44 History of Nature. [BooK II. 



CHAPTER X. 

 Of Eclipses of the Sun and Moon : and of the Night 1 . 



THE Eclipse of the Moon and Sun is a Thing throughout 

 the universal Contemplation of Nature most marvellous, and 

 resembling a Prodigy, and shews the Magnitude and Shadow 

 of these two Planets. For it is evident that the Sun is hidden 

 by the Intervention of the Moon ; and the Moon again by 

 the Opposition of the Earth : as also that the one doth equal 

 the other, in that the Moon, by her Interposition, bereaveth 



1 The opinions of the ancients on the subject of Eclipses were two- 

 fold: that of the vulgar was built on the supposition that certain sorce- 

 rers, working by magic art, were able to draw this planet from her orbit, 

 even to the earth, to accomplish their nefarious purposes in inflicting 

 injury on particular persons or on communities. They were supposed to 

 have a further object in view, by compelling her to deposit on some 

 appropriate herbs a foam that was useful in magic arts : as we learn from 

 Apuleius and Lucan. Horace represents his witch Canidia as thus en- 

 gaged, in his 5th and 17th Epodes. Under these circumstances the moon 

 was supposed to labour in agony ; and the method taken to relieve her 

 throes, and prevent her total extinction, was by making such a clamour 

 that the verse or influence might not ascend to her sphere ; and by not 

 hearing, her dread might be relieved. Livy speaks of this clamour as an 

 ordinary occurrence (lib. xxvi.) ; but it does not seem to have been an 

 official proceeding. Another opinion was founded on the doctrines of 

 Divinity, and therefore formed a portion of the religion of the state : the 

 phenomena being regularly observed, reported, and registered by consti- 

 tuted officers. According to this idea, every unusual appearance in the 

 sky was a portent of some coming event usually of an awful nature 

 and which it became the priesthood to avert, by those processions, sacri- 

 fices, and supplications, that were appointed in the sacred books, as appro- 

 priate to each appearance. It was no small effort of courage, as well as 

 skill, in the philosophers whose names are given by Pliny, to venture to 

 inquire into the nature and causes of phenomena which must have 

 appeared inscrutable to one portion of the public, and too sacred to be 

 meddled with to the other. The operation of both opinions appears in 

 the narrative that Plutarch gives of the proceedings of Paulus Emilius, 

 preparatory to the battle with the Macedonians, where, while the aid of 

 the philosopher, Sulpitius Gallus, was used to remove their fears, his 

 own office of augur was not neglected to work on their superstitious 

 confidence. Wern. Club. 



