One of the most remarkable of the Chaldaean contributions to astronomy was the discovery (made at any rate several centuries B.C.) of the recurrence of eclipses after a period, known as the saros, consisting of 6,585 days (or eighteen of our years and ten or eleven days, according as five or four leap-years are included). It is probable that the discovery was made, not by calculations based on knowledge of the motions of the sun and moon, but by mere study of the dates on which eclipses were recorded to have taken place. As, however, an eclipse of the sun (unlike an eclipse of the moon) is only visible over a small part of the surface of the earth, and eclipses of the sun occurring at intervals of eighteen years are not generally visible at the same place, it is not at all easy to see how the Chaldaeans could have established their cycle for this case, nor is it in fact clear that the saros was supposed to apply to solar as well as to lunar eclipses. The saros may be illustrated in modern times by the eclipses of the sun which took place on July 18th, 1860, on July 29th, 1878, and on August 9th, 1896; but the first was visible in Southern Europe, the second in North America, and the third in Northern Europe and Asia.
18. To the Chaldaeans may be assigned also the doubtful honour of having been among the first to develop astrology, the false science which has professed to ascertain the influence of the stars on human affairs, to predict by celestial observations wars, famines, and pestilences, and to discover the fate of individuals from the positions of the stars at their birth. A belief in some form of astrology has always prevailed in oriental countries; it flourished at times among the Greeks and the Romans; it formed an important part of the thought of the Middle Ages, and is not even quite extinct among ourselves at the present day.[10] It should, however, be remembered that if the history of astrology is a painful one, owing to the numerous illustrations which it affords of human credulity and knavery, the belief in it has undoubtedly been a powerful stimulus to genuine astronomical study (cf. chapter III., [§ 56], and chapter V., §§ 99, 100)
[CHAPTER II.]
GREEK ASTRONOMY.
“The astronomer discovers that geometry, a pure abstraction of the human mind, is the measure of planetary motion.”
Emerson.
19. In the earlier period of Greek history one of the chief functions expected of astronomers was the proper regulation of the calendar. The Greeks, like earlier nations, began with a calendar based on the moon. In the time of Hesiod a year consisting of 12 months of 30 days was in common use; at a later date a year made up of 6 full months of 30 days and 6 empty months of 29 days was introduced. To Solon is attributed the merit of having introduced at Athens, about 594 B.C., the practice of adding to every alternate year a “full” month. Thus a period of two years would contain 13 months of 30 days and 12 of 29 days, or 738 days in all, distributed among 25 months, giving, for the average length of the year and month, 369 days and about 29-1∕2 days respectively. This arrangement was further improved by the introduction, probably during the 5th century B.C., of the octaeteris, or eight-year cycle, in three of the years of which an additional “full” month was introduced, while the remaining years consisted as before of 6 “full” and 6 “empty” months. By this arrangement the average length of the year was reduced to 365-1∕4 days, that of the month remaining nearly unchanged. As, however, the Greeks laid some stress on beginning the month when the new moon was first visible, it was necessary to make from time to time arbitrary alterations in the calendar, and considerable confusion resulted, of which Aristophanes makes the Moon complain in his play The Clouds, acted in 423 B.C.:
“Yet you will not mark your days
As she bids you, but confuse them, jumbling them all sorts of ways.
And, she says, the Gods in chorus shower reproaches on her head,
When, in bitter disappointment, they go supperless to bed.