es and his fleet to have been in it, yet we
know for a certainty that he was in it in that year, and no other year.
Conversely, if 603 B.C. were accepted for the Thales eclipse, then to
raise northwards the position of the shadow in that year from the line
of the Red Sea and the Persian Gulf, that it might pass through Asia
Minor, would so raise the position of the shadow in 310 B.C. as to throw
it far too much to the N. of Sicily for Agathocles, who we know must
have gone southwards to Africa, to have entered it. But if we assume 585
B.C. as the date of the eclipse of Thales, we obtain a perfect
reconciliation of everything that needs to be reconciled; the shadow of
the eclipse of 585 B.C. will be found to have passed where ancient
history tells us it did pass--namely, through Ionia, and therefore
through the centre of Asia Minor, and on the direct route from Lydia to
Media; whilst we also find that the shadow of the 310 B.C. eclipse, that
is the one in the time of Agathocles, passed within 100 miles of
Syracuse, a fact which is stated almost in those very words by the two
historians who have recorded the doings of Agathocles and his fleet in
those years.

This is where the matter was left by Airy in 1853. Four years later the
new solar and lunar tables of the German astronomer Hansen were
published, and having been applied to the eclipse of 585 B.C., the
conclusions just stated were amply confirmed. As if to make assurance
doubly sure, Airy went over his ground again, testing his former
conclusions with regard to the eclipse of Thales by the eclipse of
Larissa, in 557 B.C. already referred to, and bringing in the eclipse
of Stiklastad in 1030 A.D., to be referred to presently. And as the
final result, it may be stated that all the foregoing dates are now
known to an absolute certainty, especially confirmed as they were in all
essential points by a computer of the eminence of the late Mr. J. R.
Hind.

On a date which corresponds to February 11, 218 or 217 B.C., an eclipse
of the Sun, which was partial in Italy, is mentioned by Livy.[56]
Newcomb found that the central line passed a long way from Italy, to
wit, "far down in Africa."

An eclipse of the Sun is mentioned by Dion Cassius[57] as having
happened when Caesar crossed the Rubicon, a celebrated event made use of
by speakers, political and otherwise, on endless occasions in modern
history. There seems no doubt that the passage of the Rubicon took place
in 51 B.