A History of Science, vol 2 | Page 6

output.
As there was a large number of authors in every generation of the
classical period, it follows that most of these authors must have been
obliged to content themselves with editions numbering very few copies;
and it goes without saying that the greater number of books were never

reproduced in what might be called a second edition. Even books that
retained their popularity for several generations would presently fail to
arouse sufficient interest to be copied; and in due course such works
would pass out of existence altogether. Doubtless many hundreds of
books were thus lost before the close of the classical period, the names
of their authors being quite forgotten, or preserved only through a
chance reference; and of course the work of elimination went on much
more rapidly during the Middle Ages, when the interest in classical
literature sank to so low an ebb in the West. Such collections of
references and quotations as the Greek Anthology and the famous
anthologies of Stobaeus and Athanasius and Eusebius give us glimpses
of a host of writers--more than seven hundred are quoted by
Stobaeus--a very large proportion of whom are quite unknown except
through these brief excerpts from their lost works.
Quite naturally the scientific works suffered at least as largely as any
others in an age given over to ecclesiastical dreamings. Yet in some
regards there is matter for surprise as to the works preserved. Thus, as
we have seen, the very extensive works of Aristotle on natural history,
and the equally extensive natural history of Pliny, which were
preserved throughout this period, and are still extant, make up
relatively bulky volumes. These works seem to have interested the
monks of the Middle Ages, while many much more important scientific
books were allowed to perish. A considerable bulk of scientific
literature was also preserved through the curious channels of Arabic
and Armenian translations. Reference has already been made to the
Almagest of Ptolemy, which, as we have seen, was translated into
Arabic, and which was at a later day brought by the Arabs into western
Europe and (at the instance of Frederick II of Sicily) translated out of
their language into mediaeval Latin.
It remains to inquire, however, through what channels the Greek works
reached the Arabs themselves. To gain an answer to this question we
must follow the stream of history from its Roman course eastward to
the new seat of the Roman empire in Byzantium. Here civilization
centred from about the fifth century A.D., and here the European came
in contact with the civilization of the Syrians, the Persians, the
Armenians, and finally of the Arabs. The Byzantines themselves,
unlike the inhabitants of western Europe, did not ignore the literature of

old Greece; the Greek language became the regular speech of the
Byzantine people, and their writers made a strenuous effort to
perpetuate the idiom and style of the classical period. Naturally they
also made transcriptions of the classical authors, and thus a great mass
of literature was preserved, while the corresponding works were quite
forgotten in western Europe.
Meantime many of these works were translated into Syriac, Armenian,
and Persian, and when later on the Byzantine civilization degenerated,
many works that were no longer to be had in the Greek originals
continued to be widely circulated in Syriac, Persian, Armenian, and,
ultimately, in Arabic translations. When the Arabs started out in their
conquests, which carried them through Egypt and along the southern
coast of the Mediterranean, until they finally invaded Europe from the
west by way of Gibraltar, they carried with them their translations of
many a Greek classical author, who was introduced anew to the
western world through this strange channel.
We are told, for example, that Averrhoes, the famous commentator of
Aristotle, who lived in Spain in the twelfth century, did not know a
word of Greek and was obliged to gain his knowledge of the master
through a Syriac translation; or, as others alleged (denying that he knew
even Syriac), through an Arabic version translated from the Syriac. We
know, too, that the famous chronology of Eusebius was preserved
through an Armenian translation; and reference has more than once
been made to the Arabic translation of Ptolemy's great work, to which
we still apply its Arabic title of Almagest.
The familiar story that when the Arabs invaded Egypt they burned the
Alexandrian library is now regarded as an invention of later times. It
seems much more probable that the library bad been largely scattered
before the coming of the Moslems. Indeed, it has even been suggested
that the Christians of an earlier day removed the records of pagan
thought. Be that as it may, the famous Alexandrian library had
disappeared long before the revival of interest in classical learning.
Meanwhile, as we have said,