ἀνθρώποισι πᾶσι μέτεστι γινώσκειν ἑωυτοὺς καὶ σωφρονεῖν.
Tonsils present organs of the lymphoid apparatus that are strategically placed at the entrance of digestive and respiratory systems. Tonsillectomy as well as direct laryngoscopy were known procedures in ancient Greece since the Hippocratic era. Continue reading “Paul of Aegina’s Innovative Tonsillectomy (7th century AD)”
Modern historians generally hold Isaac II Angelos (1185–95) and his brother Alexios III (1195–1203) in very low esteem on account of the image Niketas Choniates paints of them in his History, and especially in the version written after the conquest of Constantinople by the Fourth Crusade in 1204. Continue reading “Luxury and Corruption in the Eastern Roman (‘Byzantine’) State under the Angeloi Emperors”
Even though the fall of Constantinople to the Fourth Crusade in April 1204 marked a turning point in the history of Southeastern Europe and the entire Eastern Mediterranean world, changing—often radically—the political, cultural, religious, economic and social circumstances in this vast region, a wave of changes beginning exactly one century before this significant event had already transformed the political system in Southeastern Europe, that is, in the Byzantine Empire᾽s European hinterland. Continue reading “Creation of a new political elite in the Eastern Roman (‘Byzantine’) World through a process of political marriages – A high-point of ‘Byzantine’ diplomacy”
The habit of compilation established by the later Greek and Roman writers remained a set custom in Eastern and Western Europe even beyond the Renaissance period. Continue reading “Paul of Aegina; one of the most influential surgeons of all time”
The study of the Byzantine medical texts reveals a great number of references about dental drugs. This frequency indicates that problems of oral health were common and part of the epidemiology of those times. Continue reading “Dental drugs in the Eastern Roman (‘Byzantine’) Empire”
There were many reasons for Near Easterners to be in Byzantium. Some were taken there against their wishes; some went there willingly to trade, to negotiate, or to die. Some entered the Christian Empire only once, while others paid frequent visits; some had a very fleeting glimpse of Byzantium while others settled there. Conversely, Byzantines went to the Near East for many of the same reasons, and they travelled under similar conditions. Continue reading “The Cilician frontier in the ninth and tenth centuries”
Novo Scriptorium 