Chapter 4 ("Historical eclipses")
"The Peloponnesian war"
So little pains do the vulgar take in the investigation of truth, accepting readily the first story that comes to hand. On the whole, however, the conclusions I have drawn from the proofs quoted may, I believe, safely be relied on. Assuredly they will not be disturbed either by the lays of a poet displaying the exaggeration of his craft, or by the compositions of the chroniclers that are attractive at truth's expense; the subjects they treat of being out of the reach of evidence, and time having robbed most of them of historical value by enthroning them in the region of legend. Turning from these, we can rest satisfied with having proceeded upon the clearest data, and having arrived at conclusions as exact as can be expected in matters of such antiquity. [Thucydides, I, 20-21]
Florin Diacu starts a summary of Fomenko's theory in Chapter 4 "Historical Eclipses" from his interpretation of eclipses in Thucydides. These eclipses in connection with the New Chronology were discussed in details by Russian critics from the points of view of history and philology [
6,
7] as well as astronomy [
8,
9]. This chapter shows clearly that Anatoly Fomenko was successful in inculcating another mathematician that three eclipses described in the "History of the Peloponnesian War" are so incredibly important for the world and especially Greek history that without "Scaligerian" astronomical dating of them all ancient chronology hangs in vacuum. Starting from the introduction Florin Diacu returns to this delusion in half of the chapters of the book describing how he tried to verify unsuccessfully this novel astrohistorical discovery. Thucydides is the third most frequent name in the book after Fomenko and Scaliger and Peloponnesian War is the most frequently mentioned historical event. In chapter 10 we are told how the author applied to a historian who gave him a very intelligent hint how to prove that the Peloponnesian war was before and not after the First council of Nicaea:
What you'd like, I think is a text in which someone known to have been present at the Council refers unambiguously to the Peloponnesian War as a prior event. There may be such a text: we have voluminous writings of numerous bishops who were present : [p.235]
It is a mystery, however, that this historian could not immediately name such a bishop and such a text - it is the most famous figure on the Council after Constantine, the overmentioned bishop Eusebius of Caesarea, the author of the famous Chronicle. We immediately find in the Chronicle of Eusebius not only direct reference to this war but unambiguous dating of it in historical context. Describing Greek system of dating using Olympiads and Olympic victors Eusebius writes in
the first part of the chronicle (preserved in Armenian translation):
87th - Sophron of Ambracia, stadion race
During this [Olympiad], the Peloponnesian war began.
In the tabular form better known from
Jerome we read:
87th Olympiad = 1585 of year Abraham
[through system of dating used by Eusebius as we use AD - Anno Domini]
Beginning of the Peloponnesian war.
Bacchylides the song writer is well known.
[+1]
[+2] The Athenians suffer in the plague.
Thucydides is well known.
[+3] Pericles dies.
This one can read in the 9th century Eusebius/Jerome
Chronicon fol. 99 (verso) of Oxford MS 315 presented
online. Using different parallel systems of dating used by Eusebius (consuls, A.U.C., archons, emperors etc.) coupled by many simple direct equations and uninterruptible tradition of chronicles with modern calendar we can obtain in many ways that this date corresponds to 432 BC. This date could deduce every reader of Eusebius and Jerome hundreds of years before Scaliger.
What surprises me most is that Florin Diacu himself tells us about the Eusebius of Caesarea (mixing him in Index with pope Saint Eusebius) and his chronicle on pages 45, 49, 171, his participation in the council of Nicaea, Olympiads, years of Abraham, connections with Roman emperors and Christian era. Doesn't it mean thoughtless copy and paste from the secondary reference without an idea about the contents of the Chronicle?
In the same way Georgius Syncellus [10, p.374],
referencing Africanus writes:
The 87th Olympiad: The twenty-seven-year-long war between the Peloponnesians and the Athenians, which Thucydides wrote about, broke out because of two of Aspasia's prostitutes and columns erected against the Megarians, neighbors to the Athenians..
More interested reader of ancient historians could even find from another important source about Peloponnesian war -
Diodorus Sicilus that possibly more accurate date is the beginning of the second year of this 87th Olympiad (summer 431 BC-summer 430):
[12.37.1] When Pythodorus was archon in Athens, the Romans elected as consuls Titus Quinctius and Nittus Menenius, and the Eleians celebrated the Eighty-seventh Olympiad, that in which Sophron of Ambracia won the "stadion". In Rome in this year Spurius Maelius was put to death while striving for despotic power. And the Athenians, who had won a striking victory around Potidaea, dispatched a second general, Phormion, in the place of their general Callias who had fallen on the field. After taking over the command of the army Phormion settled down to the siege of the city of the Potidaeans, making continuous assaults upon it; but the defenders resisted with vigour and the siege became a long affair.
[2] Thucydides, the Athenian, commenced his history with this year, giving an account of the war between the Athenians and the Lacedaemonians, the war which has been called the Peloponnesian. This war lasted twenty-seven years, but Thucydides described twenty-two years in eight Books or, as others divide it, in nine.
[12.38.1] When Euthydemus was archon in Athens, the Romans elected in place of consuls three military tribunes, Manius Aemilianus Mamercus, Gaius Julius, and Lucius Quinctius. In this year there began the Peloponnesian War, as it has been called, between the Athenians and the Peloponnesians, the longest of all the wars which history records; and it is necessary and appropriate to the plan of our history to set forth at the outset the causes of the war.
How these ancient and medieval historians managed to find "Scaligerian" date? Did they calculate eclipses from the "Peloponnesian war" themselves? Definitely not.
Thucydides gives enough accurate chronological information in his book. describing the war year by year ("The history follows the chronological order of events by summers and winters.").
[2.4] The thirty years' truce which was entered into after the conquest of Euboea lasted fourteen years. In the fifteenth, in the forty-eighth year of the priestess-ship of Chrysis at Argos, in the ephorate of Aenesias at Sparta, in the last month but two of the archonship of Pythodorus at Athens, and six months after the battle of Potidaea, just at the beginning of spring, a Theban force a little over three hundred strong, under the command of their Boeotarchs, Pythangelus, son of Phyleides, and Diemporus, son of Onetorides, about the first watch of the night, made an armed entry into Plataea, a town of Boeotia in alliance with Athens.
The reference to Athenian archon (archon eponymous) gives a simple and convenient dating. Pyhodorus corresponds to 432 BC-431 BC (see for example the list in Bickerman's book [
11] or in
Wikipedia). Such lists binded with Olympiad dating were compiled in antiquity (Diodor of Sicily, Dionysius of Halicarnassus) and are found not only in literal histories but excavated cut in marble. The use of Spartan ephors for dating was not so common however Xenophon in Hellenica gives a list of them from 431/430 BC to 404/403 BC. The name of Argos priestess Thucydides probably took from Hellanicus of Lesbos "The Priestesses of Hera at Argon".
In the time of Thucydides Olympiad dating has not been yet adopted, however as Thucydides mentions several Olympiads and names the victors. In particular Thucydides (Thu.3.8) writes that on the third year of the war Dorieus, the Rhodian, the son of the famous boxer Diagoras, won pankration for the second time (Olymp.88) and 8 years later the winner in pancratium was Arcadian Androsthenes. In this way there was no problem for later Greek and Roman historians to translate years of Thucydides into Olympic years - see Diodorus as an example. The list of Olympic victors in stadion racing is also given by Eusebius. Here is such a list from Antike Sammlung in Munich (by the courtesy of Marina Pirogova) where you can also find already familiar Sophron of Ambracia, the fastest on 87th Olympyad. See the new book of P.Christiansen [12] as a reference on these lists and their history.
From this historical introduction we deduce that the following statement is wrong:
"But when did the war happen? The answer accepted today, and on which much of Greece's ancient chronology is based, came in 1578 from Paulus Crusius, who calculated that the conflict started in 431BC. As is described in chapter 2, he bases on two solar eclipses and a lunar one, all of them described in Thucydides' book."[p.99]
Crusius was indeed possibly the first to calculate precise dates of eclipses but he was searching them at a years already commonly accepted and undoubtful. He was not dating the war, but verifying. And I suppose he was very glad to find the eclipses at the years given by ancient chronographers. In the same way Scaliger is not to blame for solidifying precise dating of the eclipses:
"In De emendatione temporum, Scaliger provided dates for the three eclipses - the days of August 3, 431; March 21, 424 and August 27, 413 - indicating that the conflict began in 431 and ended in 404 BC."
Just simply reading the book of Scaliger [
13, p.223] we find that he writes something different:
He not only ignores precise dates of eclipses (which he knew from the book of Crusius) but errs in their number - talking about three solar eclipses. For him these eclipses are also just a confirmation of the date calculated from Olympiads and archonship of Pyhodoros in the same way as for Isaac Newton.
Let us finally look at these arguable eclipses. The critical paragraph relates to the first eclipse:
"The same summer, at the beginning of a new lunar month, the only time by the way at which it appears possible, the sun was eclipsed after noon. After it had assumed the form of a crescent and some of the stars had come out, it returned to its natural shape." [Translation of Richard Crawley].
Florin Diacu cites another translation of H.G.Bohn.
"the Sun was eclipsed after midday: it took the form of a crescent, then some stars became visible, and it turned full again."
I am not a specialist in Greek but philological analysis [
6,
7] shows that the grammatical construction does not mean sequence of events (crescent then stars) but an accompanying circumstance (the sun assumed the form of crescent and the stars appreared). That is why the first translation is more accurate, thus stating partial eclipse. From my own point of view as an eye witness of the total eclipse in 1999 this also looks like a description of partial eclipse as crescent is not the most striking feature of a total eclipse and the sun. If Thucydides describes here total eclipse, then I am forced to doubt that his talent as a writer gave a glitch in this phrase. I am joining here Robert Newton (whom Fomenko esteems high), who wrote [
14, p.108]:
"The record can be dated by historical evidence and there is apparently no question about the identification. Since he [Thucydides] explicitely denies totality while mentioning the visibility of stars, I shall take the standard deviation of magnitude to be 0.02 rather than the customary value of 0.01 when stars are mentioned."
Mentioning the stars in this context indeed requires explanation. However first of all I should note that even during total solar eclipse stars are not always visible. For example during the eclipse of 11 August 1999 only which I observed in Bulgaria only Venus was in the sky near the eclipsed sun and this planet was noticed before the totality. The visibility of stars greatly depends on the state of atmosphere height of the sun and solar activity (brightness of solar corona).
From the other hand other descriptions are known where totality is even more explicitely denied but the stars are seen. Especially interesting is the following Chinese record from Sung-shu annals about the eclipse of AD 429 Dec 12 very similar to that of Thucydides [15]:
"Yuan-chia reign period, 6th year, 11th month, day chi-ch'ou, the first day of the month. The Sun was eclipsed; it was not complete and like a hook. During the eclipse, stars were seen. At the hour of fu(=15-17 h), then it disappeared (i.e. ended). In Ho-pei (province) the Earth was in darkness."
If we still do not believe in the possibility to observe stars or planet during partial eclipse, other explanations can be given:
1. Thucydides used a hyperbola or a trope in description of a strong solar eclipse.
2. Thucydides could see Venus (as I have seen it in 1999) not in Athen but in Thrace on the coast opposite to island Thasos where his family owned golden mines and where the eclipse had nearly maximal phase. Florin Diacu writes that singular Venus can not explain plural stars, but for me it is a rather reasonable explanation. Moreover, attentive reading of the text reveals that Thucydides could observe the eclipse even farther to the East in the Odrysian capital somewhere in the neighborhood of Adrianople, where the phase was ~ 0.95. Just directly after the eclipse in (II, 28) he describes the success of Athenian diplomacy in Thrace with possible participation of the author: “In this particular passage alone in its context can one detect the personal accent of Thucydides through the mask of the annalist, not only in his alacrity to put his fellow countrymen right, out of his own special information, on the confusion between Teres and Tereus, which was probably used to recommend to them the alliance with Teres' son, but also in his triumphant satisfaction at the success of the mission, which enlisted in the forces of Athens, in spite of their estrangement and mutual rivalry, the two most powerful kings of the north, Sitalces and Perdiccas.” [16]
3. My suggestion - Thucydides describing the eclipse at the start of Peloponnesian war could use fresh experience from the total in Greece and particularly in Athens eclipse of 18 Jan 400 BC which happened when he was working on the book.
If all these possible explanations seems still unconvincing and the word "stars" hypnotizes more than everything that we know about history we may look closer at the arguments that New Chronology suggests.
The only information that we are supposed to trust Thucydides following Fomenko and Morozov is formulated in several statements:
1) All three eclipses were observed from the square fitting into the following geographical coordinates: longitude between 15 and 30 degrees, latitude be┐tween 30 and 42 degrees; [rather arbitrary values -- M.G.]
2) The first eclipse is solar;
3) The second eclipse is solar;
4) The third eclipse is lunar;
5) The time interval between the first two eclipses equals 7 years;
6) The interval between the second eclipse and the third equals 11 years;
7) The first eclipse occurs in the summer;
8) The first solar eclipse is a full one, since one can see the stars - that is, its phase value equals 12. Remember one cannot see the stars during a partial eclipse; [But remember R.Newton saying about explicit denial of totality by Thucydides - M.G.]
9) The first solar eclipse occurs after midday, local time;
10) The second solar eclipse occurs in the begin┐ning of summer;
11) The lunar eclipse takes place around the end of summer;
12) The second solar eclipse occurred within the temporal vicinity of March. [16, p.99]
A quick test immediately shows that accepted dates of August 3, 431 BC; March 21, 424 BC and August 27, 413 BC pass all tests except #8. Anatoly Fomenko managed to assure some of his readers that the use of the "independent dating method" in the entire interval between 900 BC and 1700 AD shows that a precise astronomical solution does exist; furthermore, there are only two solutions that fit exactly [
17, p.103]. This statement is incorrect in several ways: these "solutions" are not precise, they are not the result of independent astronomical calculations and there are much more than two triads fitting the conditions. We start from the second "solution" found by Fomenko himself.
The second solution (A.T.Fomenko):
1039 A.D., 22 August (total solar);
1046 A.D. 9 April (partial solar)
1057 A.D. 15 September (lunar) [Diacu, p. 104; Fomenko p. 103]
The irony of the fate is that the first eclipse is not total anywhere on Earth! It is annular in the same way as the eclipse of August 3, 431 BC and hence all the mockery cast by Fomenko on historians, chronologists and astronomers fights back. His eclipse was even smaller in Athens than traditional one: 0.770 versus 0.882. The second historical eclipse was also a bit stronger than that of Fomenko. Florin Diacu would immediately noticed that if only in addition to plots of phases of ancient eclipses (p.102, 105 - in fact the orientation of the crescent is not correct) he in pretension to be balanced plotted Fomenko's propositions. In the same way he would notice immediately that the triad found by Morozov (August 2, 1133; March 20, 1140; and August 28, 1151) in which the first eclipse is indeed total (though not in Athen), is hardly acceptable due to the small phase of the second eclipse (0.501) and very small phase 0.347 of partial lunar eclipse would hardly aroused "great fright of Nicias and others" [Plutarch, Nicias, 22; 23; 28]. Not much better was also the lunar eclipse of Fomenko (0.436). The classical lunar eclipse of 27 August 413 B.C. not searched but found at its place pointed by ancient historians was naturally total.
How this funny blunder of Fomenko with annular eclipse could happen? The reason is rather trivial [9]. Knowing very little about eclipses, he was searching his astronomical solutions just looking through the tables of eclipses compiled by Morozov [18] in which all eclipses from the outdated canon of eclipses of Oppoltzer (1887) are ordered according to months. In these tables the totality is omitted (while it is definitely present in the canon of Oppoltzer). This guess-work is confirmed by the fact that all the rounded figures that Fomenko gives for his eclipses coincide with that given in the tables of Morozov. I was curious about "only two" solutions and tried to satisfy twelve conditions of Fomenko with exception of #8, ignored in practice by Fomenko himself, but I extended his time frame above the year 1700 just for fun. These are the results (in brackets are phases for Athens as given by EmapWin by Shinobu Takesako) from which I took only those where the phases in Athens of the first eclipse were greater than 0.75:
507 BC/09/01 16:39 (0.913, annular)
500 BC/04/19 07:30 (0.274)
489 BC/09/27 06:18 (0.954)
431 BC/08/03 15:44 (0.882)
424 BC/03/21 06:48 (0.702)
413 BC/08/27 20:37 (1.076)
(classical eclipses of Thucydides)
812/05/14 13:17 (1.007), Total in Athens
819/06/26 06:41 (0.513)
830/11/04 07:15 (0.045)
1039/08/22 12:23 (0.770, annular)
1046/04/09 04:48 (0.637)
1057/09/15 18:10 (0.425)
This is the "solution" of Fomenko
1133/08/02 12:25 (0.993)
1140/03/20 15:21 (0.501)
1151/08/28 23:26 (0.333)
This is the "solution" of Morozov
1263/08/05 14:55 (0.908, annular)
1270/03/23 05:29 (0.856)
1281/08/31 02:22 (0.859)
This is my "solution" better than the one of Fomenko
1914/08/21 13:03 (0.763)
1921/04/08 08:52 (0.449) or 1922/03/28 14:48 (0.654)
1932/09/14 21:00 (0.977) or 1931/09/26 19:47 (1.317)
A New Chronologist of the XXX-th century can decide that the Peloponnesian war was the First World War which began in Balcans! Even the month is given precisely.)
1999/08/11 11:11 (0.822)
2006/03/29 10:48 (0.863)
2017/08/07 18:19 (0.248)
Another present for future New Chronologists. We should wait several years for the book of Thucydides to appear. I prefer this one as I have seen the first eclipse in total phase in Balkans myself and Venus was effectively presenting stars!
From this exercise we clearly see that astronomical calculations isolated from historical support can prove anything.
Is it possible to date independently the second solar eclipse which is described by
Thucydides in Chapter IV?
"The Athenians afterwards sent back Artaphernes in a galley to Ephesus, and ambassadors with him, who heard there of the death of King Artaxerxes, son of Xerxes, which took place about that time, and so returned home.
The same winter the Chians pulled down their new wall at the command of the Athenians, who suspected them of meditating an insurrection, after first however obtaining pledges from the Athenians, and security as far as this was possible for their continuing to treat them as before. Thus the winter ended, and with it ended the seventh year of this war of which Thucydides is the historian.
In first days of the next summer there was an eclipse of the sun at the time of new moon, and in the early part of the same month an earthquake."
Here we have a direct link to the history of other nation. The eclipse happened soon after the death of the Persian king
Artaxerxes (465BC-424BC). If we prefer astronomical dating we still can confirm this date as the dates of roolership of Persian kings are found in the famous "
Canon of Kings" from the astronomical "Handy Tables" of Ptolemy and is confirmed by astronomical observations dated according to this Canon not only in Greek sources but in Babylonian
Astronomical diaries on clay tablets.
I want to touch now the results of independent investigations made by Florin Diacu. First of all his interpretation of the aims of research of ancient and medieval eclipses by F.R.Stephenson and his colleagues as well as his understanding of the variations of the Earth's spin is far from clarity. However, it looks more appropriate to discuss them in the frames of chapter 3 alongside with the mythical "D'' problem". We now want to investigate the phrase by Thucydides which attracted the author's attention: "eclipses of the Sun occurred with a frequency unrecorded in previous history." Florin Diacu believes that this phrase can be a key to the "correct" solution and that indeed it favors Fomenko's erroneous "solution" with annular eclipse. I do not want to be pedantic comparing lists of eclipses, though the lists that are given for the 11th and 12th centuries [p.273] are incorrect (the list for the classical time taken from the paper of Stephenson Fatoohi is valid). But I want to pay attention to a very strange "Thucydides" of the 11th century, who missed two stronger annular eclipses 1044/11/22(0.927 in Athens), 1058/2/25(0.962) as well as 1061/6/20(0.691), but described smaller one 1046/4/9(0.637 and instead of several total lunar eclipses a smaller one frightened the army of Niceas. "Thucydides" of the next century is not better - he noticed insignificant darkening of the eclipse with magnitude 0.5, failed to notice 1138/11/4(0.932), 1147/10/26(0.945) and 1153/1/26(0.599) and again a small lunar eclipse frightened Greeks. Classical Thucydides is much smarter - his solar eclipses are the strongest in 27 years and his lunar eclipse is total.
Are there more direct astronomical evidences that classical dating of Thucydides' eclipses are correct? Can we add one more condition to the twelve conditions formulated by Fomenko to get unique solution? It looks that the answer is positive. To do so we apply to Cicero who also knows about the first eclipse of Thucydides but adds some Roman eclipses:
They relate in a similar way, that in the great war, in which the Athenians and Lacedemonians contended with such violent resentment, the famous Pericles, the first man of his country, in credit, eloquence, and political genius, observing the Athenians overwhelmed with an excessive alarm, during an eclipse of the sun, which cast a universal shadow, told them what he had learned in the school of Anaxagoras, that these phenomena necessarily happened at precise and regular periods when the body of the moon was interposed between the sun and the earth, and that if they happened not before every new moon, it was because they could only happen when the new moons fell at certain specific periods. Having evinced this truth by his reasonings, he freed the people from their alarms. At that period, indeed, the doctrine was new and unfamiliar, respecting the eclipse of the sun by the interposition of the moon. They say that Thales of Miletus, was the first to discover it. Afterwards our Ennius appears to have been acquainted with the same theory, for he wrote in the 350th year of Rome's foundation, that in the nones of June, Soli luna obstitit et nox -"the sun was covered by the moon and night. [18, I, 25]
The eclipse of Ennius should interest us. Is it possible to bind it with Thucydidean eclipse? Cicero himself gives us the required link:
In fact, if, as we consider proved by the Grecian annals, Rome was founded in the seventh Olympiad. [18, II,17].
Attentive reader may notice from this statement that Cicero uses 750 BC as the date of foundation of Rome, the same basis was used by Polybius and later Livy. Better known date of Varro 753 BC was agreed upon and used by chronologists later. However we need only relative date now - 350 years after 7th Olympyad. This gives us possibly total eclipse in Rome approximately 31 years after the first eclipse of Thucydides (beginning of the second year of 87th Olympiad). That is all! The eclipse of June 21, 400 BC was indeed total in Rome, and could turn day into night, while the two "ideal" triads of Fomenko fail as there was no such a strong eclipse in Rome around 1070 AD (24 November 1071 - 0.607) and 1164 AD (3 July 1163 - 0.702). The republican calendar in Rome in 400 BC was quite different from the Julian calendar and we should not expect total coincidence with the date of Ennius (the nones of June = 5th day of June) but we see that Roman historians were correct saying that in this time the months were in agreement with seasons.
Summing up, using just Thucydides eclipses and one Roman eclipse chronologically linked with them we have managed to confirm astronomically that there are no visible problems in Greek and Roman chronology and have found that Fomenko's "solutions" are just a play of mind.
^6. Ye.S.Golubtsova, V.M.Smyrin, To the attempt of applications of "new methodics of statistical analysis" to the material of ancient history. Review. [in Russian]. Vestnic Drevney Istorii, 1982, #1, p.171-195. Republished in "History and antihistory. Critics of 'new chronology' of academic A.T.Fomenko", M., 2000, 2-nd ed. 2001.
^7. A.A.Zaliznyak, Linguistics according to A.T.Fomenko [in Russian]. In "History and antihistory. Critics of 'new chronology' of academic A.T.Fomenko", M., 2000, 2-nd ed. 2001.
^8. Yu.D.Krasilnikov, Eclipses of Thucydides. In "Astronomy against New Chronology" (in Russian), Moscow, 2001
^9. M.L.Gorodetsky, Yu.D.Krasilnikov, "New Astronomy" at a service of "New Chronology", In "Astronomy against New Chronology" (in Russian), Moscow, 2001
^10. The Chronography of George Syncellos: A Byzantine Chronicle of Universal History from the Creation, translated by P.Tuffin and W.Adler, Oxford Univ. Press, 2002.
^11. E.J.Bickerman, Chronology of the Ancient World, London, 1969
^12. P. Christesen. Olympic Victor Lists and Ancient Greek History. 2007.
^13. Iosephi Scaligeri Iulii Caesaris F. De emendatione temporum. Opus novum absolutum perfectum octo libris distinctum. Francfurt, 1593.
^14.R.R.Newton, "Ancient Astronomical Observations and the Accelerations of the Earth and Moon", The John Hopkins Press, Baltimore and London, 1970.
^15. F. R. Stephenson, Historical Eclipses and Earth's Rotation, Cambridge University Press, 1997.
^16. J.A.R.Munro, Thucydides on the Third of August, 431 BC, The Classical Quaterly, Vol.13, No 3/4, p.127, 1919.
^17. A.T.Fomenko, History: Fiction or Science? Chtonology 1, Delamere Publishing, 2003.
^18. Морозов Н. А. Христос. Т. 5. Руины и привидения. - М.: Госиздат, 1928 (переиздание М.: <Крафт+>, <Леан>, 1998).
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