place. As an evidence of the fact that he was highly esteemed by his contemporaries, his biographer states that a cupola was built over his tomb.
Among the medical works which he translated from the Greek the following are the only ones of special importance: The Aphorisms of Hippocrates, and Galen's commentaries upon them.
The ninth century, the period during which the major portion of the work described in the preceding part of this chapter was accomplished, is considered by Lucien Le Clerc the most remarkable in the worlds history. He speaks of it in the following terms:—
Its greatness is emphasized by the fact that, except in this one
corner of the globe, everything was in a state of decadence. . . .
Great as is the credit due the Abbaside Dynasty and its ministers,
still greater is our admiration for the Arab nation on account of
the eagerness with which it met the wishes of its rulers and also
because it pursued resolutely, and despite all the obstacles
(political and religious) which were placed in its way, the course
laid down for it to follow. . . . The Arabs also knew how to
choose men who were really eminent and to rescue them from lives
which otherwise would probably have been sterile; they claimed
the inheritance of Greek science; and they revealed to the world
that they were worthy of this inheritance.
Some idea of the completeness of the list of Greek
medical works which the Arabs translated may be gained
from the fact that Galen's writings are more complete in
the Arabic than they are in the Greek, the language in
which they were originally composed.
With Costa the second stage in the Arab Renaissance came to an end. All the work accomplished at Bagdad up to this period in our history received its inspiration from the different Caliphs belonging to the Abbaside Dynasty. But now the political conditions in the East underwent a change, and other Arabian dynasties, each in its turn, gained control of the power previously wielded by Almansur, Haroun Alraschid and their successors. Fortunately, all of these new rulers seem to have been favorably inclined toward the revival of literature, and
