Respecting the orations of Demosthenes against Philip of Macedon, and the death of the eloquent patriot, we have already spoken (see pp. 160, 174).
5. The Alexandrian Age.
The Alexandrian period of Greek literature embraces the time between the break-up of Alexander's empire and the conquest of Greece by Rome (300–146 B.C.).
During this period Alexandria in Egypt was the centre of literary activity, hence the term Alexandrian, applied to the literature of the age. The great Museum and Library of the Ptolemies afforded in that capital such facilities for students and authors as existed in no other city in the world.
But the creative age of Greek literature was over. With the loss of political liberty, literature was cut off from its sources of inspiration. Consequently the Alexandrian literature lacked freshness and originality. The writers of the period were grammarians, commentators, and translators,—in a word, book-worms.
One of the most important literary undertakings of the age was the translation of the Old Testament into Greek. From the traditional number of translators (seventy) the version is known as the Septuagint (Latin for seventy.) The work was probably begun by Ptolemy Philadelphus, and was completed under his successors.
