t of Philostratus, and by Lynn on the same ground and on
other grounds, _more suo_. The question of identification requires
looking into more fully. There was a total eclipse on May 21, A.D. 95,
but it was only visible as a partial eclipse in Western Asia and not
visible at all in Greece. This is given as the conclusion arrived at by
the German astronomer Ginzel. But it does not seem to me sufficient to
overthrow, without further investigation, the fairly plain language of
Philostratus, which is possibly confirmed by a passage in Plutarch[65]
in which he discusses certain eclipse phenomena in the light of a recent
eclipse. The date of Plutarch's "recent" eclipse is somewhat uncertain,
but that fact does not necessarily militate against his testimony
respecting the Corona or what is regarded to have been such. The
statement of Philostratus, treated as a mention of a total solar
eclipse, is accepted as sufficiently conclusive by Sir W. Huggins and
the late Professor R. Grant. Johnston, to meet the supposed difficulty
of finding an eclipse to accord with the assertion of the historian,
suggests that "perhaps some peculiar solar halo or mock Sun, or other
meteorological formation" is referred to. But Stockwell has advanced
very good reasons for the opinion that the eclipse of Sept. 3, A.D. 118,
fully meets the circumstances of the case. Grant's opinion is given in
these emphatic words:--"It appears to me that the words here quoted
[from Apollonius] refer beyond all doubt to a total eclipse of the Sun,
and thus the phenomenon seen encompassing the Sun's disc was, really as
well as verbally, identical with the modern Corona."[66]

With the end of the first century of the Christian Era we may be said to
quit the realms of classical history and to pass on to eclipse records
of a different character, and, so far as regards European observations,
of comparatively small scientific value or usefulness. Our information
is largely derived from ecclesiastical historians and, later on, from
monkish chronicles, which as a rule are meagre in a surprising degree.
Perhaps I ought not to say "surprising," because after the times of the
Greek astronomers (who in their way may almost be regarded as
professionals), and after the epoch of the famous Ptolemy, Astronomy
well-nigh ceased to exist for many centuries in Europe, until, say, the
15th century, barring the labours of the Arabians and their kinsmen the
Moors in Spain in the 9th and follow