接着一个将领家族统治了埃及——托勒密王室。

　　The Seleucids ruled Mesopotamia, and the Attalids Asia Minor.

　　塞琉古王室统治了美索不达米亚，安提克王室统治了小亚细亚。

　　India was simply abandoned.

　　印度完全丢失。

　　But although the empire was in pieces, Alexander's grand project slowly went on taking shape.

　　但是尽管这个帝国已经分崩离析，亚历山大的计划却慢慢实现了。

　　Greek art and the spirit of Greece had enetrated Persia and passed on through India to China.

　　希腊的艺术和希腊的精神传播至波斯并继续传播至印度甚至中国。

　　Meanwhile the Greeks themselves had learnt that there was more to the world than Athens and Sparta,

　　同时希腊人懂得了雅典和斯巴达还不是整个世界。

　　and more to do than waste their lives in endless squabbling between Dorians and Ionians.

　　对他们来说，有比多里安人和伊安尼尔人之间的无休止的争吵更重要的事。

　　And, having lost the little political power they once had,

　　恰恰是自从他们完全失去了他们的那一点点政治权力以来,

　　the Greeks went on to be the bearers of the greatest intellectual force there has ever been, the force we know as Greek culture.

　　希腊人成了史无前例的最大的精神权力的支柱，我们知道这权力叫希腊文化。

　　This force was protected and preserved in some very special fortresses.

　　这权力受到一些非常特殊的堡垒保护和保存。

　　Can you guess what those fortresses were?

　　你知道这种权力的堡垒是什么吗？

　　They were libraries.

　　是图书馆。

　　Alexandria, for instance, had a Greek library that held around 700,000 scrolls.

　　譬如亚历山大港就有这样一座希腊图书馆，它约有70万卷书。

　　Those 700,000 scrolls were the Greek soldiers who set off to conquer the world.

　　这70万卷书是希腊士兵，它们占领了整个世界。

　　And that empire is still standing today.

　　这个世界帝国今天还存在。