& Medicine.—The only works extant are those of Hippocrates (460 a.c.) of Cos, who was the founder of medicine. These are written in the Ionic dialect in plain language and without any pretensions of style.
II. Alexandrian Period (300-30 B.C.).— In this age the spontaneous production of litera ture ceases and in its stead arise science and criticism, for the enlargement of the Greek world by the conquests of Alexander rendered the appeal to the learned few rather than to the masses inevitable. Prose becomes now more important than poetry, which is mostly learned and highly artificial. Ideality and art are gone; imitation and science have come in. Alexandria as a centre of literary activity rivals Athens. The following departments were cultivated: 1. Poetry.— Besides the new comedy, the most important is the pastoral poetry, the only new style, cultivated by Theocritus (270 a.c.) of Syracuse. His poems, called idylls, deal with the rustic life. The dialect is Dorian and the metre is hexameter. Theocritus is largely arti ficial and conventional, but exhibits true emo tion and a deep feeling for nature. Thirty-one idylls are extant besides some epigrams and fragments. Bion (260 B.c.) of Ionia, and Moschus (c. 150 a.c.) of Syracuse, also culti vated pastoral poetry with considerable success. Here may also be mentioned Herondas (250 a.c), whose recently discovered poems, called (MimiambP (sketches of daily life), were pub lished in 1891. Learned poetry was represented by Callimachus (260 B.c.), of whom we have six hymns and some epigrams, but only fragments of his elegies. Apollonius Rhodius (194 a.c.), a grammarian, wrote an epic on Jason, called in imitation of Homer, but it is highly artificial. Lycophron (260 s.c.) culti vated tragedy. In didactic poetry Aratus (270 a.c.) wrote a poem on astronomy, which has little merit, and Nicander (150 B.c.) wrote a medical treatise in verse. Nicander also wrote (Georgics,' which had some influence on Virgil, and (Metamorphoses,' which were used by Ovid. Parody and satire also flourished in the hand of Timon (280 a.c.) of Phlius, whose satiric poems are called 2. Philosophy.—The old philosophy was gone and in its stead we find Stoicism and Epicurean ism (qq.v.). Here may be mentioned Theo phrastus (374-287 whose work on acters) is still extant, and Chrysippus, the Stoic.
3. Philology and Criticism.—The establish ment of the Museum by Ptolemy I gave great impetus to philological and critical study. Zen odotus (280 B.c.), who began the work of re vising and explaining the Greek poets, wrote memoirs and lists of rare words and phrases. Aristophanes (200 s.c.) of Byzantium, who in troduced the signs used to mark accents, and Aristarchus (150 B.c.), the text critic, were the greatest of the Alexandrian scholars. The science of grammar was now established. Apollodorus (140 s.c.) wrote a work on mythol ogy. Dionysius Thrax (110 a.c.) wrote the first grammar, which was used as a textbook as late as the 12th century.
4. Science.— Some advance had been made in astronomy, mathematics and geography, when Euclid (300 Lc.) gave to the world his ments of Geometry,' which is still a famous work. Archimedes (d. 212 Lc.), who invented the screw, was a distinguished scientist, as was also Apollonius. Eratosthenes (d. 194 B.c.) founded scientific geography and chronology. Here we may mention Hipparchus (160 Lc.), the founder of scientific astronomy, and also the Athenian philosophers, especially the Peripa tetics, who busied themselves with science.
5. History.— History was but sparingly culti vated, its greatest representative being Polybius (204-122 a.c.). His work was a record of Roman conquests in 40 books, of which we have the first five entire and fragments of the re maining.
III. Roman In this period Greek literature spread over the civilized world. In cipient universities sprang up in different places and with them the striving after form and style, especially in prose, poetry being practically neglected.
1. History was cultivated in the early part of this period by Diodorus Siculus (b. 40 a.c.), who wrote a history of the world in 40 books, of which only books I-V and XI-XX with some fragments are preserved. Dionysius of Halicarnassus (d. 7 Lc.), of whose Archaeology (or Roman History) books I-X have reached us, is much better known by his rhetorical works and critical essays on the classic prose writers. We may also mention in this depart ment Josephus (37 A.D.), who wrote a history of the Jews, Arrian (100 A.D.), who wrote the history of Alexander's expedition and of India, and Dio Cassius, Appian and Herodian, who wrote histories of Rome.