ABSTRACT
While Alexandria was hopefully experimenting with new poetical fashions, Athens was still an important centre of the higher learning. Her schools of philosophy remained the principal centres of that subject. It is to be remembered that philosophy to begin with included the sciences and the activity of their members, mostly by this time non-Athenians, was great. Cicero, who cannot be accused of undervaluing rhetoric, complains that two of Theophrastos successors, Lykon and Ariston, have an excellent style but lack matter and weight. The history of Alexander's successors also found many writers, but none of great merit. One of Dionysios list of unreadables was Hieronymos of Kardia, who served with distinction under four kings, Eumenes, Antigonos, Demetrios Poliorketes and Antigonos Gonatas. Of his history of the events from Alexander's death to the time of Pyrrhos of Epeiros, not a word survives, but it is often referred to as an authority.
