to be in some way due to the moon intercepting its light:
but what body could intercept the moon's light, so that suddenly the
full moon should pale its light and alter its colour, they could not
explain, but thought that it was a sinister omen and portended some
great calamity.

The treatise of Anaxagoras, the first writer who has clearly and
boldly explained the phases and eclipses of the moon, was then known
only to a few, and had not the credit of antiquity, while even those
who understood it were afraid to mention it to their most trusted
friends. Men at that time could not endure natural philosophers and
those whom they called in derision stargazers, but accused them of
degrading the movements of the heavenly bodies by attributing them to
necessary physical causes. They drove Protagoras into exile, and cast
Anaxagoras into prison, from whence he was with difficulty rescued by
Perikles; while Sokrates, who never took any part in these
speculations, was nevertheless put to death because he was a
philosopher. It was not until after the period of which I am writing
that the glorious works of Plato shed their light upon mankind,
proving that Nature obeys a higher and divine law, and removing the
reproach of impiety which used to attach to those who study these
matters, so that all men might thereafter investigate natural
phenomena unreproved. Indeed, Plato's companion Dion, although the
moon was eclipsed when he was starting from the island of Zakynthus to
attack the despot Dionysius, was not in the least disturbed by the
omen, but sailed to Syracuse and drove out the despot. Nikias at this
time was without a competent soothsayer, for his intimate friend,
Stilbides, who used to check a great deal of his superstition, died
shortly before this. Indeed, the omen, if rightly explained, as
Philochorus points out, is not a bad one but a very good one for men
who are meditating a retreat; for what men are forced to do by fear,
requires darkness to conceal it, and light is inimical to them.
Moreover men were only wont to wait three days after an eclipse of the
moon, or of the sun, as we learn from Autokleides in his book on
divination; but Nikias persuaded them to wait for another complete
circuit of the moon, because its face would not shine upon them
propitiously before that time after its defilement with the gross
earthy particles which had intercepted its rays.[3] XXIV. Nikias now
put all business aside, and kept offering