135. A.D. carnassus; and under Marcus Aurelius lived its most distinguished cultivator Hermogenes, whose precocious abilities and erudite productions obtained for him the title of the first rhetorician of the age. But a genius of a higher order and more extended powers was the unhappy Longinus. His birth-place was Athens, whence he retired to Palmyra, in order to become the tutor and minister of the Queen Zenobia ; and when the city was taken by Aurelian, Longinus was slain by the soldiers of the victorious Roman. As a scholar, posterity have continued to bestow on him the emphatic epithet conferred by Eunapius;* but of his compositions we possess merely enough to cause regret for what has perished, his treatise on the Sublime, which has been justly denominated, at once a masterpiece of philosophy, and a matchless critique on the chefs-d'oeuvre of antiquity.t Geography, which had been raised by Eratosthenes to the rank of a science,‡ was likewise extensively encouraged at Rome; and the example of Strabo (whose system was published about sixty years B. C.) was followed by a number of * Βιβλιοθήκη τις ἔμψυχος, καὶ περιπατοῦν Μουσειον. ↑ Fabricius, 1. iv. c. xxxiii. clerus, sec. P. C. iii. p. 61. Schoell, 1. v. c. lxx. Harles, sec. iv. p. 450. BoeBerington, b. i. p. 87. 135. successful students. Pausanias, the first writer A.D. of Travels with whom we are acquainted, composed, in the second century, his account of Greece, in a rude and disjointed style, but with a repletion of information which renders it one of the most precious memorials which time has spared to us ;* and Ptolemy, who had already distinguished himself as an astronomer, wrote about the same period his treatise on Geography, which for fourteen centuries remained the only popular systematic manual of the science, and is still referred to as the most authentic authority for the geography of the ancients.† Of the decline of philosophy, the details are too extensive and complicated for brief enumeration, nor would it be generally interesting to trace the rise and fall of the numerous systems springing from the revolutions or combinations of the several sects. The names of Epictetus and Arrian, of Plotinus and Celsus, of Porphyry, Jamblicus, and Panætius, are the most renowned of their several schools; but, of all their productions the Enchiridion of the former alone * Fabricius, l. iv. c. xvii. Berington, b. i. p. 85. Schoell, 1. v. c. lxx. + Schoell, I. v. c. lxx. Fabricius, 1. iv. c. xvi. See Schoell, Hist. de la Lit. Gr. vol. v. Tenneman Geschichte der Philosophie, Buhle Lehrbuch der Geschichte der Philosophie. 150. A.D. can still be perused with feelings of admiration and approval.* The union of the Pagan and Christian philosophy in the first century, was likewise productive of some authors of genius and erudition, who learned to defend their own theories by weapons drawn from the armoury of their assailants. Amongst the Greek fathers especially, who had in general received a more literary education than their Latin brethren, the system was adopted with success; and the writings of Justin the Martyr,† (the first who identified the ideas of the Platonists regarding the immortality of the soul with the doctrines of revelation,) of his friend and pupil Tatian, of Clemens Alexandrinus, and his disciple Origen, contributed in no mean degree to recommend Christianity to the heathens, by exhibiting it to them as consonant with the dogmas of their own philosophers. Thus, during the early ages of Grecian servitude, though the overthrow of her independence had withdrawn every powerful stimulant to lite * Schoell, 1. v. Fabricius, 1. iv. c. ix. xxxi. Berington, b. i. p. 85. + Who flourished at the close of the second or commencement of the third century. The place of his birth is uncertain. He perished 163 A. D. Harles, c. iv. sec. 5. Burtonus, Hist. Ling. Gr. p. 46. Schoell, 1. v. c. lxviii. 150. rary exertion, there still survived a few to cherish A.D. the taste, and admire the productions of their ancestors, though their genius no longer soared in the same majestic flights. Their language, too, was still comparatively pure and susceptible of elegant cultivation, though hastening with the tide of circumstances towards a period of inevitable corruption. But on the removal of the seat of power to the shores of the Bosphorus, a new era, and a totally different order of things commenced. Christianity, which by degrees had towered triumphant over every obstacle, was now established as the religion of the throne; whence its influence, extending over every department of literature and science, superseding some, and communicating a new character to others, eradicated by degrees every trace of the mythology or philosophy of the ancients. The political situation of the empire, likewise, was but little favourable to the growth of letters: ruled as it was by a line of princes devoid of talent, taste, or refinement; ravaged from border to border by successive hosts of rude barbarians; rent into rancorous factions of the church or state, and preserved from annihilation by the conspiring influence of circumstances alone. From the accession of Constantine down to the conquest of the Ottomans, literature was from age to age undergoing a A.D. 330. perceptible decline, commensurate with the progressive degradation of the state; the taste and pursuits of the Greeks becoming impure and frivolous, as the progress of national decay benumbed the energies of the nation, till, in the fulness of political and intellectual corruption, the power and the literature of the empire sunk almost spontaneously into the abyss of ruin. For two centuries after the establishment of the capital at Constantinople, Athens continued to preserve her reputation for literary superiority; her schools were still frequented, and her philosophers could boast amongst the list of their disciples some of the most distinguished names of the age. Libraries were established at Constantinople by Constantius the son of Constantine, and increased by the munificence of Julian. Philology, eloquence, and poetry, were cultivated in the various schools ;† though the latter, declining into mere verbiage, was applied solely for the purposes of court panegyric or pointless epigram. Nor can the belles Julian, afterwards surnamed the Apostate, who studied at Athens about 350 A.D., Gregory the Nazianzene, Basil of Cæsarea, &c. + Mosheim, Eccles. Hist. Cent. iv. p. i. c. 2. Schoell, 1. vi. c. lxxix. The names of Metrodorus, Theon, Christodorus, Nonnus, |