"When beggars die there are no comets seen,
The heavens themselves blaze forth the death of princes."
Numbed by fear, the men of old blindly accepted these presages of fate; and did not too closely question whether the threatened danger was to their own nation or to some other, to their ruler or to his enemy. Now and then, as in the case of the Roman Emperor Vespasian, there was a cynical attempt to apply some reasoning to the portent. That emperor, in alluding to the comet of A.D. 79, is reported to have said: "This hairy star does not concern me; it menaces rather the King of the Parthians, for he is hairy and I am bald." Vespasian, all the same, died shortly afterwards!
Pliny, in his natural history, gives several instances of the terrible significance which the ancients attached to comets. "A comet," he says, "is ordinarily a very fearful star; it announces no small effusion of blood. We have seen an example of this during the civil commotion of Octavius."
A very brilliant comet appeared in 371 B.C., and about the same time an earthquake caused Helicè and Bura, two towns in Achaia, to be swallowed up by the sea. The following remark made by Seneca concerning it shows that the ancients did not consider comets merely as precursors, but even as actual causes of fatal events: "This comet, so anxiously observed by every one, because of the great catastrophe which it produced as soon as it appeared, the submersion of Bura and Helicè."
Comets are by no means rare visitors to our skies, and very few years have elapsed in historical times without such objects making their appearance. In the Dark and Middle Ages, when Europe was split up into many small kingdoms and principalities, it was, of course, hardly possible for a comet to appear without the death of some ruler occurring near the time. Critical situations, too, were continually arising in those disturbed days. The end of Louis le Debonnaire was hastened, as the reader will, no doubt, recollect, by the great eclipse of 840; but it was firmly believed that a comet which had appeared a year or two previously presaged his death. The comet of 1556 is reported to have influenced the abdication of the Emperor Charles V.; but curiously enough, this event had already taken place before the comet made its appearance! Such beliefs, no doubt, had a very real effect upon rulers of a superstitious nature, or in a weak state of health. For instance, Gian Galeazzo Visconti, Duke of Milan, was sick when the comet of 1402 appeared. After seeing it, he is said to have exclaimed: "I render thanks to God for having decreed that my death should be announced to men by this celestial sign." His malady then became worse, and he died shortly afterwards.
It is indeed not improbable that such superstitious fears in monarchs were fanned by those who would profit by their deaths, and yet did not wish to stain their own hands with blood.
Evil though its effects may have been, this morbid interest which past ages took in comets has proved of the greatest service to our science. Had it not been believed that the appearance of these objects was attended with far-reaching effects, it is very doubtful whether the old chroniclers would have given themselves the trouble of alluding to them at all; and thus the modern investigators of cometary orbits would have lacked a great deal of important material.
We will now mention a few of the most notable comets which historians have recorded.
A comet which appeared in 344 B.C. was thought to betoken the success of the expedition undertaken in that year by Timoleon of Corinth against Sicily. "The gods by an extraordinary prodigy announced his success and future greatness: a burning torch appeared in the heavens throughout the night and preceded the fleet of Timoleon until it arrived off the coast of Sicily."