Simeon Seth or Symeon Seth(i) was an 11th-century Jewish Byzantine

Byzantine Empire

The Byzantine Empire was the Eastern Roman Empire during the periods of Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages, centred on the capital of Constantinople. Known simply as the Roman Empire or Romania to its inhabitants and neighbours, the Empire was the direct continuation of the Ancient Roman State...

 doctor, scholar, and grand Chamberlain

Chamberlain (office)

A chamberlain is an officer in charge of managing a household. In many countries there are ceremonial posts associated with the household of the sovereign....

 (protovestiarius) under Emperor Michael VII Doukas

Michael VII

Michael VII Doukas or Ducas , nicknamed Parapinakēs , was Byzantine emperor from 1071 to 1078.- Life :...

, originally from Antioch

Antioch

Antioch on the Orontes was an ancient city on the eastern side of the Orontes River. It is near the modern city of Antakya, Turkey.Founded near the end of the 4th century BC by Seleucus I Nicator, one of Alexander the Great's generals, Antioch eventually rivaled Alexandria as the chief city of the...

. He was a contemporary of Michael Psellos

Michael Psellos

Michael Psellos or Psellus was a Byzantine monk, writer, philosopher, politician and historian...

.

He wrote the (in Latin: Syntagma de alimentorum facultatibus or De cibarium facultate, "On the Properties of Foods"), which criticizes Galen

Galen

Aelius Galenus or Claudius Galenus , better known as Galen of Pergamon , was a prominent Roman physician, surgeon and philosopher...

 and emphasizes eastern medical traditions: "Simeon Seth was the great Orientalist of Byzantine medicine... [he] selected the best, not only from the
Greek materia medica but also from Persian, Arabic, and Indian sources". The Syntagma is an important source for Byzantine cuisine

Byzantine cuisine

Byzantine cuisine was marked by a merger of Greek and Roman gastronomy. The development of the Byzantine Empire and trade brought in spices, sugar and new vegetables to Greece. Cooks experimented with new combinations of food, creating two styles in the process...

 and dietetics.

Simeon's work (Conspectus rerum naturalium, "On natural things" )is a treatise on the natural sciences. It is divided into five books. The first concerns the earth; the second, the elements

Classical element

Many philosophies and worldviews have a set of classical elements believed to reflect the simplest essential parts and principles of which anything consists or upon which the constitution and fundamental powers of anything are based. Most frequently, classical elements refer to ancient beliefs...

; the third, the sky and the stars; the fourth, matter, form, nature, and the soul (sense perception); the fifth, the final cause

Teleology

A teleology is any philosophical account which holds that final causes exist in nature, meaning that design and purpose analogous to that found in human actions are inherent also in the rest of nature. The word comes from the Greek τέλος, telos; root: τελε-, "end, purpose...

 and divine providence. The work is heavily influenced by the philosophy of Aristotle

Aristotle

Aristotle was a Greek philosopher and polymath, a student of Plato and teacher of Alexander the Great. His writings cover many subjects, including physics, metaphysics, poetry, theater, music, logic, rhetoric, linguistics, politics, government, ethics, biology, and zoology...

.

He also learned astronomy from Arabic sources.

He translated the book of fables Kalilag and Damnag from Arabic to Greek in about 1080. The protagonists in the Greek version are named "Stephanites" and "Ichnelates."