INFLUENCE OF THE HOMAN EMPIRE. 551 



important were the advances made in the sphere of organic 

 life, and in the general views of comparative zootomy, our 

 attention is yet more forcibly arrested by those physical expe- 

 riments on the passage of a ray of light, which, preceding the 

 period of the Arabs by an interval of five hundred years, mark 

 the first step in a newly opened course, and the earliest indica- 

 tion of a striving towards the establishment of mathematical 

 physics. 



The distinguished men whom we have already named as 

 shedding a scientific lustre on the age of the imperial rulers 

 of Rome, were all of Greek origin. The profound arithmeti- 

 cian and algebraist Diophantus (who was still unacquainted 

 with the use of symbols), belonged to a later period.* Amid 

 the different directions presented by intellectual cultivation in 

 the Roman empire, the palm of superiority remained with the 

 Hellenic races, as the older and more happily organised 

 people, but after the gradual downfall of the Egypto- Alexan- 

 drian school, the dimmed sparks of knowledge and of intellec- 

 tual investigation were scattered abroad, and it was not until 

 a later period that they reappeared in Greece and Asia Minor. 

 As is the case in all unlimited monarchies, embracing a vast 

 extent of the most heterogeneous elements, the efforts of the 

 Roman government were mainly directed to avert, by mili- 

 tary restraint and by means of the internal rivalry existing in 

 their divided administration, the threatened dismemberment 

 of the political bond ; to conceal, by an alternation of severity 

 and mildness, the domestic feuds in the house of the Csesars, 

 and to give to the different dependencies such an amount of 

 peace, under the sway of noble rulers, as an unchecked and 

 patiently endured despotism is able periodically to afford. 



The attainment of universal sway by the Romans certainly 

 emanated from the greatness of the national character, and 

 from the continued maintenance of rigid morals, coupled with 

 a high sense of patriotism. When once universal empire was 

 attained, these noble qualities were gradually weakened and 

 altered under the unavoidable influence of the new relations in- 

 duced. The characteristic sensitiveness of separate individuals 



* Letronne shows, from the occurrence of the fanatical murder of the 

 daughter of Theon of Alexandria, that the much contested epoch of 

 Diophantus cannot be placed later than the year 389 (Sur VOrigine 

 grecque des Zodiaques pretendus egyptiens, 1837, p. 26). 



