[4] 



Temple of Serapis. Books were freely bought, tran- 

 scribers engaged, apartments set aside, at the king's 

 expense, for the residence of Greek philosophers and 

 students, and four faculties established, for literature, 

 mathematics, astronomy, and medicine, including natural 

 history. There were also in connection with the univer- 

 sity botanical and zoological gardens, an astronomical 

 observatory, with spheres, globes, parallactic rules, etc., 

 and an anatomical theatre for the dissection of dead 

 bodies. It was here that Euclid produced his celebrated 

 geometrical demonstrations, which are at this day used 

 in our schools. Here also Archimedes proclaimed his 

 method for the determination of specific gravities, and 

 invented the theory of the lever. Here Eratosthenes 

 daily taught that the earth was a globe, and determined 

 the interval between the tropics. The earth was described 

 as possessing imaginary poles, axis, equator, arctic and 

 antarctic circles, equinoxial points, solstices, climate, etc. 

 Hipparchus taught the precession of the equinoxes, 

 catalogued the stars, and adopted lines of latitude and 

 longitude in describing the situations of places. Thus 

 science progressed under the wise and beneficent rule 

 of the Ptolemies. 



But a dark cloud was already looming in the distance, 

 which was destined to develop into a fierce storm, the 

 effect of whose fury was felt for centuries afterwards. 

 Julius Caesar, in B.C. 30, defeated Cleopatra, then Queen 

 of Egypt, and added that country to the Roman domi- 

 nions, the museum and larger library being entirely 

 destroyed during the siege of Alexandria. From this 

 time learning and science began to decline. Numerous 

 religious sects. arose around Alexandria, the old mytholo- 

 gies were revived, and the priests once more gained 

 influence. The temples of Jupiter Ammon and Apollo 

 in Egypt, of Adonis and les in Phoenicia, of Dionysos 

 in Greece, and of Bacchus in Rome, were again filled to 

 overflowing, and miracles were performed in abundance. 

 In the short space of about fifty years all the work of 

 the Ptolemies appeared to have been undone, and the 

 world once more given up to darkness, superstition, and 

 ignorance, the popular frenzy being kept up by a number 

 of ascetic monks, called Therapeutse, who inhabited the 



