Byzantine views on earthquakes, seismoskopoi and the origin of the term seismology

The term seismology has long been believed to have been invented by Robert Mallet, the founder of modern seismology. We here show that the term and the concept are much older, dating back to the tenth century, and was invented in Constantinople, albeit in a very different interpretative context. We further show that in the Byzantine military apparatus there was a special group of earthquake watchers, the seismoskopoi, whose role it was to practice what was probably stated in the Seismologion, ie., a seismology text. The seismoskopoi were not proper scientists, like the ancient Greeks, but more like Babylonian astrologers or soothsayers. They were nevertheless viewed by their contemporaries as ‘earthquake experts’.