Some remarks on the meaning of equality in Diophantos's Arithmetica (Q618039)

The author notes 1) that Diophantus uses more techniques to simplify algebraic relations than he lists in his introduction and 2) that he frequently starts to simplify the relation given in a problem long before he introduces abbreviations which put the problems into a form easily translated into a modern equation. He asks whether this implies that one can trace in Diophantus a different status of equality inside and outside the arithmetical theory.