Context: I recently learned that the commonly repeated claim that classic Greece and Rome was scientifically and technologically stagnant is not the historic consensus and has not been so for decades. It is a common knowledge today that no serious historian believes the middle ages to be stagnant but I feel the claim that Greece and Rome was technologically locked in time is still fairly prevalent, even in academic circles. Of course, among historians not specializing in the antique world.
First time I’ve heard about this TBH …
I mean there’s a more of a point there than there is to the medieval period when you look at it like that. The Islamic Golden Age leading into the the beginnings of the Renaissance alone outpaces mathematical innovation by everyone from Pythagoras to Hypatia.