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c h a p t e r e i g h t Ancients versus Moderns Byzantium and Persian, Latin, and Jewish Sciences As we have seen, Byzantine scholars constantly taught, studied, and commentated on Greek science. However, the direct connection between ancient and Byzantine scholarship had been broken during the iconoclast period, which marked the entry of the Byzantine sciences into the Middle Ages. Stephen of Alexandria, the empire’s œcumenic philosopher in the seventh century, was the last Byzantine scholar able to trace his academic lineage directly back to the ancient philosophers. His death symbolically marks the end of antiquity. During the renaissance of scientific education in the ninth century, Byzantine scholars declared themselves to be the heirs of the ancient Greeks. Little by little, the term Hellene, which had had a negative connotation in the texts of the church fathers because it referred to pagan philosophers, became a positive notion for the erudite; henceforth, it referred to the ancient Greek scholars who built the foundation on which Byzantine science rested. Though sometimes contested, this ancient knowledge became a precious source of national pride.1 Thus, Byzantines continued the ancient tradition of differentiating between Greeks and barbarians, a difference evidently founded on language, the vehicle of Hellenic culture. Throughout the Middle Ages and beyond, Byzantine scholars regarded the sciences of other peoples (έθνη) as inferior, even bordering on charlatanism. Nevertheless, Byzantine scholars were soon taking an interest in certain aspects of the science of Islam, notably in the “technical” skill of Arab astronomy and its astronomical tables. The prime reason for this interest was that the planetary positions calculated following the Ptolemaic tradition (especially the Handy Tables based upon the commentaries of Theon of Alexandria) were, over time, presenting significant systematic discrepancies.2 We saw (in chapter 3) that the first influences of Arab science were detectable in Stephen the astrologer in 775, that during the same era Byzantine astronomers served Arab caliphs, and that at the start of the ninth century Leo the mathemati- Ancients versus Moderns 107 cian was invited to the court of al-Ma’mūn (chapter 4). These scientific encounters between the two worlds were not the only ones, and despite their hesitations, Byzantine savants increasingly eyed the Islamic side, if only for practical reasons: the Islamic tables were easier to use. Despite the fact that this science came from “unbelievers,” using Islam’s astronomical tables or its constants was a lesser evil for Byzantine savants. Indeed, the measurement of constants was founded on the observations so scorned by Byzantium, and the tables could be characterized as a simple technique not involving philosophical discussions on the world. During the whole Byzantine period, influences coming from Islam would be confined to practical astronomy and calculation, in particular the use of Arabic numerals (called Indian). The latter would never be adopted, though, because the tradition of using Greek figures was so strong. After Stephen, the second Byzantine text that has come down to us in which we detect Arab or Muslim influence dates from the years following the first Byzantine humanism, when Greek science was well reestablished in education. In the margins of a beautiful ninth-century copy of the Almagest (manuscript Vat. gr. 1594) is found a scholion datable to the twelfth or thirteenth century, whose original text seems to have been written around 1032. The anonymous author compares the data of the tables of Ptolemy (Almagest, Handy Tables) with those of the neōteroi, the “new ones” or “moderns.” But because he does not possess the tables of these neōteroi (the Arab astronomers of the time of al-Ma’mūn), he declares that he is using the tables of the astronomer Alim (ibn al-‘Alam, d. 985).3 Information on these tables is given in a short text titled How to Make a Table according to Alim, which gives the parameters of planets.4 In addition, two horoscopes commissioned by a Byzantine in 1153 and 1162 were based on a Summary of the Tables of Alim, which shows that these tables enjoyed widespread diffusion and were used for at least a century.5 Shortly after the penetration by neōteroi science around 1072, Methods of Calculation and Various Hypotheses was composed in Constantinople by an anonymous author.6 This Byzantine mentions that he has observed the solar eclipse of 20 May 1072—an exceptional fact, given a scientific culture that disdained observation , which on its own shows the Arab influence. The treatise gives...

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