The survival rate of ancient literature

[Theodosius the Great]

Yes, Cicero was one of the secular authors lucky enough to have been accepted by the Church early on.

1. And many more on the same period :
   
2. Caesar's 'Commentaries'
   
3. Catullus
   
4. Livy
   
5. Vergil
   
6. Tacitus
   
7. Suetonius
   
8. Ovid
   
9. Horace

All of these deal with poetry (some of which being vulgar to Christians), pagan mythology and history. A classically educated Roman Christian would have been versed in many if not all these pagan authors. Christians also thought of themselves as Romans and to be cultured was to be classically educated. This remained true in the 4th century and far afterward. I think you may have a misconception that one's Christian identity automatically obscured one's Roman identity which just isn't accurate. Christians could be just as nationalistic as any pagan Roman.

But there was a period of about 400 years where hardly anyone in western Europe seems to have cared about preserving pagan literature, and that is when the greatest loss of Latin literature probably took place.

Could you please be more specific about which 400 years you're referring to ?

Then again, after the last Roman aristocrats died out clergy were the only people in the West doing much to preserve Latin literature.

Yes and no. The old Roman aristocracy (i.e. the Senate) never died out. That would've been almost impossible since its membership was numbered at about 1,000. Many of them became Popes, Cardinals and Bishops.

As far as I know, the Byzantine world went through a shorter period where nobody wrote or copied much secular literature, and when a significant part of the heritage of antiquity was lost.

Yes, this is true. That period was indeed a dark time for the Empire. It was being assaulted annually by Arab raiders and barbarians in the west which put it on a defensive mode. The Eastern Romans were just focused on surviving and couldn't afford the luxury of recording even contemporary events, let alone preserving ancient texts.

I see no evidence of the claim that any cultural malaise was being actively precipitated by the Church which I think is what you are alluding to.

They also seem to have slowly lost some ancient literature after Manzikert

Why at that time ? The battle of Manzikert resulted in the loss of Anatolia to the Turks. What effect could the loss of Anatolia have on the library of Constantinople ? Something doesn't seem to track here.

Eh? As far as I know, Alexandria has been occupied continuously since 330 BCE.

George Sandys, a traveller from 1610 AD visited the site that was Alexandria and wrote this about what he saw :

"Queene of Cities and Metropolis of Africa : who now hath nothing left but her ruins; and those ill witnesses of her perished beauties : declaring that Townes as well as men, have their ages and destinies."

I'd want sources to believe that it was reduced to a few hundred population- I thought Roma always had a few thousand left?

Rome, in the chaos of 6th century Italy, housed only a few hundred people. Sometimes Belisarius or the Goths would garrison the city with a few thousand soldiers. The senators had their own private villas they could retreat to where they could better protect themselves.

And I'd want to read sources to believe that the Arab invaders permanently destroyed Roman Carthage, especially since as Vortigern said Belissarius and the Vandals did a lot of damage too.

First of all, not only was Carthage destroyed by the Arabs in 697 AD, but it was lost and only rediscovered in modern times.

Secondly, the claim that Byzantine Carthage was somehow an ailing, tottering outpost is simply outdated scholarship based on Charles Diehl. It was NOT in economic or demographic decline. Read the book "Carthage : Overseas Trade and the Political Economy" by M.G. Fulford.

North Africa in the 6th and 7th centuries was still a very rich, vibrant land with a thriving agriculture. And the Arab chronicles confirm that that was how they inherited it.

Byzantine Carthage was financially and militarily self-sufficient being ruled by an Exarch in the name of the emperor. In fact, it was so powerful that Heraclius launched a rebellion by sending a naval and land expedition to seize the throne of Constantinople from the usurper Phocas. Carthage was rebuilt and maintained by the Byzantines for 164 years, long after the Vandals did their damage. It also outlasted the Vandal occupation by about 64 years.

As far as I know nobody paid much attention to Greek or Republican Roman political thought until the Renaissance or later, although a few people read it. I haven't seen evidence that translations of the Politics towards the end of the middle ages changed this.

Then you should study the history of Northern Italy : the rise of the city states and not just Venice. They were inspired by the ancient models and created their own Republics.

~Theo