VOL. XLVIII.] PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. ^ftl 



chadiiezzar is by Herodotus called Libynetus. It seems that the letter N, in 

 the beginning of the word, has, in the ancient copies of Herodotus, been turned 

 into A ; and then the words, in two different dialects, are not very different. 



These great arbitrators compromisetl the matter between the contending 

 parties, by making a match between the two royal families ; and so restored peace 

 and friendship. Astyages, the son of Cyaxares, king of Media, married Ariena, 

 daughter of Halyattes, king of Lydia, of whom, a year after, was born Cyaxares, 

 whom the prophet Daniel calls Darius the Mede. And in that last-mentioned 

 year, king Cyaxares gave his daughter Mandane in marriage to Cambyses king 

 of Persia ; of whom, the next year, was born the great Cyrus, the founder of 

 the Persian monarchy, whom the prophet Isaiah foretold by name, that he 

 should restore the polity of the Jews, the city of Jerusalem, and the temple, and 

 return the sacred vessels of gold and silver, which Nebuchadnezzar had carried 

 away, and put into his heathen temple at Babylon. 



Thus ended this famous quarrel between the Medes and Lydians, through the 

 timely event of a total solar eclipse, made still the more eminent, that it was 

 foretold to the lonians by Thales of Miletus, then in the 37th year of his age. 

 He was born in Phoenicia ; and there doubtless he acquired his knowledge in 

 astronomy. He was the first who brought this science into Greece, 300 years 

 after the pretended Chiron of the Argonauts. It is an invincible argument, that 

 he learned his art ; for a whole life is not sufficient, so to observe the motions of 

 sun and moon, as to be able to calculate an eclipse. 



This, is the first eclipse, which we have recorded in so circumstantial a man- 

 ner. Notwithstanding all this, it is strange how the learned have erred about 

 the true year of this memorable affair. Pliny begins the mistake, telling us, that 

 it was the 4th year of the 48th Olympiad ; whereas it was the 4th year of the 

 43d. It is not unlikely that the numeral letter V is crept into the original, 

 Clemens Alexandrinus makes it about the 50th Olympiad. Dr. Prideaux makes 

 it 5 years too late ; Archbishop Usher 2 years. Sir Isaac Newton gives us the 

 true month and day, but assigns the 585 year, as Ricciolus. 



Of this eclipse. Dr. S. has traced the moon's shade, as it passed over the 

 earth's surface from 20 to 60 degrees of longitude east from London ; and from 

 25 to 50 degrees of north latitude, with tlie hours, half-hours., and quarters of 

 time, where vertical. This was on the 18th of May in the proleptic Julian 

 style, in the year of the Julian period 41 1 1, the 603d year before the vulgar 

 aera of Christ. The eclipse was total 4 minutes and a half, where the battle was 

 fought. The shade entered the desert of Barca in Africa, soon after 9 in the 

 morning. It traversed the Mediterranean sea, and isle of Cyprus ; entered Asia 

 Minor at Cilicia, a little before 1 1 ; about half an hour after, it passed the city 

 now called Erzerum; near which Dr. S. supposes the battle was fought, as being 



