The influence of Greek upon Latin literature was so far like that of
Latin upon Anglo-Saxon, that it was single and unmixed. But then the
influence of Greek upon Latin was altogether an external and invading
influence, like the influence of Latin on modern English; whereas in the
case of Anglo Saxon the literary faculty was first acquired through
Latin culture; the Saxons were exercised in Latin literature before they
discovered the value of their own; they obtained the habits and
instruments of literature through the education that Latin gave them.

Up to the end of the classical period the Latin had not yet attained, in
literature, the position of a universal language. It was rather the
scholastic language of the Roman aristocracy. There was but one field in
which it occupied the whole area of the Roman world, and that was the
field of law. To this we should add the Latin poetry, which was also
absolute in its own domain. In every other subject Latin was a second
and a subject literary language, the supreme language of literature
being Greek. Greek was the chief literary language even of the Roman
Empire. Of the two languages, Greek was by far the more convenient for
general use. Human thought is naturally serial, and the language that is
to be an acceptable medium of general literature must, above all things,
possess the art of moving forward. In this art the Greek was far in
advance of the Latin, and the curious culture which produced the Latin
classics had, indeed, been productive of much artistic beauty, but had
withal entangled the movement. It is not in Latin but in Greek books
that the knowledge of the ancient world has been preserved. The greatest
works in botany, medicine, geography, astronomy were written not in
Latin but in Greek, even in the most flourishing times of the Roman
power. It is sufficient to mention such names as Dioscorides, Galen,
Strabo, Ptolemy. The greatest works in history, biography, travel,