IX. GREEK SCIENCE OF THE ALEXANDRIAN OR HELLENISTIC PERIOD We
are entering now upon the most important scientific epoch of
antiquity. When Aristotle and Theophrastus passed from the
scene, Athens ceased to be in any sense the scientific centre of
the world. That city still retained its reminiscent glory, and
cannot be ignored in the history of culture, but no great
scientific leader was ever again to be born or to take up his
permanent abode within the confines of Greece proper. With
almost cataclysmic suddenness, a new intellectual centre
appeared on the south shore of the Mediterranean. This was the
city of Alexandria, a city which Alexander the Great had founded
during his brief visit to Egypt, and which became the capital of
Ptolemy Soter when he chose Egypt as his portion of the
dismembered empire of the great Macedonian. Ptolemy had been
with his master in the East, and was with him in Babylonia when
he died. He had therefore come personally in contact with
Babylonian civilization, and we cannot doubt t