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<p>[QUOTE=&quot;Herberto, post: 2490877, member: 74222&quot;]Wonderful coin and great description.</p><p><br /></p><p>But this is a myth that classical texts went into oblivion in Christian Europe and that the Arab-Muslim empires saved it from getting into oblivion.</p><p><br /></p><p>Ovid, Horace, Sallust, Cicero, Thucydides, Plato, Aristotle plus many many many others were more or less preserved in the Roman Empire throughout its history by studying them and by recopying them. Later when the “barbarians” from Germany shut down the Western Roman Empire a lot were lost as there were no a sort of wide institution to sustain classical texts, although they survived in minor scale in the monasteries. In the Eastern Roman Empire(or Byzantine Empire) things were quite different as they preserved the ancient texts we have access to today just as best as they could. However during the seventh century when the Arab-Muslims conquered Middle East from Byzantine Empire, the Arab-Muslims came in contact with the classical texts. A translation from Greek into Arabic found place, and ultimately they reached Muslim Spain. As this time the “barbarians” were converted into Christianity and that meant they were interest in classical texts. A translation from Arabic into Latin found place in Spain for instance in Toledo under the reign of Alphonso X. Classical texts thus found way into (WEST) Europe, but so did also some classical texts from Byzantine Empire found way to WEST Europe, like for instance Corpus Juris Civilis was again studied in north Italy in the tenth century.</p><p><br /></p><p>After 1204 with the Latin Sack of Constantinople, Byzantine Empire declined heavily and thus a lot of Greek scholars went to particularly north Italy. Before or after the Fall of Constantinople more Greek scholars flee to north Italy and brought a lot of texts there and thus fueled further the so-called Renaissance.</p><p><br /></p><p>Had the Arab-Muslims empires not translated the Greek texts into Arabic, not much would have been lost indeed. Because the vast were already preserved in the Byzantine Empire.</p><p><br /></p><p>The Muslim scholars surely contributed into ancient science like for instance Averroes’ comments on Plato played an important role on European Scholasticism. Alhazen for instance suggested that science should be based on experiments rather than on philosophy, that idea also influenced Roger Bacon and Abelard who took that idea a step further forward.</p><p><br /></p><p>There are no doubt the Arab-Muslims contributed to ancient learning. But they did not preserve it from getting into oblivion as the Byzantines preserved most of it throughout Middle Ages and as it was from Byzantine scribes that the Arabic text were made of. Thus Plato’s Socrates’ dialogs, Aristotle’s “Politics”, Cicero’s rhetoric speeches, Homer’s Odyssey and Illiad, or Galen’s medical texts would have survived today even without the Arabic translation.</p><p><br /></p><p>Now once again: Nice coins and even nice description except from that remark on classical texts quoted above.[/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>

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