Illustrated history of ancient literature, oriental and classicalQuackenbos, John D. (John Duncan)
History
Illustrated history of ancient literature, oriental and classical
Quackenbos, John D. (John Duncan)
Classical literature -- History and criticism; Oriental literature -- History and criticism
EUCLID (300 B.C.) compressed in one volume all the geometrical
knowledge extant, adding several original theorems. His “Elements”
has been translated into many languages, and though it has attained
the venerable age of 2,200 years, its clear demonstrations are still
standards in our schools.
ARCHIMEDES was educated in Alexandria, but afterward lived in
Syracuse, where his mathematical genius challenged the admiration
of the world. In geometry and mechanics he was the master-mind of
antiquity; and until the star of Newton rose twenty centuries after,
Europe saw not his equal. Many important discoveries in physical
science are due to Archimedes,—the principle of the lever, which led
him to exclaim, “Give me a place to stand on, and I will move the
world;” the process of finding the specific gravity of bodies; the
hydraulic screw and the pulley. Of his many mathematical works, written
in Doric Greek, eight survive.
ERATOSTHENES (276-196 B.C.) was the founder of geodesy and chronology,
as well as a proficient in astronomy, grammar, and poetry. The
ancients styled him _Pentathlos_ (_quintuple athlete_); also, from his
determining the magnitude of the earth, “Measurer of the Universe.”
His most important works are “Chronographies,” and geographical and
mathematical writings.
HIPPARCHUS (150 B.C.), an astronomer of the Alexandrian age, deserves
mention as the inventor of the planisphere and as the first to make a
catalogue of the stars. He devised the method of locating places by
latitude and longitude.
=Grammar.=—The Museum was especially eminent as a school of grammar and
criticism, the principal occupation of its scholars being the revision
and correction of the texts of the old authors.
The most distinguished of the Alexandrian critics were—ZENOD’OTUS, the
first librarian and critical editor of Homer’s epics; ARISTOPHANES
OF BYZANTIUM, his pupil (200 B.C.), the inventor of Greek accents
and punctuation; ARISTARCHUS (156 B.C.), “the arch-grammarian of
Greece,” who divided Homer’s poems into books, revised the Alexandrian
canon, and was the author of 800 commentaries; and CRA’TES, head of a
grammatical school at Pergamus, and the first to make grammar a popular
study at Rome.
=History.=—POLYBIUS (204-122 B.C.) was the chief historian of the
Alexandrian age. Brought to Rome a prisoner after the battle of Pydna
(168 B.C.), in which the king of Macedon was overthrown by Paulus
Æmilius, he became the intimate friend of Scipio Africanus the
Younger. Seventeen years elapsed before Polybius was permitted to
return to Greece. Then he went back the firm friend of the Romans; and
had his countrymen heeded his counsels, the sack of Corinth might have
been averted and Greece might have preserved her independence. So, at
least, declared the inscription on his statue: “Hellas would have been
saved had she followed the advice of Polybius.”
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