SEYFFARTH ON THE THEORY OF THE MOOX's MOTIONS. 485 



southern Halys near Lydia, that is, about 39° N. Lat., 36° E., a 

 total eclipse of the sun occurred {a'jvzazuocrrjZ r^C f-^X^t'^ ^^^ 

 tjfxspav i^uTtivrj^ vjxra yv^iadfu). In consequence of this unex- 

 pected phenomenon the battle immediately ceased, and the kings 

 Cyaxares and Alyattes resolved to intermarry their adult children. 

 From this marriage Mandane, the mother of Cyrus, originated in 

 the following year. In another place Herodotus (i. 103) repeats 

 that this eclipse was a total one, and that it took place in the 

 course of the battle (ore vj^ ^ 'h^'-^P'^ iykvsxo aft fxayofizvoiai)', 

 and that Thales had predicted it. The same is reported by 

 Clemens Alex. (Strom, i. 130, 5), Cicero (De div. i. 50), The- 

 mistius (Orat. xxvi., p. 317 Dind,), even in the Shanameh, as 

 Hammer (Wiener Jahrbiicher ix. p. 13) vouches. This eclipse 

 has been very often confounded with that mentioned by Pliny, 

 Eudemus, Eusebius, Hieronymus, and referred by the same 

 authors to Ol. 48, 4, and u.c. 170, i.e. to — 581 (No. 2), because 

 both eclipses had been predicted by Thales. Oltmanns, however, 

 correctly distinguished two eclipses mentioned by Herodotus, and 

 he referred the older one, that on the Halys, to — 609, Sept. 30 ; 

 but this eclipse is inconsistent with history, as we shall see direct- 

 ly. The date of the eclipse on the Halys is fixed by the following 

 data : — Cyrus died, as we have seen, in — 526, six years prior to 

 the renewal of the Apis period in — 520, viz.. as Cicero (De div. 

 i. 33) avers, "70 years old"; consequently Cyrus was born in 

 — 596. Further, he destroyed Nineveh, as Xenophon (Cyrop. 

 viii. 7, i), the seventy weeks of Daniel, and the "turnus" of the 

 Hebrew priests, corroborate, seven years prior to his death, i.e. 

 in -532 ; and two years earlier, i.e. nine years prior to his depar- 

 ture (Cyrop. vii. 4, 16), he took Babylon, and at that time, as 

 Daniel (vi. i), Cyrus's contemporary, testifies, he was 62 years 

 old. Consequently Cyrus was really born in -596. Now, Hero- 

 dotus (i. 107) narrates that Mandane, the daughter of Astyages, 

 the son of Alyattes, at the time of marrying the father of Cyrus, 

 was a marriageable virgin Uouaa y^oTj dvd()b:; wpairj) ; and in 

 that heroic age, mirrored in the monuments of Nineveh, being at 

 present 2470 years old, no girl could be called a marriageable 

 virgin before reaching her 20th year. Accordingly, the eclipse 

 during the battle on the Halys must have taken place twenty or 

 more years prior to Cyrus's birth in _ 596, that is, about the year 



