Update :I asked This question on HSM here
In my studies of mathematics (I am not very good at mathematics, I only studied real analysis and some linear algebra), I noticed that mathematics can be divided into two major parts. One part is Ancient Greek mathematics. This part has achievements in geometry and arithmetic and their connections. The other part is modern mathematics from Descartes to today. This part has discoveries in calculus, number theory, topology, and many other fields. But what happened between these two eras? In my studies, I did not find many theorems from this period or any great breakthrough at all.
It seems like mathematics stopped there and only resumed in the 1600s. But why is that? Mathematics is not like physics that needs experiments to test theories and wait for centuries such that their tools become good enough. Mathematics only relies on logic. So why did many mathematical concepts take millennia to develop? As far as I know, mathematics can be divided into fields like topology, analysis, number theory, algebra, geometry and combinatorics. etc. Most of these fields or concepts took more than a millennium to appear. The first major one was geometry, and it appeared in Ancient Greece. All the others did not exist until after the 1600s, like topology or number theory, or they were too small and narrow to be considered as separate fields before. So why is that? Even if calculus took 1000 years to be discovered I heard that many math fields don't rely on analysis like abstract algebra, graph theory etc.
I heard that philosophy held back mathematics for millennia, like Archimedes could have discovered calculus if he did not think too much about philosophy and infinity . So why was the development of mathematics slowed for a millennium? or in other words why the development of mathematics was very slow between Ancient Greece and Descartes.
I think this question might have too long answers because as a user mention before in one of my old questions "the history of mathematics will be very hard to be broken down into a couple of paragraphs" and so I will ask for books or reference that answer this question if the answer is too long .