The Arabic writer Masûdi informs us that Greek philosophy originally flourished at Athens, but the Emperor Augustus transferred it from Athens to Alexandria and Rome, and Theodosius afterwards closed the schools at Rome and made Alexandria the educational centre of the Greek world (Masûdi: _Livre de l’avertissement_, trad. B. Carra de Vaux, Paris, 1896, p. 170). Although grotesquely expressed this statement contains an element of truth in so far as it represents Alexandria as gradually becoming the principal home of Greek philosophy. It had begun to take a leading place even in the days of the Ptolemies, and in scientific, as distinguished from purely literary work, it had assumed a position of primary importance early in the Christian era. The schools of Athens remained open until A.D. 529, but had long been out of touch with progressive scholarship. Rome also shows great philosophers, most often of oriental birth, down to a late age, but although these were given a kindly welcome and a hearing, Roman education was more interested in jurisprudence, indeed the purely Roman philosophical speculation is that embedded in Justinian’s code. Antioch also had its philosophy, but this was never of more than secondary importance. In the course of what we may term the Alexandrian period the Platonic school had steadily taken the first place. It was indeed considerably changed from the ancient Academic standards, chiefly by the introduction of semi-mystical elements which were attributed to Pythagoras, and later by fusion with the neo-Aristotelian school. The Pythagorean elements probably can be traced ultimately to an Indian source, at least in such instances as the doctrine of the unreality of matter and phenomena which appears in Indian philosophy as _māyā_, and the re-incarnation of souls which is _avatar_. The tendency of native Greek thought, as seen in Democritus and other genuinely Greek thinkers, was distinctly materialistic, but Plato apparently incorporates some alien matter, probably Indian, perhaps some Egyptian ideas as well. We know there was a transmission of oriental thought influencing Hellenism, but very little is known of the details. Certainly Plotinus and the neo-Platonists were eclectic thinkers and drew freely from oriental sources, some disguised as Pythagorean, by a long sojourn in Greek lands.