THE AGE OF EXPANSION 321

temples, and throughout their country there were magnificent
works of public utility, such as roads, bridges, and aqueducts.
Their government was a mild paternal autocracy. Their
Spanish conquerors robbed and reduced them to abject
slavery when they were not ruthlessly exterminated to make
room for Negro slaves imported from Africa.1

From this tale of discovery and conquest we shall now
turn to the more interesting intellectual developments of the
age. " The widening of the physical horizon," as one writer
has observed, " brought a corresponding extension of the in-
tellectual horizon." The initial impulse for it likewise came
from the East. The Turkish occupation of South-Eastern
Europe had driven the Greeks westwards to ' Magna-Graecia'
or South Italy. The fall of Constantinople brought in its
train a large band of Greek refugees to Rome and the other
Italian cities. Among these were not a few scholars who
brought with them many valuable manuscripts of the Greek
classics. This naturally evoked interest in the ancient Hel-
lenic literature and culture among the Italians. That interest
soon developed into a wider movement known as Humanism.
It was so described because throughout the Middle Ages the
best of the intellectuals had concentrated their energies on
theological studies, whereas the new learning was centred
round subjects of "human" interest. From this point of
view Dante's Divina Commedia (noticed earlier), though
it has been called the "Epic of Medievalism" was also a
forerunner of the new movement in literature. Petrarch
(1304-74) was even a greater representative of this human-
ism. In fact he is considered the greatest of humanists.

1. Read "The Lost Treasures of Mexico and Peru" and
" South America's Marvels in Masonry " in Wonders of the Past, I
pp. 411-12 and 585-99.