into the Revival of Greek Literature in Italy. 397 



stored, and a noble library, and new gymnasium, provided for 

 the instruction and exercise of youth. Education, says CHAND- 

 LER, now flourished in all its branches at Athens. The Roman 

 world resorted to the schools, and reputation and riches awaited 

 the able professor. At this period Athens abounded in philoso- 

 phers. It swarmed, according to Luc IAN, with cloaks, and staves 

 and satchels ; you beheld every where a long beard, a book in the 

 left hand, and the walks full of companies discoursing and rea- 

 soning. The enthusiasm of HADRIAN was seconded by the ef- 

 forts of his successors ANTONINUS and MARCUS AURELIUS, both 

 of them philosophic Emperors, and both deeply smit with the 

 love of Grecian literature. After the death of AURELIUS, for 

 more than a hundred years of crime and bloodshed, the Greek 

 language presents in its fate and fortunes a striking contrast to 

 the more melancholy destinies of its sister the Latin. It was pre- 

 served, certainly not in its original purity, yet in a state far re- 

 moved from decay, in the works of LUCIAN, Dio CASSIUS, HERO- 

 DIAN and LONGINUS. CONSTANTINE the Great, although him- 

 self little of a Grecian scholar, yet by the removal of the seat of 

 empire from Rome to Constantinople, promoted the more gene- 

 ral study of this language. It is well known, that to the Empe- 

 ror JULIAN, even from the days of his earliest youth, the religion A. D. 363 

 and philosophy of Greece were subjects of peculiar predilection, 

 and that this extraordinary man considered the Greek language 

 as his native tongue, and the language of Rome as a foreign and 

 less familiar dialect *. 



Such is a slight sketch of the fate and fortune of Greek lite- 

 rature in Italy, down to the momentous period when the north- 

 ern nations, by partial inroads upon the frontiers, began to 

 threaten the empire, which they finally destroyed. 



* Palaeoromaica, p. 40. 



