[120] Month. Not., R.A.S., vol. xlviii. p. 227. March 1888.
[121] p. 197 (post).
CHAPTER XVI.
ECLIPSES OF THE MOON MENTIONED IN HISTORY.
We saw in a previous chapter that we owe to the Chinese the first record of an eclipse of the Sun. It must now be stated that the same remark applies to the first recorded eclipse of the Moon, and Prof. S. M. Russell is again our authority. He refers to a book called the Chou-Shu or book of the Chou Dynasty, said to have been found in 280 A.D. in the tomb of an Emperor who lived many centuries previously. In this book it is stated that in the 35th year of Wen-Wang on the day Ping-Tzu there was an eclipse of the Moon. Russell finds that this event may be assigned to January 29, 1136 B.C., and that the eclipse was total.
Next after this Chinese eclipse, in point of time, come several eclipses recorded by Ptolemy, on the authority of records collected or examined by himself. The three earliest of these came from Chaldæan sources.
The first of these eclipses was observed at Babylon, in the 27th year of the era of Nabonassar, the 1st of the reign of Mardokempadius, on the 29th of the Egyptian month Thoth, answering to March 19, 721 B.C. The eclipse began before moonrise, and the middle of the totality appears to have occurred at 9h. 30m. p.m. The other two eclipses, also observed at Babylon, occurred on March 8, 720 B.C., and September 1, in the same year, respectively.
Three other lunar eclipses, recorded by Ptolemy, assisted Sir I. Newton in fixing the Terminus a quo from which the “70 weeks” of years were to run which the prophet Daniel[122] predicted were to elapse before the death of Christ. This Terminus a quo dates from the Restoration of the Jews under Artaxerxes, 457 B.C. The three eclipses which Newton made use of were those of July 16, 523, November 19, 502, and April 25, 491 B.C.
Aristophanes, in “The Clouds” (lines 561-66), makes an allusion to which has been supposed (but probably without adequate warrant, in Spanheim’s opinion), to refer to an eclipse of the Moon. The eclipse, October 9, 425 B.C., has, moreover, been suggested as that referred to, but the whole idea seems to me too shadowy.
An eclipse of the Moon took place in the 4th year of the 91st Olympiad, answering to August 27, 413 B.C., which produced very disastrous consequences to an Athenian army, owing to the ignorance and incapacity of Nicias, the commander. The army was in Sicily, confronted by a Syracusan army, and having failed, more or less, and sickness having broken out, it was decided that the Athenians should embark and quit the island. Plutarch, in his Life of Nicias, says:—“Everything accordingly was prepared for embarkation, and the enemy paid no attention to these movements, because they did not expect them. But in the night there happened an eclipse of the Moon, at which Nicias and all the rest were struck with a great panic, either through ignorance or superstition. As for an eclipse of the Sun, which happens at the Conjunction, even the common people had some idea of its being caused by the interposition of the Moon; but they could not easily form a conception, by the interposition of what body the Moon, when at the full, should suddenly lose her light, and assume such a variety of colours. They looked upon it therefore as a strange and preternatural phenomenon, a sign by which the gods announced some great calamity.” And the calamity came to pass, but only indirectly was it caused by the Moon!