Leonid Zhmud The Origin of the History of Science in Classical Antiquity

Exact Sciences, p. 142–43 if you want to bury it.”); Longrigg, J. Thales, DSB
13 (1976) 295f.; Mosshammer, A. Thales’ eclipse,
TAPA 111 (1981) 145–155;
Bowen, A., Goldstein, B. Meton of Athens and astronomy in the late 5
th
century
B.C.,
A scientific humanist: Studies in memory of A. Sachs, ed. by E. Leichty et al.,
Philadelphia 1988, 40. Even those who admit that Eudemus followed an ancient
tradition are not inclined to credit it (Demandt,
op. cit., 25f.).
60
The reconstructions of Thales’ prediction founded on the hypothesis that in the
seventh century the Greeks observed solar eclipses and recorded their dates (Hartner,
W. Eclipse periods and Thales’ prediction of a solar eclipse,
Centaurus 14 [1969]
60–71; Panchenko. Thales’s prediction) are not convincing: Stephenson, F. R., Fa-
toohi, L. J. Thales’s prediction of a solar eclipse,
JHA 28 (1997) 279–282.
61
Of 61 dated solar eclipses, only 21 were visible at the latitude of Babylon, though
each of the 61 predicted dates corresponds to a real eclipse visible from the earth’s
surface: Steele, J. M. Solar eclipse times predicted by Babylonians,
JHA 28 (1997)
133–139.
62
Aaboe, A. et al., Saros cycle dates and related Babylonian astronomical texts,
TAPS
81.6 (1991) 21f.; Britton, J. P. Scientific astronomy in Pre-Seleucid Babylon,
Die

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2. Thales and Anaximander
243
of predictions of lunar eclipses by means of saros was high enough
63
and the
method was further applied to solar eclipses as well,
64
though here it could not
be equally successful. Hence, there is every reason to suppose that Thales, hav-
ing known about the 223-month period between two solar eclipses, applied this
scheme to the eclipse of May 18, 603, observed in Babylon and Middle
Egypt,
65
and thus by lucky coincidence ‘predicted’ the eclipse of May 25, 585,
which was practically full at Miletus’ latitude.
66
Though the details of this
story will forever remain unknown,
67
this explanation seems to better reconcile
the evidence of the ancient tradition with contemporary knowledge of Greek
and Babylonian astronomy of the early sixth century without assigning to
Thales any special knowledge of the causes of eclipses, which at this time no-
body possessed.
68
Interestingly, after Thales, predictions of various natural phenomena were
ascribed to many sages: Anaximander (12 A 5), Pherecydes, and Pythagoras
(7 A 1, 6) predict earthquakes, and Anaxagoras even the fall of a meteorite
(59 A 1, 11). But the ancient tradition is practically silent on further predictions
Rolle der Astronomie in den Kulturen Mesopotamiens, ed. by H. Galter, Graz 1993,
61–76; Hunger, H., Pingree, D.
Astral sciences in Mesopotamia, Leiden 1999,
181ff.; Steele, J. M. Eclipse predictions in Mesopotamia,
AHES 54 (2000) 421–454;
idem.
Observations and predictions of eclipse times by early astronomers, Dor-
drecht 2000, 75ff.
63
Steele, J. M., Stephenson, F. R. Lunar eclipses predicted by the Babylonians,
JHA 28
(1997) 119–131. Of 35 dated predictions of lunar eclipses that took place between
731 and 77 BC, 19 were accurate, 12 nearly accurate, and 4 proved erroneous.
64
See the text: Aaboe et al.,
op. cit., 25f. As Steele. Eclipse predictions, 442f., points
out, the Babylonian astronomers approached solar eclipses in the same way as they
did lunar ones, in spite of considerable differences in their frequency. He dates the
first predictions of solar eclipses to the eighth-seventh centuries (ibid., 451).
65
Ginzel,