Almost everything we think of as Greek innovations was actually the Greeks absorbing knowledge from the civilizations to their east. Greece is just when our records traditionally went back to.
Not to mention that a lot of greek texts that survived only did so thanks to the Sassanids (Persians), since the newly christian Eastern Roman Empire (Byzantine) began purging all that stuff because “god is all the knowledge you need”.
Later on, those texts found their way back into Europe through the then Arab conquered Spain
A quick Google search shows that this is entirely incorrect (both that they were only preserved in arabic and that they made it back to Europe through al-andalus) and it’s apparently a popular myth.
From multiple articles (there’s a plethora of sources): Classical Greek texts were preserved in the byzantine empire and most classical Greek texts that are known today, are translations from texts that were preserved in Greek (mostly within the byzantine empire). There are a few texts that only survived for a time as Arabic translations, but according to what I read, those are only few compared to what was preserved in Greek.
IIRC the real situation was that classical texts were traditionally kept away from most public eyes because they were written by pagans, but trusted scholars and religious officials would usually be able to gain access to them if they needed.
Almost everything we think of as Greek innovations was actually the Greeks absorbing knowledge from the civilizations to their east. Greece is just when our records traditionally went back to.
Not to mention that a lot of greek texts that survived only did so thanks to the Sassanids (Persians), since the newly christian Eastern Roman Empire (Byzantine) began purging all that stuff because “god is all the knowledge you need”.
Later on, those texts found their way back into Europe through the then Arab conquered Spain
A quick Google search shows that this is entirely incorrect (both that they were only preserved in arabic and that they made it back to Europe through al-andalus) and it’s apparently a popular myth.
From multiple articles (there’s a plethora of sources): Classical Greek texts were preserved in the byzantine empire and most classical Greek texts that are known today, are translations from texts that were preserved in Greek (mostly within the byzantine empire). There are a few texts that only survived for a time as Arabic translations, but according to what I read, those are only few compared to what was preserved in Greek.
Huh, I’ll have to look further into that, then
Much appreciated that you take it this way. This is a breath of fresh air compared to late stage reddit.
IIRC the real situation was that classical texts were traditionally kept away from most public eyes because they were written by pagans, but trusted scholars and religious officials would usually be able to gain access to them if they needed.