All Shall Hide

(3.) B.C. 480 Early Spring.  Another darkening of the Sun that could not be attributed to a solar eclipse had been recorded by the “Father of History,” Herodotus, an Athenian statesman and general, Aristides (Aristeides son of Lysimachos), and the great Greek biographer, Plutarch.  They stated a sudden darkness had occurred when the Persians started their third invasion of Greece.  Chambers’ review of explanatory attempts included the following three accounts under the assumption they had described the same event:

“Herodotus (The Histories, VII, 37): At the first approach of Spring the army quitted Sardis and marched towards Abydos; at the moment of its departure the Sun suddenly quitted its place in the heavens and disappeared, though there were no clouds in sight and the day was quite clear; day was thus turned into night.

“Aristides (Scholia, in Aristidis Orationes): As the king was going against Greece, and had come into the region of the Hellespont, there happened an eclipse of the Sun in the East; this sign portended to him his defeat, for the Sun was eclipsed in the region of its rising, and Xerxes was also marching from that quarter.

“Plutarch (Life of Pelopidas): An army was soon got ready, but as the general was on the point of marching, the Sun began to be eclipsed, and the city was covered with darkness in the daytime.”

The year of the Persian disembarkation, B.C. 480, had been firmly fixed in history.  From B.C. 484 through 481, Xerxes had amassed an army at Sardis and a screening naval force to historically massive levels.  The Persian advance commenced during the early Spring of B.C. 480.  A few months later that year was the martyrdom of Leonidas and his 300 Spartans in the delaying action at the Battle of Thermopylae.  A month later, the Persian naval armada suffered a resounding defeat at the Battle of Salamis.  The subsequent victory of the Greeks against the Persian army at the Battle of Plataia transpired the following year.  Thus the course of western civilization had been changed by the amazing victories of the Spartans and Athenians over the immense forces of the Persians.  The dates for those significant events had been firmly established and there were no valid reasons for changing them.

Over four centuries of astronomers had proven eclipses could not satisfy the conditions described by Herodotus.  Subsequently, some astronomers had suggested he had erroneously recorded the phenomena.  The eclipse of B.C. 480 April 19 was not suitable because the shadow of the Moon had swept across the southern regions of India and China.  The B.C. 481 April 19 was visible in Persia, not in Greece and Asia Minor.  It, like the one in B.C. 480, fell on April – a month that does not satisfy the “first approach of spring” condition.  Hind had considered the one seen by Cleombrotus on B.C. 479 October 2 to be the eclipse recorded by Herodotus (IX, 10) that had occurred after the Battle of Salamis in B.C. 480 September 20.  Hind and Lynn indicated the best candidate was the annular solar eclipse (94% coverage) of B.C. 478 February 17 because it had been visible in the morning over Sardis.