ted first as one of the unbelievers. He says[39] that
Thales is "reported to have predicted it to the _Ionians_. If he had
predicted it to the Lydians, in whose country the eclipse was to be
total, his conduct would be intelligible, but it seems strange that he
should have predicted it to the Ionians who had no direct interest in
the event." Bosanquet replies to this by pointing out that Miletus, in
_Ionia_, was the birthplace of Thales, and also that a shadow, covering
two degrees of latitude, passing through Ionia, would also necessarily
cover Lydia.

Another dissentient is Sir H. C. Rawlinson,[40] who, remembering that
Thales is said to have predicted a good olive crop, and Anaxagoras the
fall of an aerolite, says:--"The prediction of this eclipse by Thales may
fairly be classed with the prediction of a good olive crop, or the fall
of an aerolite. Thales, indeed, could only have obtained the requisite
knowledge for predicting eclipses from the Chaldeans; and that the
science of these astronomers, although sufficient for the investigation
of lunar eclipses, did not enable them to calculate solar
eclipses--dependent as such a calculation is, not only on the
determination of the period of recurrence, but on the true projection
also of the track of the Sun's shadow along a particular line over the
surface of the earth--may be inferred from our finding that in the
astronomical canon of Ptolemy, which was compiled from the Chaldean
registers, the observations of the Moon's eclipse are alone entered."

Airy[41] replied to these observations as follows:--"I think it not at
all improbable that the eclipse was so predicted, and there is one easy
way, and only one of predicting it--namely, by the _Saros_, or period of
18 years, 10 days, 8 hours nearly. By use of this period an evening
eclipse may be predicted from a morning eclipse but a morning eclipse
can rarely be predicted from an evening eclipse (as the interval of
eight hours after an evening eclipse will generally throw the eclipse at
the end of the _Saros_ into the hours of night). The evening eclipse,
therefore, of B.C. 585, May 28, which I adopt as being most certainly
the eclipse of Thales, might be predicted from the morning eclipse of
B.C. 603, May 17.... No other of the eclipses discussed by Baily and
Oltmanns present the same facility for prediction."

Xenophon[42] mentions an eclipse as having led to the capture by the
Persians of the Median city Larissa. In t