John Knight Fotheringham

“ But the whole style of the annals is such that none but a contemporary could or would have composed them, and it seems to me the easiest explanation of the four false eclipses that a watch was kept for eclipses at every new moon and that observers sometimes imagined that a part of 'the Sun was eaten', as the phrase went, when the phenomenon was not really astronomical at all. If an astronomer was liable to be executed for failing to observe an eclipse, he would probably take no risks, and would record anything that the civil authorities might be likely to regard as an eclipse. ”

“ My elements of the motion of Sun and Moon would give the eclipse at its greatest phase a magnitude of 10·50 digits at Athens; as 12 digits constitute totality, this would mean that seven-eighths of the Sun's diameter were eclipsed. Ginzel makes it 10·03 at Athens, uncovering about a third as much again as I do. The difference is not unimportant. It is generally supposed that no star except Venus is visible except when an eclipse verges on totality, and it has therefore seemed necessary to make one of three assumptions:
(1) That the plural 'some stars' is an exaggeration. ”

“ The effect of an acceleration on the Moon's position is proportional to the square of the time during which the acceleration has been operating. But there is no reason to suppose that the fluctuations had a greater effect in ancient than in modern times. When, therefore, we deal with ancient observations, the fluctuations become negligible as compared with the acceleration, and, if the observations are good enough, a comparison of ancient with modern observations ought to give us the acceleration of the Moon. ”

“ I fear, however, that they have weakened the authority of other eclipses where zones of totality have been deduced from records of the visibility of stars.
Eclipse of Nicias.
There is an old dispute among astrologers whether celestial phenomena cause events in this world or merely forewarn those who have the cunning to understand them. What may have been the relations of eclipses to other disasters I do not profess to say, but there can be no doubt that in the year B.C. 413 an eclipse of the Moon actually caused one of the most dramatic and appalling catastrophes recorded in human history. ”

“ Brown, however, is of opinion that in tables designed for present-day use it is unnecessary to make any addition to that part of, the acceleration which can be computed from gravitational theory, and has preferred to use the gravitational acceleration only, endeavouring to compensate the neglect of the rest of the acceleration by artificial changes in terms which can be determined by observation only. In my opinion the compensation is inadequate, and I venture to predict that the Moon will, subject to fluctuations, move further and further in advance of her computed position as time goes on. ”

“ At Cambridge, where the magnitude was approximately the same as at Oxford, four observers are stated to have seen Vega and one Mercury. [43] I have not heard of stars other than Venus being seen with the naked eye where the eclipse was of less than 10⋅6 digits magnitude. Now, if we in Oxford could see stars in the plural, why could not the Athenians in similar circumstances? Our naked-eye observers have therefore achieved three results: (i) they have rendered it unnecessary to pull about the motion of Sun or Moon to satisfy this eclipse ”

“ These eclipses are referred to the years of Babylonian, and after the Babylonian series to years of Persian and Egyptian kings and of Roman emperors, and Ptolemy gives a canon showing the regnal years of these kings and emperors from B.C. 747 onwards. As modern eclipse computations verify this canon consistently, we have in it a reliable foundation for ancient chronology, and through the Babylonian and Persian dates we are able to fix Hebrew and Greek dates. This canon has been recognized from the close of the sixteenth century as our primary chronological authority. ”

“ It will be sufficient on this occasion to say that Thales must have used the Babylonian cycle of eighteen years and have based his prediction on the eclipse of B.C. 603.
On the accompanying map the northern and southern limits of the zone of totality are marked by straight lines. The zone includes the northern part of Ionia and the whole of Lydia. Astronomers, misled by historical students, have generally assumed that the fighting would be near the river Halys, across which Croesus advanced against Cyrus forty years later, and have attempted to amend the lunar theory accordingly. ”

“ We have early Babylonian documents giving the astrological interpretation of eclipses, but the earliest historical reference to an eclipse so far as I know is to be found in the Chinese work, entitled Shû King, or Book of Historical Documents. This work is a collection of public speeches and proclamations, with a few songs here and there, beginning in the reign of the emperor Yao, whom the received chronology places in the twenty-fourth century before Christ, and closing with a speech by Duke Mû in B.C. 625. ”

“ Injury has been done both to astronomy and to history by a too eager enthusiasm on the part of votaries of either science to obtain exact and reliable data from the other, and the unsatisfactory character of the results thus obtained has given rise among some students of each science to an excessive scepticism of results obtained from the other. ”

“ His language therefore suggests a later date—I cannot say how much later than that of the eclipse of June 21. He also tells us that after the Roman camp had been fortified for the night C. Sulpicius Callus, military tribune of the second legion, who had been praetor the previous year, summoned the soldiers to a meeting with the consul's permission, where he predicted to them that in the coming night the Moon would be eclipsed from the second to the fourth hour, and that this was to be no more regarded as a portent than was the monthly waning of the Moon. ”

“ There is a various reading as to the month in which the eclipse took place. The restored text, which is otherwise in close agreement with Tso's quotation, reads 'on the first day of the last month of autumn', a reading which is supported by the Annals of the Bamboo Books, while Tso in a reading supported by his context places the event on the first day of the first month of summer. There is also doubt concerning the meaning of the word Fang. ”

“ That is the court annalist's way of stating that the new emperor fled to a distant city, leaving Î in possession of the capital. Î's usurpation is recorded by Tso and is the consistent Chinese tradition. Seventy years were destined to elapse before the imperial family recovered the capital. It seems then that the proclamation against Hsî and Ho was followed by a brief war of two years, which ended in the victory not of the emperor, but of the usurper, and I suspect that the astronomers who had been singled out for attack, would have their share in the triumph.
Eclipse of Odysseus. ”