On ilie Solar EcUp'se predicted ly Tkalts. 339 



Petavius says that it happened July 9, 5g7 B. C. {De 

 Docf. Temp. lib. x. cap. Ij ; ami he has been follnwed by 

 Hardouin Dissert, de I.nx Hibdom. Dan. § 3), Marsham 

 (Chron. Canon, p. 56 1), Bouhier [Reciter . et Diss, stir Hi- 

 rodot. p. 42), and Corsini {Fast, yitlic. toin. iii. p. 6S); to- 

 gether with M. Larciier, the French translator of Herodotus 

 (tnin. i. p. 335). 



Usher is of opinion that it happened on the eoth of Sep- 

 leniber. G0\ B. C. [Annul. Fet. et Nov. Tesinm.) 



Bayer has shown, from the astronomical tables then in 

 use, that ihis eclip<e onght to have taken place May 18th, 

 603 B. C. [Com. Acad. Scient. Imp. Pc-lrap torn, iii.): and 

 lie has been supported in this opinion by the two English 

 astronomers, Costard and Stukcley. [Pkil. Treats, for 1733, 

 pages 17 and 221.) 



Lastly, M. Volnev has attempted to show, in a recent 

 publication [Chronologie d' Hcrodote) that the eclipse, men- 

 tioned by the historian, could be no other than the on« 

 which happ/cned February 3d, G'iQ B. C. 



Thus wt find a distance of no less than forty-three years 

 between the extreme periods that have been assigned for ' 

 this eclipse: 3i\\ interval which, however, may be somewhat 

 abridged ; since there are other facts recorded by the same 

 historian which enable us to reduce these limits, and yet 

 leave tlie narration consistent with itself. 



For, according to Herodotus, the two kings of Media, 

 that immediately preceded the conquest of that country by 

 Cyrus, were Cyaxares, who reijined forty years, and Asty- 

 ages, who reigned thirty-five years: and it is admitted by 

 all the ehronologists, that Cyrus-conquered Astyaees in the 

 year 560 B. C. Consequently (if the numbers given by 

 Herodotus be correct) the reign of Cyaxares extended troni 

 633 B. C. to -.93 B. C. And, since the battle of the eclipse 

 was fought in the sixth year of a war which began nfler 

 Cyaxares had ascended the throne, it could not hajipea 

 earlier than 6-20 B. C. nor later than 393 B. C. If there- 

 fore we can find, v ithin this short space of thirty-four years, 

 a solar eclipse that was central and total in that pa'-t of Asia 

 bordering on the two hostile empires, where this battle was 

 probably fought, we may justly conclude that it was the 

 one alluded to by ^.he historian. 



I say that this eclipse must have been a total one, because 



no annular ec\\\)^t (and much less a partial one) could have 



produced that degree (jf obscurity alluded, to by Herodotus. 



7bc celebrated Maclaurjn, in his account of the annulhr 



Z4 eclipse 



