Page:The Classical Heritage of the Middle Ages.djvu/62

CHAPTER IV THE ANTIQUE CULTURE I. The Transmission of Letters The influence of Greek models upon the develop- ment of Latin literature under the Eepublic and during the first years of the Empire was quite dif- ferent from the Greek literary fashions, which after- ward set in at Eome and reached their height when a E-oman emperor wrote his Thoughts in Greek. A blank literary period followed, and then Latin litera- ture reasserted itself, and even spread geographically. From the fourth century the Greek tongue and litera- ture were no longer at home in Italy, while the knowl- edge of Greek became more and more scanty in those lands which had been, or still were, the western prov- inces of the Empire. In the sixth and seventh cen- turies the Irish were well nigh the only western Greek scholars. Ireland had been spared the torrential bar- barian invasions, and now its scholars spread culture in Gaul and northern Italy, and kept the knowledge of Greek from extinction. Nevertheless Greek works almost ceased to be read. Latin had become universal in the West, and was to be for centuries the common speech of educated men and serve as their literary vehicle. The Latin 44