THE PTOLEMIES. 621 



without prodigious mental results, the extinction of old, and the appear- 

 ance of new ideas. But of the influences which thus arose, there is, how- 

 ever, one which deserves to fasten our attention, and the more so since 

 we have had already, and shall have again, the occasion for alluding to 

 it. It was the establishment of a regal government in Egypt. Under 

 the Ptolemies, who may "be truly characterized as the most 



T , J , The Ptolemies. 



illustrious kings of antiquity, that ancient country recovered 

 her pristine glory. Among the works accomplished by these great men 

 may be mentioned, as examples of their high-toned policy, the sending 

 out an exploring expedition to equinoctial Africa ; the establishment of 

 menageries and zoological gardens at Bruchium ; their attempts at determ- 

 ining the cause of the overflow of the Nile ; the library at Alexandria ; 

 the museum at Ehakotis ; the measurement of a degree on the earth's 

 surface between Alexandria and Syene ; the ascertaining of the prodigious 

 distance of the region of the fixed stars ; the recognition of the motion 

 of rotation of the earth upon her axis, and of her translation around the 

 sun ; the precession of the equinoxes ; the attempt at constructing a map 

 of the world by the aid of degrees, based on lunar observations and on 

 shadows ; the improvement of the methods of astronomical observation 

 by the invention of water-clocks, and instruments for the more accurate 

 measurement of angles. Along with these, Baron Humboldt, in his Cos- 

 mos, has enumerated many other philosophical works of the Ptolemies, 

 which exerted a profound influence both upon the knowledge and intel- 

 lect of Europe. Greece now repaid what she had formerly borrowed ; 

 her schools of philosophy were translated to Alexandria, and the great 

 names of Euclid, Apollonius, and Archimedes testify to the return of 

 those ages to exact science. 



The decline of Greece and her final absorption into the Roman em- 

 pire was the necessary consequence of her mode of life. In Decline of 

 policy as in philosophy, her essential tendency was to sub- rise e of'the d Ro- 

 division, and therefore to weakness. In her external rela- man empire, 

 tions she had ever been far more closely connected with Asia than with 

 Europe. For a long time she was little more than an outlying territory 

 of Persia, respecting and fearing the highly-civilized nations in her front, 

 but scarcely concerning herself with the barbarians at her back. Very 

 different was it with Rome, her great supplanter and successor, who, 

 thoroughly European in her whole history, exercised an active, interven- 

 tion in the affairs of adjacent nations an influence perpetually felt 

 through Spain, Germany, Gaul, and Britain. 



It is difficult to estimate fully the influence of the Roman empire on 

 the intellect of Europe. Its power lay not in the origination of what was 

 new, but in the development and dissemination of what was derived from 

 other sources. The contributions of the Roman emperors to the stock 



