IX 



SCIENCE OF THE ROMAN PERIOD 



WE have seen that the third century B.C. was a 

 time when Alexandrian science was at its height, 

 but that the second century produced also in Hippar- 

 chus at least one investigator of the very first rank; 

 though, to be sure, Hipparchus can be called an Alex- 

 andrian only by courtesy. In the ensuing generations 

 the Greek capital at the mouth of the Nile continued 

 to hold its place as the centre of scientific and philo- 

 sophical thought. The kingdom of the Ptolemies still 

 flourished with at least the outward appearances of 

 its old-time glory, and a company of grammarians and 

 commentators of no small merit could always be found 

 in the service of the famous museum and library ; but 

 the whole aspect of world-history was rapidly changing. 

 Greece, after her brief day of political supremacy, was 

 sinking rapidily into desuetude, and the hard-headed 

 Roman in the West was making himself master every- 

 where. While Hipparchus of Rhodes was in his prime, 

 Corinth, the last stronghold of the main -land of Greece, 

 had fallen before the prowess of the Roman, and the 

 kingdom of the Ptolemies, though still nominally free, 

 had begun to come within the sphere of Roman in- 

 fluence. 



Just what share these political changes had in chang- 

 ing the aspect of Greek thought is a question regarding 



253 



