Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 1.djvu/537

Rh ALEXANDRIAN SCHOOL 499 epics are wanting ; but in their place, as might almost have been expected, are found the historical and the didactic or expository epics. The subjects of the historical epics were generally some of the well-known myths, in the exposition of which the writer could exhibit the full extent of his learning and his perfect command of verse. These poems are in a sense valuable as repertories of antiquities; but their style is on the whole bad, and infinite patience is required to clear up their numerous and obscure allusions. The best extant specimen is the Argonautica of Apollonius Rhodius; the most characteristic is the Alexandra or Cas sandra of Lycophron, the obscurity of which is almost proverbial. The subjects of didactic epics were very numerous ; they seem to have depended on the special knowledge possessed by the writers, who used verse as a form for unfolding their information. Some, e.g., the lost poem of Callimachus, called Ama, were on the origin of myths and religious observances ; others were on special sciences. Thus we have two poems of Aratus, who, though not resident at Alexandria, was so thoroughly imbued with the Alexan drian spirit as to be with reason included in the school ; the one is an essay on astronomy, the other an account of the signs of the weather. Nicander of Colophon has also left us two epics, one on remedies for poisons, the other on the bites of venomous beasts. Of many other epic poets only the names are known, as Dicaearchus, Euphorion, Rhianus, Dionysius, Oppianus. The spirit of all their productions is the same, that of learned research. They are distinguished by artistic form, purity of expression, and strict attention to the laws of metre and prosody, qualities which, however good in themselves, do not com pensate for want of originality, freshness, and power. In their lyric and elegiac poetry there is much worthy of admiration. The specimens we possess are not devoid of talent or of a certain happy art of expression. Yet, for the most part they either relate to objects thoroughly incapable of poetic treatment, where the writer s endeavour is rather to expound the matter fully than to render it poetically beautiful, or else expend themselves on short isolated subjects, generally myths, and are erotic in cha racter. The earliest of the elegiac poets was Philetas, the sweet singer of Cos. But the most distinguished was Calli machus, undoubtedly the greatest of the Alexandrian poets. Of his numerous works there remain to us only a few hymns, epigrams, and fragments of elegies. Other lyric poets were Phanocles, Hermesianax, Alexander of JEtolia, and Lycophron. Some of the best productions of the school were their epigrams. Of these we have several specimens, and the art of composing them seems to have been assiduously cultivated, as might naturally be expected from the court life of the poets, and their constant endeavours after terse ness and neatness of expression. Of kindred character were the parodies and satirical poems, of which the best examples were the St AAot of Timon. Dramatic poetry appears to have flourished to some extent. There are still extant three or four varying lists of the seven great dramatists who composed the Pleiad of Alexandria. Their works, perhaps not unfortunately, have perished. A ruder kind of drama, the amcebsean verse, or bucolic mime, developed into the only pure stream of genial poetry found in the Alexandrian School, the Idylls of Theocritus. The name of these poems preserves their original idea; they were pictures of fresh country life. The most interesting fact connected with this Alexan drian poetry is the powerful influence it exercised on Roman literature. That literature, especially in the Augustan age, is not to be thoroughly understood without due appreciation of the character of the Alexandrian School Before the Alexandrians had begun to produce original works, their researches were directed towards the master pieces of ancient Greek literature. If that literature was to be a power in the world, it must be handed down to posterity in a form capable of being understood. This was the task begun and carried out by the Alexandrian critics. These men did not merely collect works, but sought to arrange them, to subject the texts to criticism, and to explain any allusion or reference in them which at a later date might become obscure. The complete philo logical examination of any work consisted, according to them, of the following processes : Siop0o&amp;gt;cri?, arrangement of the text; dvayvoms, settlement of accents; T^-TJ, theory of forms, syntax ; e|?7y??(ns, explanation either of words or things ; and finally, Kpicns, judgment on the author and his work, including all questions as to authenticity and integ rity. To perform their task adequately required from, the critics a wide circle of knowledge ; and from this requirement sprang the sciences of grammar, prosody, lexicography, mythology, and archaeology. The service rendered by these critics is invaluable. To them we owe not merely the possession of the greatest works of Greek intellect, but the possession of them in a readable state. The most celebrated critics were Zenodotus; Aristophanes of Byzantium, to whom we owe the theory of Greek accents; and Aristarchus of Samothrace, confessedly the Coryphaeus of criticism. Others were Alexander of ^Etolia, Lycophron, Callimachus, Eratosthenes, and many of a later age, for the critical school long survived the literary. These philological labours were of great indirect import ance, for they led immediately to the study of the natural sciences, and in particular to a more accurate knowledge of geography and history. Considerable attention began to be paid to the ancient history of Greece, and to all the myths relating to the foundation of states and cities. A large collection of such curious information is contained in the Bibliotheca of Apollodorus, a pupil of Aristarchus, who flourished in the 2d century B.C. Eratosthenes was the first to write on mathematical and physical geography; he also first attempted to draw up a chronological table of the Egyptian kings, and of the historical events of Greece. His Egyptian chronology, along with that of Manetho, is still of great interest to scholars ; and Bunsen speaks with the highest admiration of his researches in Greek history. The sciences of mathematics, astronomy, and medicine were also cultivated with assiduity and success at Alexandria, but they can scarcely be said to have their origin there, or in any strict sense to form a part of the peculiarly Alexandrian literature. The founder of the mathematical school was the celebrated Euclid : among its scholars were Archimedes ; Apollonius of Perga, author of a treatise on Conic Sections; Eratosthenes, to whom we owe the first measurement of the earth ; and,Hipparchus, the founder of the epicyclical theory of the heavens, after wards called the Ptolemaic system, from its most famous expositor, Claudius Ptolemgeus. Alexandria continued long after the Christian era to be celebrated as a school of mathematics and science. Alexandrian School of Philosophy. Although it is not possible to divide literatures with absolute rigidity by centuries, and although the intellectual life of Alexandria, particularly as applied to science, long survived the Roman conquest, yet at that period the school, which for some time had been gradually breaking up, seems finally to have succumbed. The later productions in the field of pure literature bear the stamp of Rome rather than of Alexan dria. But in that city, for some time past, there had been various forces secretly working, and these coming in con tact with great spiritual changes occurring in the world around, produced a second outburst of intellectual activity.