Page:Greece from the Coming of the Hellenes to AD. 14.djvu/339

city and the home of philosophic schools,—maintained in part by legacies from the original founders or subsequent masters,—and was attended by young men of rank or wealth from all parts of the Empire. Certain towns attained or recovered some prosperity from being places of call in journeys between Italy and the East, such as Dyrrachium and Apollonia in Epirus, Patrae in the Peloponnese, Athens itself, and some of the islands, as Corcyra and Samos. Artistically Greece suffered much from the Roman conquests. An immense amount of the finest works of art were transferred to Rome either by conquering generals or private collectors. Whole towns were stripped, as Syracuse and Tarentum, Corinth and Chalcis, Ambracia and all the cities of Epirus. But besides these and other wholesale robberies a steady drain went on as wealth got more into the hands of the Romans. Yet, as the remains still testify, much was left, and the traveller Pausanias (in the second century of our era) found enough in most parts of Greece to fill many pages of mere enumeration. Wherever the Roman power extended there was on the whole peace and a reign of law. Administration of law involves the art of oratory, and accordingly we find both in European and Asiatic Greek this art still cultivated and in high repute, especially at Rhodes and in some cities in Asia Minor. Both Caesar and Cicero visited Rhodes to study in the rhetorical schools, and Cicero went to Asia Minor for the same purpose. There was thought to be a marked difference of style between the two. That of Rhodes was the purer and more classical, the