In 585 BC, the Greek philosopher Thales predicted a solar eclipse, which led to a ceasefire in a brutal war between the kingdoms of the Medes and Lydian.
Already a subscriber?In the northern spring of 585 BC in the Eastern Mediterranean, the moon came out of nowhere to hide the face of the sun, turning day into night.
Herodotus told of his foretelling. Aristotle called Thales the first person to fathom nature. The classical age of Greece honoured him as the foremost of its seven wise men. Ossendrijver says Babylonian kings “were scared to death by eclipses.” In response, the rulers scanned the sky in efforts to anticipate bad omens, placate the gods and “strengthen their legitimacy”.
The first clear evidence of success comes from Babylonia – an empire of ancient Mesopotamia in which court astronomers made nightly observations of the moon and planets, typically in relation to gods and magic, astrology and number mysticism.From their eclipse tallies, the Babylonians were able to discern patterns of heavenly cycles and eclipse seasons. Court officials could then warn of godly displeasure and try to avoid the punishments, such as a king’s fall.
Earth’s shadow is so large that, during a lunar eclipse, it blocks sunlight from an immense region of outer space, making the moon’s disappearance and reappearance visible to everyone on the planet’s night side. Herodotus says the ancient philosopher anticipated the date of the sun’s disappearance to “within the year” of the actual event – a far cry from today’s precision.
Mark Littmann, an astronomer, and Fred Espenak, a retired NASA astrophysicist who specialises in eclipses, argue in their book,, that the date of the war eclipse was relatively easy to predict, but not its exact location.As a result, they write, Thales “could have warned of the possibility of a solar eclipse”.
For ages, even into the Renaissance, astronomers kept upgrading their eclipse predictions based on what the Babylonians had pioneered. The 18-year cycle, Brown University’s Steele says, “had a really long history because it worked”.
Greek Philosopher Thales Solar Eclipse Ceasefire War Medes Lydian
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