together by Eratosthenes, the learned librarian of Alexandria. He was the founder of scientific geography. BeEratosthenes, about 276- fore his time some students had already concluded that the earth is spherical and not flat, as had been taught in the Homeric poems.1 Guesses had even been

194 B.C.

1 See page 74.

made of the size of the earth. Eratosthenes by careful measurements came within a few thousand miles of its actual circumference. Having estimated the size of the earth, Eratosthenes went on to determine how large was its habitable area. He reached the conclusion that the distance from the strait of Gibraltar to the east of India was about one-third of the earth's circumference. The remaining two-thirds, he thought, was covered by the sea. And with what seems a prophecy he remarked that, if it was not for the vast extent of the Atlantic Ocean, one might almost sail from Spain to India along the same parallel of latitude.

Ptolemy

The next two centuries after Eratosthenes saw the spread of Roman rule over Greeks and Carthaginians in the Mediterranean and over the barbarous inhabitants of Gaul, Britain, and Germany. The new knowledge thus gained was summed up in the Greek Geography by Ptolemy1 of Alexandria. His famous map shows how near he came to the real outlines both of Europe and Asia.

Ptolemy was likewise an eminent astronomer. He believed that the earth was the center of the universe and that the sun, planets, and fixed stars all revolved around it. The PtoleThis Ptolemaic system was not overthrown until maic system the grand discovery of Copernicus in the sixteenth century of

our era.

46. The Græco-Oriental World

The Hellenistic Age was characterized by a general increase in wealth. The old Greeks and Macedonians, as a rule, had been content to live plainly. Now kings, nobles, The new and rich men began to build splendid palaces and luxury to fill them with the products of ancient art - marbles from Asia Minor, vases from Athens, Italian bronzes, and Babylonian tapestries. They kept up great households with endless lords in waiting, ladies of honor, pages, guards, and servants. Soft couches and clothes of delicate fabric replaced the simple coverlets and coarse cloaks of an earlier time. They possessed rich carpets and hangings, splendid armor and jewelry, and gold

1 Not to be confused with King Ptolemy (page 127).

and silver vessels for the table. The Greeks thus began to imitate the luxurious lives of Persian nobles.

These new luxuries flowed in from all parts of the ancient Many came from the Far East in consequence of the

world.

The sea route to India

rediscovery of the sea route to India, by Alexander's admiral, Nearchus. The voyage of Nearchus was one of the most important results of Alexander's eastern conquests. It established the fact, which had long been forgotten, that one could reach India by a water route much shorter and safer than the caravan roads through central Asia. Somewhat later a Greek sailor, named Harpalus, found that by using the monsoons, the periodic winds which blow over the Indian Ocean, he could sail direct from Arabia to India without laboriously following the coast. The Greeks, in consequence, gave his name to the monsoons.

Oriental influence on the Greeks

All this sudden increase of wealth, all the thousand new enjoyments with which life was now adorned and enriched, did not work wholly for good. With luxury there went, as always, laxity in morals. Contact with the vice and effeminacy of the East tended to lessen the manly vigor of the Greeks, both in Asia and in Europe. Hellas became corrupt, and she in turn corrupted Rome.

Yet the most interesting, as well as the most important, feature of the age is the diffusion of Hellenic culture the "Hel

Greek in

Orient

lenizing" of the Orient. It was, indeed, a changed fluence on the world in which men were now living. Greek cities, founded by Alexander and his successors, stretched from the Nile to the Indus, dotted the shores of the Black Sea and Caspian, and arose amid the wilds of central Asia. The Greek language, once the tongue of a petty people, grew to be a universal language of culture, spoken even by "barbarian" lips. And the art, the science, the literature, the principles of politics and philosophy, developed in isolation by the Greek mind, henceforth became the heritage of many nations.

Thus, in the period after Alexander the long struggle between East and West reached a peaceful conclusion. The distinction 2 See page 48.

1 See page 125.

1. Lydian coin of about 700 B.C.; the material is electrum, a compound of gold and silver. 2. Gold daric, a Persian coin worth about $5. 3. Hebrew silver shekel. 4. Athenian silver tetradrachm, showing Athena, her olive branch, and sacred owl. 5. Roman bronze as (2 cents) of about 217 B.C.; the symbols are the head of Janus and the prow of a ship. 6. Bronze sestertius (5 cents), struck in Nero's reign; the emperor, who carries a spear, is followed by a second horseman bearing a banner. 7. Silver den irius (20 cents), of about 99 B.C.; it shows a bust of Roma and three citizens voting. 8. Gold solidus ($5), of Honorius, about 400 A.D.; the emperor wears a diadem and carries a scepter.