4 6 



HISTORY OF SCIENCE. 



cretius with great clearness and penetration. His scientific doctrines are 

 in general more just than those of former writers; thus, instead of re- 

 peating the Aristotelean error that heavy bodies move faster than light 

 Lucretius expressly states that all bodies are equally borne on- 



ones. 



wards in an unresisting void, though their weight should be unequal. 



FIG. 16. THE RUINS OF THE COLOSSEUM AT ROME. 



Ovid is another poet who enters much into subjects connected with 

 physical science, and other writers might be named who exhibit in a 

 striking light some part of the system of nature, in adorning the doc- 

 trines of their philosophical schools with all the attractions of poetical 

 imagery. 



Only one Roman, C. SULPITIUS GALLUS, is mentioned as a culti- 

 vator of astronomy. Cicero translated the poem of Aratus, which 

 merely contains the most elementary notions of the science, and these 

 are in no small degree mixed up with astrological absurdities. When 

 the Roman calendar had become involved in extreme confusion by, 



