philosophy. Neo-Pythagoreanism and Neo-Platonism were the names of the modified systems. These stood, for a time, in apposition to Christianity. The study of Platonism and Pythagorean mysticism led to the revival of the theory of numbers. Perhaps the dispersion of the Jews and their introduction to Greek learning helped in bringing about this revival. The theory of numbers became a favourite study. This new line of mathematical inquiry ushered in what we may call a new school. There is no doubt that even now geometry continued to be one of the most important studies in the Alexandrian course. This Second Alexandrian School may be said to begin with the Christian era. It was made famous by the names of Claudius Ptolemæus, Diophantus, Pappus, Theon of Smyrna, Theon of Alexandria, Iamblichus. Porphyrius, and others.
By the side of these we may place Serenus of Antissa, as having been connected more or less with this new school. He wrote on sections of the cone and cylinder, in two books, one of which treated only of the triangular section of the cone through the apex. He solved the problem, "given a cone (cylinder), to find a cylinder (cone), so that the section of both by the same plane gives similar ellipses." Of particular interest is the following theorem, which is the foundation of the modern theory of
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harmonics: If from D we draw DF, cutting the triangle ABC, and choose H on it, so that DE:DF=EH:HF, and if we draw the line AH, then every transversal through D, such as DG, will be divided by AH so that DK:DG=KJ:JG. Menelaus of Alexandria (about 98 A.D.) was the author of Sphœrica, a work extant in Hebrew and Arabic, but not
