vast number of animals and plants, hitherto unknown to them, and the Ptolemy's maintained a zoological garden at Alexandria. In spite of these opportunities, however, zoology and botany failed to make an appreciable advance beyond the works of Aristotle and Theophrastus. People had by the curious interest in animals, whereas botany was more vigorously studied as an auxiliary to medicine. A limited number of plants and animals had to be taken into account in scientific agriculture, horticulture, beekeeping and stock breeding, all of which were diligently cultivated. The loss of all the books in these fields, with the exception of a few fragments, has left us ignorant of Hellenic intelligence in one of its most useful departments. Vivisection The growth of civilization and the urbanization of mankind makes an ever-increasing demand upon the physician for hygienic regulations and for the cure of new diseases. Acquaintance with the Egyptian custom of embalming expelled from the minds of Greek physicians their last scruples against the dissection of the human body. For the first time in history, Vivisection was practiced on condemned criminals furnished to the physicians by the Egyptian king. The result was an advance in anatomy and physiology, which made an epoch in the history of medical science. Difficult and dangerous surgical operations could now be performed without pain to the patient, for anesthetics were now known and administered. Herophilus His Great Achievements in Medical Science The leading physician of this age was Herophilus of Calcedon, whose achievement was to bring medical science to a height never exceeded by the ancients. Much of the progress summed up in the preceding paragraph was due to him. He discovered that the brain is the seat of the mind and that the nerves branching out from the brain and the spine are the medium for the conveyance of sensation and willpower respectively. His study of the eye is noteworthy. In his diagnosis of ailments, for which he was especially famous, he discovered the value of pulsation which became the chief criterion of the patient's condition. Whereas other physicians believed that the arteries were normally filled with air, Herophilus discovered that they contain blood, which they convey from the heart to all parts of the body. In other words, he discovered substantially the circulation of the blood. Without neglecting diet and exercise for the cure of illness, he laid great stress on drugs, especially vegetable medicines, as the hands of God. Unfortunately, Herophilus was too far in advance of his age to find complete acceptance. The most eminent physician after him, Erasistratus of Sias, insisted that the arteries were normally filled with air and that the presence of blood in the arteries is a system of illness. In other respects, he made actual improvements upon Herophilus, as in his greater stress on hygiene and his clearer distinction between sensory and motor nerves. Opposed to the teachings of these eminent scientists were the empiricists, who, rejecting all reason, depended wholly on experimentation. There were charlatans too, as at present, and despite all intellectual progress, incubation and magical cures persisted. 3. Hellenistic Literature No literary treatment For an appreciation of the artistic literature, it is necessary to take account of the general environment, especially the intense urbanization of the Greeks, the growth of libraries, the keen interest in science and erudition. The mental attitude was essentially an appreciation of the past and an effort to master its vast intellectual treasures. The originality of the age, the achievement of adding to the accumulated store of knowledge, has been seen in its scientific discoveries and mechanical inventions. In literature, we shall find analogous efforts manifested in imitations of the past and then the working out of new problems suggested by the greatly changed environment. It was inevitable that the polite literature should taste of erudition, that it should be labored and pedantic. The generality of men, however, who lived in a highly artificial atmosphere, longed for diversion and rest, the freshness of nature, and at the same time the spirit of science was experimenting with emotions hitherto but little used. Far from being decadent, therefore, the period saw the beginning of a new literary treatment of nature and men. The novel element in nature is the environment of common people, of shepherds, plowmen, and charcoal-burners, refreshed with the dew and clear and the sunlight of mourning. The new force in humankind is romantic love between man and woman. These are prominent features in the Sicilian Theocritas, about 305 to 250, the last Greek classic, and the first and greatest of Hellenistic poets. His creation, the ideal, is a short poem exquisitely wrought. It possesses a wide range of character, epic, lyric, and dramatic. Preferably, his ideal street of common persons in rural scenes, and hence have been described as pastoral. Though he lived his later years at the court of the Ptolemies, he drew his inspiration from the lovely air and the beautiful landscapes of Sicily, which wafted through his sweet poems, refreshing breezes with delicious memories of cool shade of green fields, and radiant flowers into the dusty streets and arid studios of Alexandria. Calimacus. Whereas Theocritas stands at the threshold of Alexandrian life, Calimacus occupies its inmost shrine. Already noticed as chief librarian and a man of vast learning, he is equally conspicuous as a poet of stupendous productivity. His own writings are said to have filled 800 books, roles. Of all these works, there remain a few hymns and epigrams. The hymns are courtly, composed for royal occasions. With great talent, the author creates brilliant effects for their own sake. Doubtless there is feeling in the poet, but it is hidden in the elaborate apparatus of his song. At the same time, he was proclaimed the greatest master of elegy. This form of poetry was used for the expression of sentiment on all subjects, and in this age particularly, mythical tales of love. The epigrams show him to better advantage. They are in the elegeic meter, but are short and highly polished. Usually the epigram expresses an occasional sentiment of the author on any subject that attracted his attention. A large ontology of epigrams, which has been preserved, includes the contributions of many unknown and anonymous poets. They are a valuable source for social conditions and sentiments. Didactic Verse. The Romantic Epic. In didactic verse, the spirit of scholarship prevails. The aim is to teach, and the lines are without imagination or charm. This kind of poem remained dead till the Roman Lucretias endowed it with life and power. Quite different is the romantic epic represented by the Argonautica of Apollonius, an emigrant from Alexandria to Rhodes. This work is a long narrative of a popular myth, the quest for the golden fleece. In this respect it is an imitation of the past, an echo from Homer. In his presentation of Medea's love for Jason, the analysis of its origin and growth and conflict with duty, the author has created a new theme, but one often treated from that day to this. Although the poet lacked the genius for making it a success, the work has a value in illustrating the intellectual efforts of the period, and in the suggestion it offered to Virgil for his Aeneid, an incomparably superior work.