CHAPTER IV 

 SCIENCE IN THE GOLDEN AGE OF GREECE 



Our science, in contrast with others, is not founded on a single 

 period of human history, but has accompanied the development of 

 culture through all its stages. Mathematics is as much interwoven 

 with Greek culture as with the most modern problems in engineer- 

 ing. She not only lends a hand to the progressive natural sciences, but 

 participates at the same time in the abstract investigations of logicians 

 and philosophers. Klein. 



There still remain three studies suitable for freemen. Calcu- 

 lation in arithmetic is one of them; the measurement of length, 

 surface, and depth is the second ; and the third has to do with the 

 revolutions of the stars in reference to one another . . . there is in 

 them something that is necessary and cannot be set aside ... if 

 I am not mistaken, [something of] divine necessity. Plato. 



LITERATURE AND ART. The fifth century B.C. witnessed that 

 astonishing flowering of the Greek genius in literature and mili- 

 tary glory which has made it ever since famous. The battles 

 of Marathon and Salamis had flung back the Asiatic hosts which 

 threatened to overrun and enslave Europe, and had transformed 

 the Greeks from a group of jealous and parochial city states into 

 a great democratic nation. Trade prospered, wealth increased, 

 and for about a century letters, art, and science flourished as never 

 before and never since. History began to be written by Herodotus 

 and Thucydides. The drama was developed by ^Eschylus, 

 Sophocles, and Euripides to such a pitch that even to-day, after 

 the lapse of nearly 2500 years, crowds listen with eager interest 

 to the (Edipus of Sophocles and the Iphigenia of Euripides, while 

 the poetry of Pindar and the wit of Aristophanes have never lost 

 their charm. In architecture and the plastic arts the Parthenon 

 and its sculptures still testify to Greek supremacy. - 



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