ABSTRACT
Greek astronomy had been largely qualitative, but it entered a quantitative phase, represented largely by the work of Aristarchus, Eratosthenes, Hipparchus and, finally, Ptolemy. But the bond that held them together as a whole was the Greek language, which extended all around the Aegean. Even in athletics, with one of the greatest sporting occasions in the calendar, the Olympic Games, deriving from the first games held by the Greeks in Olympus in 776 bc. The great heritage of Alexander the Great, who was tutored by Aristotle, was to be intellectual and cultural, since his empire soon divided and then collapsed, but the Greek language and culture survived. The great Grecian intellectual developments occurred in different parts of the Greek-speaking regions, and later major schools were to develop in Athens and Alexandria. Greek philosophy tried to give rational, impersonal answers that could be subjected to criticism and query.
