Olympic Games (interesting, actually)

[SigniferOne]

You seem to find it difficult to accept that this is the communis opinio. I do not know what you find convincing after I have given you all references you need. Can you give me references to recent publications by authors who understand both Babylonian and Greek science and deny that Babylon was scientific or deny its influence on Greece?

All of the Loebs I have read, always footnote the Chaldaeans as astrologers (and never as astronomers), and charlatans. I have read a whole host of books on the Empire where commentators always lambast the later Empire, and the Neoplatonists, for bringing the Chaldaean superstition to the fore. I'm sorry it's been years and I don't have names at t the moment, so we may rest it as unsettled; but if you wish I'll keep appending mentions of Chaldaeans to this thread as I keep finding them, since they are universally unfavorable in every book which I have read.

Yes, that's exactly what has been established as communis opinio. The Chaldaean procedure of observation, establishing regularities, checking and falsification/corroboration is, by any standard, scientific.

I'm sorry there's one further requirement for something to be science -- it has to be true. You may be missing a distinction between science and pseudo-science -- both contain observation, establish regularities, but one does have connection with truth and reality, while the other one doesn't. Chaldaeans were not these disinterested astronomic scientists, measuring and recording the movements of the planets. They sought to predict the future and to tell horoscopes. It doesn't matter how well and conscientiously they collected their data; their task was still pseudo-science.