Far Eastern and Classical Antiquity 37 



nescences. Pliny and many others after him repeated the story of 

 Servious Tullius, which made a lasting impression on the writers of 

 that day. 



The aurora borealis "^ is a grand example of electroluminescence 

 referred to in the Meteorologia of Aristotle as burning flames, 

 " torches " and " goats." He wrote: ^°- 



Sometimes on a fine night we see a variety of appearances that form 

 in the sky: " chasms " for instance and " trenches " and blood red 

 colours. These too have the same cause [as shooting stars]. For we have 

 seen that the upper air condenses into an inflammable condition and 

 that the combustion sometimes takes on the appearance of a burning 

 flame, sometimes that of moving torches and stars. 



This explanation is based on Aristotle's view that 



the world surrounding the earth is ordered as follows: First below the 

 circular motion comes the warm and dry element which we call fire. . . . 

 Below this comes air. We must think of what we just called fire as being 

 spread round the terrestrial sphere on the outside like a kind of fuel, 

 so that a little motion makes it burst into flame just as smoke does: for 

 flame is the ebullition of a dry exhalation. So whenever the circular 

 motion stirs this stuff up in any way, it catches fire at the point at which 

 it is most inflammable. The result differs according to the disposition 

 and quantity of the combustible material. 



Hence the various forms of aurora borealis, and also shooting stars 

 and comets. 



Among the Romans the aurora borealis was also a recognized 

 phenomenon, ^°^ considered an omen of war or disaster. The dis- 

 plays were called celestial beams or gulfs of heaven or blood colored 

 flames. Marcus Tullius Cicero^"* (106-43 B.C.) spoke of torches, 

 and Pliny mentioned ^°^ openings in the sky and " a flame of bloody 

 appearance (and nothing is more dreaded by mortals) which falls 

 down upon the earth, such as was seen in the third year of the 

 103rd olympiad, when King Philip was disturbing Greece." Pliny 



1"^ a good discussion of possible early observations of the aurora borealis will be 

 found in S. Gunther's Das Polarlicht im Altertum (Beitrdge z. Geophysik 6: 98-107, 

 1904). Gunther believed, as did G. Gerland (Beitrdge z. Geophysik 2: 185-196, 1895) 

 that certain descriptions of Pytheas of Massilia (fl. fourth century b. c.) must refer to 

 the aurora. He was a Greek navigator who sailed to Northern Europe and described 

 Thule, a place where earth, sea and air mix together. None of his writings remain, 

 but his descriptions are to be found in Strabo's (60 b. c.-a. d. 24) geography. 



'^"^Meteorologia, Book I, Sec. 4, of E. W. Webster trans. Aristotle's works, Oxford, 

 1923. 



^°^ See Otto Gilbert, Meterologischen Theorien des Griechischen Altertums, 594, 

 Leipzig, 1907, and Alfred Angot, The aurora borealis, 1-11, London, 1896. 



^"* Cicero, De natura deoriim, II, 5. 



^"^ Natural history. Book II, chap. 26, 27, 33, 57. 



