I mean there was an eclipse that year and it was during Campaign season so I chalk this up to being another(common) Herodotus W.

@wednesdaynightbusiness6296

Ай бұрын

Herodotus is constantly scoring dubs over modern nerd academics 😂

@raptor4916

Ай бұрын

@@wednesdaynightbusiness6296 I wouldnt go that far, he makes a complete hash of Egyptian history for example and he does get less accurate the farther away from Greece and the Mediterranean you get but in general I believe he's more accurate, and often in surprising ways, than modern historians give him credit for

@zaco-km3su

Ай бұрын

Not in that area.

@raptor4916

Ай бұрын

@@zaco-km3su Yes the eclipse track reaches well into Anatolia

@gomahklawm4446

27 күн бұрын

He's a well known liar. "Father of lies"....I don't trust ANYTHING from him.

Livy 44.37 has a great account of a lunar eclipse before the battle of Pydna. A centurion calmly explains to the Roman legions that it was predicted and expected; when it occurred Livy uses the usual language about howling in chaos in the Macedonian camp. The next day the Romans smash the Macedonian line and defeat Perseus.

This is all wrong. Where is Griffith and Guts?

Another cool topic. Love how this channel always covers little topics that reveal a lot about ancient worldviews and historiographical practice

Related to this is the question of whether the war between the Lydians and the Medes even happened on the Halys. The size of the Median kingdom has been recently reconsidered and it now appears that it was smaller than what the Classical sources suggested. At the same time, the notion that the Halys was the boundary between the Lydian and Median empires is also now in doubt so that it's possible that Lydia might have extended further to the east until the former western boundary of Urartu in the region of the Euphrates.

I don't understand. Why don't we just calculate back to see if there was an eclipse and where it would be most visible?

@jbb4105

Ай бұрын

Yea bro jus do that

@elite1003

Ай бұрын

​@@jbb4105well I'm not saying I can but that's like a pretty simple thing to do in physics.

@twonumber22

Ай бұрын

My understanding is that it was. It went over western Anatolia.

@rianfelis3156

Ай бұрын

It's been done, and the answer is that in the area where it would have been visible that there might have been a battle, it would have been very unimpressive happening right before sunset. Further west, on the Greek islands, it would have been more noticeable, so it's entirely possible that Herodotus just mashed the two stories together to end up with this.

@TheFallofRome

Ай бұрын

We have. There was one in 584, which is not 585, when the battle allegedly took place. There *may* have been one in 585 but as far as I am aware no one thinks it would have been visible in Anatolia

Another interesting one is the lunar eclipse of 331 just before the battle of Gaugamela 😉 it feels a bit special to myself as I research Alexander quite extensively and that lunar eclipse was on my birthday and the battle on my son’s birthday 😅

Seems a little strange to me that historians have agreed that this story isn't real.... because we have a reference to it? Sure, just because Herodotus said it happened doesn't automatically mean it did. But it's surely just as foolish to say that because only Herodotus said it, it didn't happen?

@CatholicDragoon

Ай бұрын

Seems like a lot of academics have developed quite a bit of Herodotus hate. Every time I hear discussion of some part of Herodotus' accounts there's a lot of jumping to 'he made it up' 'he's a fraud' instead of a hard analyst of the possibilities. It's almost as if to these historians if Herodotus said it then it must be false.

@TheSilentPrince-mt5mx

Ай бұрын

@@CatholicDragoon Academics prefer multiple sources to corroborate evidence. With this event there is no other source for the date of a battle, the location of a battle, the events occurring in said battle, or the prophecy Herodotus refers to. It's very important to remember that ancient historians did not write with the idea they were accurately recording the events they described. Instead they framed what they had learned as a reflection of the society of their time. Finally we _know_ that Herodotus could be rather imaginative when recounting past events. It is only right that modern scholars treat Herodotus with considerable scepticism.

@peterzavon3012

Ай бұрын

@@TheSilentPrince-mt5mx Skepticism (a good thing) is substantially different from outright rejection, which is what seems to be being described in this piece.

@TheSilentPrince-mt5mx

Ай бұрын

@@peterzavon3012 I didn't get that impression. What I got was 'There is no other evidence for this happening, and Herodotus is not a reliable source, therefore we should treat this with extreme scepticism'. From my own perspective he was writing 160+ years after the event using oral sources that could easily have been embellished after the event. So even if Herodotus transcribed what he heard faithfully it should still be treated with extreme scepticism. Incidentally I butted heads with a few people regarding a battle that was supposed to have happened in a sleepy English village in 1643. The local model shop has some wonderfully painted figures illustrating the great battle but there is only one source that matches. With no other evidence, few finds that support the claim of a large-scale engagement, and alternative sources that offer a very different picture, it's indicative of the perils of taking a single source at face value. Especially one that has shown itself prone to exaggerate and even fabricate facts on other occasions. As with the _Perfect Diurnal_ so with Herodotus. 😎

@gomahklawm4446

27 күн бұрын

Because he's a known liar. He has the moniker of "father of lies" for a reason. He's ancient CNN.....lol.

Could there have been a volcanic eruption the effect of which blackened the sky?

@alecity4877

Ай бұрын

or something as simple as a very dense storm cloud could also obscure the sky significantly.

I will always be rooting for the Lydians. Too bad Solon had other ideas...

is this the same as the 2 greek cities that stopped the war/battle over the eclipse? i saw aa theory that it was on another year this eclipse happened.

if herodotus said it, be wary.

I just saw that

It did happen, I was there

Eclipse wasn't so useless after all...

@Kneecap22

Ай бұрын

well it was used to validate general relativity.

@SkyFly19853

Ай бұрын

@@Kneecap22 oh... I see...

Why Herodotus always laying ???

@gabrielalejandrodoldan4722

Ай бұрын

idk..

@jbb4105

Ай бұрын

MMMM OH MY GOD

@robertsanders7060

Ай бұрын

His recipe for how to make a mummy was pretty much accurate...

@flamencoprof

Ай бұрын

Apparently he slept every night.

@gomahklawm4446

27 күн бұрын

Typical westerner as far as I'm concerned. I can't believe how dishonest people have become in the west.

People forget we were one nation bread to be warriors. ATLANTIS fell. All men became a people with out kings.

@scottabc72

Ай бұрын

So Atlantis fell because of bread but its all ok because we dont have kings?