3. Systematic astronomy at this period and for long after, as is well known, was conceived of on false principles which, whilst admitting of the correct solution of some problems, such as the prediction of eclipses, left the vastness of the universe and its physical constitution totally unapprehended. All the heavenly bodies were regarded as mathematically, if not teleologically disposed about the earth, to which as a centre even the fixed stars, at varying and immeasurable distances as they are, were constrained fantastically by a revolving sphere of crystal.[901] The reasoning, however, by which these views were upheld was not sufficiently convincing to gain universal acceptance; and the outlines of the science communicated to students generally received some modifications from the minds of individual teachers.[902] Much of the course was taken up with treating of the constellations and the zodiac, not without a tincture of astrology, and some primitive observations on meteorology were included.[903]
4. Music as known to us is virtually a modern creation; and that of the Greeks would doubtless impress us as a wild and disorderly performance, adapted only to the ears of some semi-barbaric people of the East. Their most extended scale did not range beyond eighteen notes;[904] in order to obtain variety their only resource was a shift of key, that is, a change of pitch, or the adoption of a different mode, that is, of a gamut in which the semitones assumed novel positions; and their harmony was restricted to the consonance of octaves. Time was not measured according to the modern method, but there was a rhythm fixed in relation to the various metres of poetic verse. Their usual instruments were the pipe or flute, the lyre, a simple form of organ,[905] and, of course, the human voice. Practically, therefore, their music consisted of melody of a declamatory or recitatival type, to which a peculiar character was sometimes given by the use of quarter tones; and choral singing was purely symphonic. But the vibrational numbers of the scale had been discovered by Pythagoras when making experiments with strings; and each of the eighteen notes and fifteen modes had received a descriptive name. Hence the limited scope of the art did not prevent the theory of music from ultimately becoming elaborated with a complexity not unworthy of the native subtlety of the Greeks.[906] In practice the musical training of pupils consisted in their learning to sing to the lyre.[907]
Such in brief were the component parts of a liberal education, with which, however, under the name of philosophy, it was considered essential that a complement of ethical teaching should be conjoined. This complement was digested into three branches, under which were discussed the duty of the individual to himself, to the household, and to the community at large or to the state.[908]
IV. It now remains for us to glance at the more protracted training of those who had resolved to devote their lives to some particular sphere of activity. Aspirants for the position of professor of the liberal arts, or who wished to utilize their acquirements in a political career, would continue and extend their studies on the lines above indicated; but those who intended to follow the professions of law or physic, or engage in practice of art proper, had to direct their energies into new channels.
1. As the administration of the Empire was almost monopolized by the members of the legal profession, it may be inferred that the throng of youths intent on becoming lawyers fully equalled in number the students of every other calling. Hence we find that not only were schools of law established in every city of importance, notably Constantinople, Alexandria, and Caesarea, but that a provincial town of minor rank obtained a unique celebrity through the teaching of jurisprudence. Berytus, on the Syrian coast, in the province of Phoenicia, with an academic history of several centuries[909] at this date, had attained to that position; and was habitually spoken of as the “mother” and “nurse of the laws.”[910] Four jurists of eminence, double the number allotted to any other school, under the title of Antecessors, lectured in the auditorium;[911] and a progressive course of study was arranged to extend over five years. In each successive year the candidate assumed a distinctive designation which marked his seniority or denoted the branch of law on which he was engaged.[912] Before the sixth century the legal archives of the Empire had been swollen to such proportions that it had become an almost impossible task to thread the maze of their innumerable enactments. During the lapse of a thousand years the constitutions of the emperors had been engrafted on the legislation of the Republic, and the complexity of the resultant growth was capable of bewildering the most acute of legal minds. On three occasions, beginning from the time of Constantine, attempts had been made to separate and classify the effective laws;[913] and the Code of Theodosius II, published in 438, the only official one, was at present in force. But this work, executed in a narrow spirit of piety which decreed that only the enactments of Christian emperors should be included, was universally recognized as both redundant and insufficient. A still wider entanglement existed in the literature which had accumulated around the interpretation and application of the statutes; during the administration of justice a myriad of perplexing points had arisen to exercise the keenest forensic judgement in order to arrive at equitable decisions; and it was estimated that two thousand treatises, emanating from nearly forty authors, contained in scattered passages matter essential to a correct apprehension of the principles and practice of the law.[914] Such was the arduous prospect before a legal student who desired to win a position of repute in his profession.[915]
2. As Berytus had become famous for its law school, so Alexandria, and even some centuries earlier, had gained a noted pre-eminence as a centre of medical education;[916] but with respect to the course of study and the methods of instruction no details have come down to us. We have seen that the regulations for the establishment of the auditorium at Constantinople did not provide for a chair of physic, whence it may be inferred that it was left entirely to those who had attained to the position of senior or arch-physician to organize the teaching and training of pupils. The public medical officers, who attended the poor at their own homes or in the nosocomia or hospitals existing at this date,[917] would doubtless have excellent opportunities for forming classes and rendering students familiar with the aspect and treatment of disease. The medical and surgical science of antiquity had come to a standstill by the end of the second century, when the indefatigable Galen composed his great repertory of the knowledge of his own times. That knowledge comprised almost all the details of macroscopic anatomy, but had advanced but a little way towards solving the physiological problems as to the working of the vital machine. The gross absurdities of the preceding centuries had, however, been finally disposed of, such as that fluids passed down the windpipe into the lungs,[918] or that the arteries contained air.[919] Ordinary operations were performed freely; and the surgeon was conscious that it was more creditable to save a limb than to amputate it.[920] Three centuries before the Christian era Theophrastus had laid the foundations of systematic botany, as had his master Aristotle those of zoology and comparative anatomy.[921] The resources of therapeutics were extensive and varied, but the action of drugs was not well understood. Remedies were compounded not only from the vegetable kingdom, but also with animal substances[922] to an extent which seems likely to be equalled by the more precise medication with the principles of living tissues gaining ground at the present day. Knowledge of minerals, however, was too deficient for such bodies to take a prominent place in pharmacology.[923]
3. The arts of Greece, after having flourished in perfection from the time of Pericles to that of Alexander in the various departments of architecture, sculpture, painting, and literature, remained dormant for some centuries until the establishment of universal peace under the dominion of Rome provided a new theatre for their exercise. Fostered in the Augustan age by the indolence and luxury of the Imperial city, which offered the prospect of fortune to every artist of ambition and talent, they were communicated to the Latins, who strove earnestly to imitate and equal their masters. The exotic art bloomed on the foreign soil to which it had been transplanted; and the Italians, if they never displayed creative genius or originality of conception, at least learned to reproduce with consummate skill and novelty of investment the emanations of Hellenic inspiration. But the elements of permanency were wanting to such factitious aptitudes, as they were in fact to the fabric of the Empire itself; and the wave of political stability was closely followed in its rise and fall by the advance or decline of the arts. After the reign of Augustus the tide of prosperity ebbed for about half a century until it reached its lowest level during the Civil Wars which heralded the settlement of Vespasian on the throne. It rose again, and for more than fifty years maintained an active flow during the reigns of Trajan and Hadrian, subsequent to which its course is marked by a gently descending line, under the benign rule of the Antonines, until it sinks somewhat abruptly in the temporary dissolution of the Empire, which preceded the triumph of Severus. Thenceforward, but two centuries from its foundation,[924] the sovereignty of Rome entered on shoals and quicksands, calamity succeeded calamity, and a position of stable equilibrium was never afterwards regained; but in the vicissitudes of fortune before the final catastrophe, an illusive glow appeared to signalize more than once a return of the supremacy of the Caesars.[925]
By the time of Constantine the neglect and degradation of art had become so pronounced that artists could scarcely be found competent to execute, even in an inferior style, any monumental record of the events of the age; or for the construction of the public buildings so lavishly planned by that monarch in his attempted renovation of the Empire.[926] To meet the difficulty he promulgated decrees, which were kept in force and multiplied by his successors, with the view of stimulating his subjects to devote themselves to arts and the allied handicrafts. Immunity from all civil burdens was guaranteed; and salaries, with the free occupation of suitable premises in public places, were offered to those who would undertake to teach.[927] These measures undoubtedly tended to the elevation of taste and the maintenance of civilization, although they could not infuse a new genius into the people of a decadent age.
At the opening of the sixth century Constantinople was the focus of civilization not only in the East, but also with respect to those western countries which had until lately been united as members of the same political system. The suzerainty of the eastern Emperor was still tacitly allowed, or, at least, upheld; and the prestige of his capital was felt actively throughout the ruder West as a refining influence which only waned after the period of the Renaissance. The main characteristic of art at this epoch is an unskilled imitation of ancient models; and the conventional style regarded as typically Byzantine, which at one time prevailed so widely in Europe, was not to become apparent for many centuries to come.[928] But by the fifth century certain modifications of design, betraying the infiltration of Oriental tastes, also began to be observable.[929]
a. Architecture at Constantinople remained essentially Greek, or, at least, Graeco-Roman; and the constant demand for new buildings, especially churches, ordained that it should still be zealously studied. In the provinces, however, particularly on the Asiatic side, some transitional examples would have enabled an observer to forecast already an era of cupolar construction.[930]