ABSTRACT
This paper discusses the meagre evidence for the contacts of five ninthcentury Byzantine intellectuals with the 'Abbasid caliphate, and offers some reflections on the cultural significance of this evidence. The association of learned men with a journey to Baghdad, or to be exact with the idea of a journey to the residence of the caliph, whether this happened to be at Baghdad, Damascus or al-Samarra, was a phenomenon specific to the period. In general, before the thirteenth century, leading Byzantine men of learning did not travel, or did not publicize their travels, beyond the empire's borders. But between 829 and 907, four well-known intellectual figures -John the Grammarian, St Constantine/Cyril, Photios and Leo Choirosphaktes - travelled to the 'Abbasid court, while a fifth, Leo the Mathematician, received an invitation to go there. The careers of these men span the ninth century, and their names figure prominently in the story of 'the first Byzantine humanism'. The theme of their reported contacts with the 'Abbasid court has not been looked at before, and thus provides a new angle on the Byzantine intellectual achievement of the period. As Paul Speck has pointed out, to get the measure of the Byzantine 'renaissance' of the ninth century, we should not view it in isolation, but must consider the phenomenon in the context of the cultural dynamism of the great neighbouring powers, the 'Abbasid empire and the Carolingian empire, both
of which were seeking, around 800, to appropriate the legacy of the ancient world. 1
Compared with Byzantium, both powers were new and unstable, and their claim to the ancient heritage was less authentic. But what they lacked in authenticity they more than made up in discovery and innovation. Moreover, the vast Islamic empire of the 'Abbas ids was not only materially wealthier and more urbanized than Byzantium; it also, by virtue of its position and extent, blended the wisdom of the Greeks with that of Persia and India. How did this impressive cultural achievement impinge on the consciousness of learned Byzantines? Hardly at all, if one is to judge from their almost total lack of comment, and their exclusive reference to their own past. However, as I have discovered in my work on the twelfth century, the period when Byzantium had to come to terms with the material and cultural expansion of western Europe,2 one cannot judge the impact of a foreign culture on Byzantine intellectual life simply by a literal reading of explicit comments in Byzantine sources. One has to recognize that rejection, whether expressed through adverse comment or through silence, may be a rhetorical attitude, which does not preclude reception and may actually be used to disguise it. The important thing is to look carefully at evidence for contacts. The fact that such evidence actually exists for the ninth century is remarkable in itself.
