Page:The history of medieval Europe.djvu/59

 THE ROMAN EMPIRE 23 men of letters, geographers and astronomers, botanists and physiologists and medical men. Antioch in Syria was a similar center. Greek art, too, now left the peninsula, and the chief centers of sculpture were at cities in Asia Minor. Alexander's empire was divided after his death into the three great monarchies of Macedon, Syria, and Egypt, and many lesser states in Asia Minor and the Greek Greek in- peninsula. Therefore, when Rome had united fhe Roman under her rule all Italy, including the declining Empire Greek colonies of southern Italy and Sicily, and had deci- sively defeated her great opponent in Africa, Carthage, she found it comparatively easy to bring the powers of the eastern Mediterranean one by one under her sway. But as Greek civilization had gone on spreading through Alexan- der's empire after it had ceased to be a political unit, so now it was adopted by the Romans, who indeed had borrowed much from it in Italy before they conquered the East. Dur- ing the time of the Roman Empire and early centuries of the Christian era, Greek continued to be the written and learned language of the eastern half of the Mediterranean Basin, and the science of the Hellenistic period was contin- ued by such writers as Galen and Ptolemy, our chief sources for ancient medicine and astronomy respectively. It is worth remarking that both these scientists believed in astrology. The third section of the Roman Empire included the Latin civilization of Italy and the barbarians whom Rome had conquered and added to the civilized ancient The Roman. world. Geographically it embraced all that part Barbarian of the Empire to the north or west of Macedon, Sicily, and Carthage. Orientals and Greeks had done some- thing for these regions, but in the main their civilization was the work of Rome. It will be noted that this section included not only the coasts of the western Mediterranean, but also the valley of the Danube River, the Alps, the valley of the Rhine, and the entire interior of the Spanish penin- sula and of what is now France. This brought Rome to the Atlantic Ocean; she did not halt there, but added the