Provinces were devastated, great cities plundered, nations made captive,
and all the masterpieces of Art borne off to adorn Rome. But Nature was
never rifled of her secrets; nor was discovery carried beyond the most
material things. The military spirit stifled natural science.
There were then, to be sure, no tendencies of thought to anything but
war, pleasure, literature, or art. There was comparatively no knowledge
of the physical sciences, whose culture Mr. Buckle has shown to have
exerted so powerful an influence on civilization. The convex lens--as
since developed into the microscope, the giver of a new world to
man--was known to Archimedes only as an instrument to burn the enemy's
fleet.
* * * * *
Modern pisciculture in some measure imitates, although, it does not
rival the ancient. Many methods have been devised in France and England
of breeding and nurturing the salmon, the trout, and other valuable
fish, which are annually becoming more scarce in all civilized
countries. But all this is on a far different principle from that
pursued at Rome. We follow pisciculture from necessity or economy,
because fish of certain kinds are yearly dying out, and to produce
a cheap food; but the Romans followed it as a luxury, or a childish
amusement, alone.
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