168 EPOCHS IN THE HISTORY OF THE CONTEMPLATION 



these expectations ; and the flourishing prosperity of Seleucia, 

 founded by Seleucus Nicator on the lower Tigris, and united 

 with the Euphrates by means of canals ( 257 ), contributed 

 to its complete decline. 



Three great rulers, the three first Ptolemies, whose reigns 

 occupied a whole century, by their love of the sciences, by 

 their brilliant institutions for the promotion of intellectual 

 cultivation, and by their uninterrupted endeavours to promote 

 and extend commerce, caused the knowledge of Nature and 

 of distant countries to receive a. greater and more rapid 

 increase than had yet been achieved by any single nation. 

 This treasure of true scientific cultivation passed from the 

 Greeks settled in Egypt to the Romans. Even under 

 Ptolemy Philadelphus, hardly half a century after the death 

 of Alexander, and before the first Punic war had shaken 

 the aristocratic republic of Carthage, Alexandria was the 

 port of greatest commerce in the world. The nearest and 

 most commodious route from the oasin of the Mediter- 

 ranean to South Eastern Africa, Arabia and India, was by 

 Alexandria. The Lagidse availed themselves with unexampled 

 success of the road which Nature had as it were marked out 

 for the commerce of the world by the direction of the Red 

 Sea or Arabian Gulf ( 258 ) ; a route which will never be 

 fully appreciated until the wildness of Eastern life, and the 

 jealousies of the "W-estcrrx po^rs, thsSL botii QJri,iirik. 

 Even when Egypt became a Eoman province, il continued 

 to be the seat of almost boundless riches ; the increasing 

 luxury of Rome under the Csesars reacted on the land of 

 the Nile, and sought the means of its satisfaction principally 

 m the universal commerce of Alexandria. 



The important extension of the knowledge of Nature and 



