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 chap. XL] OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE 279 inflicted on the avarice and jealousy of a prince by whose hands such venerable ruins were destroyed. Athens, after her Persian triumphs, adopted the philosophy The of Ionia and the rhetoric of Sicily ; and these studies became Athens the patrimony of a city whose inhabitants, about thirty thousand males, condensed, within the period of a single life, the genius of ages and millions. Our sense of the dignity of human nature is exalted by the simple recollection that Isocrates 143 was the companion of Plato and Xenophon ; that he assisted, perhaps with the historian Thucydides, at the first representations of the Oedipus of Sophocles and the Iphigenia of Euripides ; and that his pupils iEschines and Demosthenes contended for the crown of patriotism in the presence of Aristotle, the master of Theophrastus, who taught at Athens with the founders of the Stoic and Epicurean sects. 144 The ingenuous youth of Attica enjoyed the benefits of their domestic education, which was communicated without envy to the rival cities. Two thousand disciples heard the lessons of Theophrastus ; 145 the schools of rhetoric must have been still more populous than those of philo- sophy ; and a rapid succession of students diffused the fame of their teachers as far as the utmost limits of the Grecian lan- guage and name. Those limits were enlarged by the victories of Alexander; the arts of Athens survived her freedom and dominion ; and the Greek colonies which the Macedonians planted in Egypt, and scattered over Asia, undertook long and frequent pilgrimages to worship the Muses in their favourite temple on the banks of the Ilissus. The Latin conquerors respectfully listened to the instructions of their subjects and captives ; the names of Cicero and Horace were enrolled in the schools of Athens; and, after the perfect settlement of the 143 The life of Isocrates extends from Olymp. lxxxvi. 1, to ex. 3 (ante Christ. 436-338). See Dionys. Halioarn. torn. ii. p. 149, 150, edit. Hudson ; Plutarch (sive anonymus), in Vit. X. Oratorum, p. 1538-1543, edit. H. Steph. ; Phot. cod. eclix. p. 1453. 144 The schools of Athens are copiously though concisely represented in the Fortuna Attica of Meursius (c. viii. p. 59-73 in torn. i. Opp.). For the state and arts of the city, see the first book of Pausanias, and a small tract of Dicaearchus (in the second volume of Hudson's Geographers), who wrote about Olymp. cxvii. (Dodwell's Dissertat. sect. 4). [For the last age of the schools see a good account in Hertzberg, Geschichte Griechenlands, i. p. 71 sqq. Paparrigopulos, 'laropia rov 'EAATjj-i/coD Zdvovs, 3, p. 202. Gregorovius, Geschichte der Stadt Athen, i. 54. Diehl, Justinien, p. 562.] 145 Diogen. Laert. de Vit. Philosoph. 1. v. segm. 37, p. 289.