Though the Byzantines, therefore, are themselves possessed of the first and best advantages of this happy situation, which enables them to make both an easy and a profitable exchange of their superfluous commodities, and to procure in return, without any pain or danger, whatever their own lands fail to furnish; yet since, through their means chiefly, other countries also are enabled to obtain many things that are of the greatest use, it seems reasonable that they should always be regarded by the Greeks as common benefactors, and receive not only favor and acknowledgments, but assistance likewise to repel all attempts that may be made against them by their barbarous neighbors. And with these barbarous tribes they are involved in constant war. For when they have taken great pains to cultivate their lands, which are by nature very fertile, and the rich fruits stand ready to repay their labors, on a sudden the barbarians, pouring down, destroy one part and carry away the rest; and leave to the Byzantines, after all their cost and toil, only the pain of beholding their best harvests wasted, while their beauty aggravates the grief, and renders the sense of their calamity more sharp and insupportable.”—HAMPTON. MAN´ETHO in Egypt, BERO´SUS at Babylon, and TIMÆUS in Sicily, wrote the annals of their several countries. =The Septuagint.=—Finally, to the Museum we owe the Septuagint (p. 104), or Greek version of the Old Testament, made by learned Jews employed by Ptolemy. The Jews no longer spoke the ancient Hebrew with fluency, and their version in various parts betrays an imperfect knowledge of the original. The Septuagint served as a basis for translations into many different tongues. THE SEVEN PLEIADES. THEOCRITUS: the idyl-writer. CALLIMACHUS: poet, grammarian, etc. LYC’OPHRON, the Obscure: author of “Cassandra,” “the dark poem,” and 64 tragedies. APOLLONIUS RHODIUS. HOMER THE YOUNGER. ARA’TUS: author of a popular astronomical poem; from him St. Paul quoted the expression with reference to the Deity, “in whom we live, and move, and have our being.” NICANDER, a physician: two didactic medical poems on poisons and their antidotes. * * * * * EUPHO’RION, author of three heroic poems and a celebrated grammar—APOLLODORUS, the didactic poet—and MELEA’GER THE EXQUISITE, flourished in the Alexandrian age. Meleager’s “Garland” was the first anthology, or collection of epigrams. AN’YTE of Arcadia, “the female Homer,” and NOSSIS, the Locrian poetess (300 B.C.), wrote epigrams. CLEANTHES, the persevering disciple of Zeno (300-220 B.C.), composed moral treatises and a hymn to Jupiter full of lofty sentiments. CHAPTER VII. _LATER GREEK LITERATURE._