a few cases, of great literary merit) and many able scholars. The preservation of the best Greek literature was due chiefly to the unremitting care of the Alexandrian critics, whose appreciation of it partly compensated for the decay of the old Greek perceptions in literature and art, and who did their utmost to hand it down in a form as free as possible from the errors of copyists. On the whole, the patronage of letters by the Ptolemies had probably as large a measure of success as was possible under the existing conditions; and it was afforded at a time when there was special danger that a true literary tradition might die out of the world. The Graeco-Roman period. The Graeco-Roman period in the literature of Hellenism may be dated from the Roman subjugation of Greece. "Greece made a captive of the rough conqueror," 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 2nd 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 accomplishment for highly educated Romans. The library planned by Julius Caesar and founded by Augustus had two principal 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. First part: 146-30 B.C.