A skilful mathematician of whose life and works we have no details is Aristæus the elder, probably a senior contemporary of Euclid. The fact that he wrote a work on conic sections tends to show that much progress had been made in their study during the time of Menæchmus. Aristæus wrote also on regular solids and cultivated the analytic method. His works contained probably a summary of the researches of the Platonic school.[8]
Aristotle (384–322 B.C.), the systematiser of deductive logic, though not a professed mathematician, promoted the science of geometry by improving some of the most difficult definitions. His Physics contains passages with suggestive hints of the principle of virtual velocities. About his time there appeared a work called Mechanica, of which he is regarded by some as the author. Mechanics was totally neglected by the Platonic school.
The First Alexandrian School.
In the previous pages we have seen the birth of geometry in Egypt, its transference to the Ionian Islands, thence to Lower Italy and to Athens. We have witnessed its growth in Greece from feeble childhood to vigorous manhood, and now we shall see it return to the land of its birth and there derive new vigour.
During her declining years, immediately following the Peloponnesian War, Athens produced the greatest scientists and philosophers of antiquity. It was the time of Plato and Aristotle. In 338 B.C., at the battle of Chæronea, Athens was beaten by Philip of Macedon, and her power was broken forever. Soon after, Alexander the Great, the son of Philip, started out to conquer the world. In eleven years he built up a great empire which broke to pieces in a day. Egypt
