Although it could only have been through the medium of translations or abridgments, he already seems to have made some acquaintance with the works of the Greeks. In profound speculation and in matters of art and taste they were the teachers of the Romans, who, in spite of national pride, were willing to acknowledge them as such. Even to this day, their sages, Plato and Aristotle, must be studied by all, who are not content with a mere superficial knowledge of philosophy. Their historians entered fully into the character of the persons and of the times, which they portrayed, and in their poets a loftier inspiration ruled. One of these, Pindar, is thus described by Zwingli at a later period: "He is the prince of poets. He has a true, holy, incorruptible mind. Every expression, that he uses, be it ever so common, he makes noble. No one can either give to him or take from him without injury. In him is found a worthy, powerful representation of antiquity. It lives again before our eyes. His poetry flows like a clear stream; all is noble, charming, perfect. In a lofty style he discourses of the gods, and it can be easily seen that he meant thereby the one, divine, heavenly power. No Grecian author serves so well for the interpretation of Holy Scripture, especially of the Psalms and Job, which rival him in sublimity." The young men turned their attention also to the mysteries of nature, the discoveries in geography and the illimitable kingdom of worlds, revealed to us by a glance at the darkened heavens. In after life Glareanus won for himself considerable fame by his researches in the department of ancient geography, and Vadianus, when quite an old man, gathered around him a troop of burghers from St. Gall, full of wonder and a desire to learn, as they lay encamped, one starry night, on the summit of the Freudenberg, and spoke to them of the motion of the heavenly bodies and the laws, that govern them, and strengthened their hopes of an eternal existence in the immeasurable realms of space. The three friends, thus closely joined in noble endeavor, lived in daily, social, intercourse with others, whom hereafter, when the more earnest days of manly activity have arrived, we shall find arrayed, as in the cases of Eck and Faber, among the most bitter opponents of Zwingli.