320 ELEMENTS OF SCIENCE 



leadership (from 444-429 B.C.) of Pericles, who adorned 

 the city with new temples and other public buildings, 

 while the poets, ^Eschylus and Sophocles, produced 

 their world-renowned plays, to be succeeded later by 

 those of Euripides and Aristophanes. This also was the 

 period of Socrates and Plato, of whom we have to speak 

 later. The power and splendour of Athens increased 

 till the jealousy of other great cities gave rise to the 

 celebrated Peloponnesian war between Athens and 

 aristocratic Sparta, with their respective allies. It 

 lasted, with a brief interval, for twenty-nine years, and 

 ended in the defeat of the Athenians at the naval battle 

 of Egospotamos. But the subsequent predominance of 

 Sparta was followed, after various struggles, by the 

 practical subjugation of the whole of Greece under 

 Philip, King of Macedon, whose son, Alexander the Great, 

 as the leader of Greece, invaded and conquered Persia, 

 received the submission of Egypt where he founded 

 Alexandria and after penetrating into Northern 

 India, died at Babylon, B.C. 323. He was the greatest 

 conqueror the world had yet known, and the vast 

 empire he erected became, after his death, divided 

 between his generals. Thus his conquests gave rise to 

 the dynasty of the Ptolemies in Egypt, and to that of 

 the Seleucidce in Syria (founded by two of his generals), 

 and so the Greek language and Greek culture became 

 spread over all the most civilised and important part 

 of the then known world. At that time, Rome was 

 only contending for dominion over adjacent Italian 

 territories, and the Greek cities of South Italy still 

 flourished in security and independence. Indeed, 

 Greek influence and culture become more than ever 

 diffused around the Mediterranean and notably in 

 Western Asia, 



