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 total at Thasos, but not at Paros. So we may assume that Archilochus was at Thasos in B.C. 648.

Eclipse of Thales.

I come now to the most famous eclipse of antiquity, the eclipse predicted by Thales of Miletus. The narrative in Herodotus —I use Dr. Godley's translation—runs as follows:

'There was war between the Lydians and the Medes for five years; each won many victories over the other, and once they fought a battle by night. They were still warring with equal success, when it chanced, at an encounter which happened in the sixth year, that during the battle the day was turned to night. Thales of Miletus had foretold this loss of daylight to the Ionians, fixing it within the year in which the change did indeed happen. So when the Lydians and Medes saw the day turned to night they ceased from fighting, and both were the more zealous to make peace. Those who reconciled them were Syennesis the Cilician and Labynetus the Babylonian.'

Labynetus is of course Nebuchadrezzar, whose army had destroyed Jerusalem in the preceding year.