<P> Syriac translations played a major role for the later reception into Arabic . These translators from Syriac were mostly Nestorian and Jacobite Christians, working in the two hundred years following the Abbasid period . The most important translator of this group was the Syriac - speaking Christian Hunayn Ibn Ishaq (809 - 873), known to the Latins as Joannitius . </P> <P> Classical Greek learning was firmly found in every metropolis of the Roman empire, including in Rome itself . </P> <P> In Rome, Boethius propagated works of Greek classical learning . Boethius intended to pass on the great Greco - Roman culture to future generations by writing manuals on music and astronomy, geometry, and arithmetic . </P> <P> Several of Boethius' writings, which were largely influential during the Middle Ages, drew from the thinking of Porphyry and Iamblichus . Boethius wrote a commentary on the Isagoge by Porphyry, which highlighted the existence of the problem of universals: whether these concepts are subsistent entities which would exist whether anyone thought of them, or whether they only exist as ideas . This topic concerning the ontological nature of universal ideas was one of the most vocal controversies in medieval philosophy . </P>

Who were responsible for preserving the ancient classical texts