Alexander indeed benefited the East by introducing the Greek language and culture, and building magnificent cities in return for her hordes of barbarians slain; but his policy left out of view the interests of Greece. While Athens remained the seminary of Europe for several centuries after his death, Alexandria, founded by him at the mouth of the Nile, became the intellectual as well as commercial capital of the world. From this city, the period we are about to consider derives its name. It extends from the death of Alexander the Great (323 B.C.) to the conquest of Egypt by the Romans (30 B.C.). =The Alexandrian Age= produced no grand masterpieces. No glorious struggle for freedom inspired the historian; there was no further need for the efforts of the orator; science and criticism flourished instead of poetry; and a host of imitators usurped the place of the mighty originals of the olden time. The national taste had sadly deteriorated; an affected obscurity was fashionable; and gaudy tinsel was more highly valued than true gold. Yet one bright bloom gladdened this waste—Idyllic Poetry, which expanded into a perfect flower in the hands of Theoc’ritus the Sicilian. A new school of comedy was also established by Menander and Phile’mon; and many seeds of Greek genius that Alexander had scattered broadcast over the earth sprung up on foreign soil, and yielded fruit—but fruit inferior to that ripened under its native sun. DRAMATIC POETRY. =The New Comedy= dealt with the follies and vices of society at large, not with individuals, the actor no longer venturing, since the downfall of political liberty, to imitate Aristophanes in representing living characters. Its simple plot was generally based on some love-intrigue. Though the broad fun of the Old Comedy was wanting, quiet humor contrasted happily with pathos, the grave with the gay; the audience, provoked by turns to laughter and to tears, were all the time learning some useful principle or moral lesson. Cicero styled the New Comedy “the mirror of real life.”—The chorus now ceased to take part in the representation, and the play was divided into acts separated by intervals of time. Of the sixty-four poets associated by the ancients with the New Comedy, the greatest were Menander and Philemon, both citizens of Athens, though Philemon was foreign-born. Not until both had passed from the stage of life was the meed of superior excellence awarded to Menander. =Menander= (341-291 B.C.) dramatized love-stories for the young with elegance and dignity; while the undercurrent of wisdom that flowed through his plays recommended them to the old. Out of a hundred comedies of which he was the author, only a few fragments are left; but these Goethe pronounced “invaluable.” So perfectly did he delineate character that Aristophanes, the grammarian, asked whether Menander copied life, or life Menander.