From Translation to Assimilation: The Case of Arabo-Byzantine Science

A widespread historiographical view portrays Byzantium as an isolated society, reducing its role in the transmission of knowledge across the Mediterranean to the preservation of ancient Greek texts. By examining a corpus of unpublished works on astral science, translated from Arabic into Byzantine Greek between the eighth and fourteenth centuries, I aim to clarify the role played by Byzantine scholars in this process and to show how astrological texts of Islamicate origin were translated, appropriated, and naturalized, particularly through the compilation of extensive compendia of technical knowledge.