edition. Even books that retained their popularity for several
generations would presently fail to arouse sufficient interest to
be copied; and in due course such works would pass out of
existence altogether. Doubtless many hundreds of books were thus
lost before the close of the classical period, the names of their
authors being quite forgotten, or preserved only through a chance
reference; and of course the work of elimination went on much
more rapidly during the Middle Ages, when the interest in
classical literature sank to so low an ebb in the West. Such
collections of references and quotations as the Greek Anthology
and the famous anthologies of Stobaeus and Athanasius and
Eusebius give us glimpses of a host of writers--more than seven
hundred are quoted by Stobaeus--a very large proportion of whom
are quite unknown except through these brief excerpts from their
lost works.

Quite naturally the scientific works suffered at least as largely
as any others in an age given over to ecclesiastical dreamings.
Yet in some regards there is matter for surprise as to the works
preserved. Thus, as we have seen, the very extensive works of
Aristotle on natural history, and the equally extensive natural
history of Pliny, which were preserved throughout this period,
and are still extant, make up relatively bulky volumes. These
works seem to have interested the monks of the Middle Ages, while
many much more important scientific books were allowed to perish.
A considerable bulk of scientific literature was also preserved
through the curious channels of Arabic and Armenian translations.
Reference has already been made to the Almagest of Ptolemy,
which, as we have seen, was translated into Arabic, and which was
at a later day brought by the Arabs into western Europe and (at