Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 11.djvu/156

Rh  2. The Gr0eco-I!oman period in the literature of Hellenism may be dated from the Roman subjugation of Greece. "Greece made a captive of the rough conqueror,&quot; but it did not follow from this intellectual conquest that Athens became once more the intellectual centre of the world. Under the empire, indeed, the university of Athens long enjoyed a pre-eminent reputation. But Rome gradually became the point to which the greatest workers in every kind were drawn. Greek literature had already made a home there before the close of the 2d century B.C. Sulla brought a Greek library from Athens to Rome. Such men as Cicero and Atticus were indefatigable collectors and readers of Greek books. The power of speaking and writing the Greek language became an indispensable accomplish ment for highly educated Romans. The library planned by Julius Caesar and founded by Augustus had two prin cipal departments, one for Latin, the other for Greek works. Tiberius, Vespasian, Domitian, and Trajan contributed to enlarge the collection. Rome became more and more the rival of Alexandria, not only as possessing great libraries, but also as a seat of learning at which Greek men of letters found appreciation and encouragement. Greek poetry, especially in its higher forms, rhetoric and literary criticism, history and philosophy, were all cultivated by Greek writers at Rome.

The first part of the Grasco-Roman period may be defined as extending from 146 B.C. to the close of the Roman republic. At its commencement stands the name of one who had more real affinity than any of his contemporaries with the great writers of old Athens, and who, at the same time, saw most clearly how the empire of the world was passing to Rome. The subject of Polybius was the history of Roman conquest from 264 to 146 B.C. His style, plain and straightforward, is free from the florid rhetoric of the time. But the distinction of Polybius is that he is the last Greek writer who in some measure retains the spirit of the old citizen-life. He chose his subject, not because it gave scope to learning or literary skill, but with a motive akin to that which prompted the history of Thucydides namely, because, as a Greek citizen, he felt intensely the political importance of those wars which had given Rome the mas tery of the world. The chief historical work which the following century produced the Universal History of Dio- dorus Siculus resembled that of Polybius in recognizing Rome as the political centre of the earth, as the point on which all earlier series of events converged. In all else Diodorus represents the new age in which the Greek his torian had no longer the practical knowledge and insight of a traveller, a soldier, or a statesman, but only the diligence, and usually the dulness, of a laborious compiler.

The Greek literature of the Roman empire, from Augustus to Justinian, was enormously prolific. The area over which the Greek language was diffused either as a medium of intercourse or as an established branch of the higher education was co-extensive with the empire itself. An immense store of materials had now been accumulated, on which critics, commentators, compilers, imitators, were employed with incessant industry. In very many of its forms, the work of composition or adaptation had been reduced to a mechanical knack. If there is any one characteristic which broadly distinguishes the Greek literature of these five centuries, it is the absence of originality either in form or in matter. Lucian is, in his way, a rare exception ; and his great popularity he is the only Greek writer of this period, except Plutarch, who has been widely popular illustrates the flatness of the arid level .above which he stands out. The sustained abundance of literary production under the empire was partly due to the fact that there was no open political career. Never, probably, was literature so im portant as a resource for educated men ; and the habit of reciting before friendly or obsequious audiences swelled the number of writers whose taste had been cultivated to a point just short of perceiving that they ought not to write.

In the manifold prose work of this period, four principal departments may be distinguished. (1) History, with Biography, and Geography. It would exceed the limits of the present summary to notice in detail the works which belong to this and to the other provinces ; but it may be useful, for purposes of reference and classification, to give some chief names in each. History is represented by Diony- sius of Halicarnassus,- also memorable for his criticisms on the orators and his effort to revive a true standard of Attic prose, by Josephus, Arrian, Appian, and Herodian. In biography, the foremost names are Plutarch, Diogenes Laertius, and Philostratus ; in geography, Strabo and Pausanias. (2) Erudition and Science. The learned labours of the Alexandrian schools were continued in all their various fields. Under this head may be mentioned such works as the lexicon of Julius Pollux ; the commen taries of Galen on Plato and on Hippocrates ; the learned miscellanies of Athenseus, ^Elian, and Stobseus; and the Stratagems of Polysenus. (3) Rhetoric and Belles Lettres. The most popular writers on the theory of rhetoric were Hermogenes, Aphthonius, and Cassius Longinus the last the reputed author of the essay On Sublimity. Among the most renowned teachers of rhetoric now distinctively called &quot; Sophists,&quot; or rhetoricians were Dion Chrysostom, /Klius Aristides, Themistius, Himerius, Libanius, and Herodes Atticus. Akin to the rhetorical exercises were various forms of ornamental or imaginative prose dialogues, letters, essays, or novels. Lucian, in his dialogues, exhibits more of the classical style and of the classical spirit than any writer of the later age ; he has also a remarkable affinity with the tone of modern satire, as in Swift or Voltaire. His Attic prose, though necessarily artificial, was at least the best that had been written for four centuries. The emperor Julian was the author both of orations and of satirical pieces. The chief of the Greek novelists are Xenophon of Ephesus and Longus, representing a purely Greek type of romance, and Heliodorus, with his imitators Achilles Tatius and Chariton, representing a school influenced by Oriental fiction. There were also many Christian romances in Greek, usually of a religious tendency. Alciphron s ficti tious Letters founded largely on the Ne.w Comedy of Athens represent the same kind of industry which pro duced the letters of Phalaris and many similar collections. (4) Philosophy is represented chiefly by Epictetus and Marcus Aurelius, in both of whom the Stoic element is the prevailing one ; by the Neoplatonists, such as Plotinus, Porphyry, lamblichus ; and by Proclus, of that eclectic school which arose at Athens in the 5th century A.D.

The Greek poetry of this period presents no work of high merit. Babrius versified the yKsopic Fables ; Oppian wrote didactic poems on fishing and hunting; Nonnus and Quintus Smyrnaeus made elaborate essays in epic verse ; and the Orphic lore inspired some poems and hymns of a mystic character. The so-called Sibylline Oracles, in hexameter verse, range in date from about 170 B.C. to 700 A.D., and are partly the expression of the Jewish longings for the restoration of Israel, partly predictions of the triumph of Christianity. By far the most pleasing compositions in verse which have come to us from this age are some of the short poems in the Greek Anthology, which includes some pieces as early as the beginning of the 5th century B.C., and some as late as the 6th century of the Christian era.

The 4th century may be said to mark the beginning of the last stage in the decay of literary Hellenism. From that point the decline was rapid and nearly continuous. The attitude of the church towards it was no longer that which had 