ment with Polybius and Cicero, and in spite of its inconsistency with Livy's own statement that the battle was after the end of the solstice.[1] They have also seized upon the dates in Livy as evidence of the error in the Roman calendar, and that calendar has been reconstructed on the assumption that September 3 of the calendar of that time was identical with June 21 of the Julian calendar which we use for astronomical dates. I fear that this reconstruction must share the fate of the story on which it is based.
I am sorry to end my survey of historical eclipses by rejecting so romantic a story. But it is not all loss. Injury has been done both to astronomy and to history by a too eager enthusiasm on the part of votaries of either science to obtain exact and reliable data from the other, and the unsatisfactory character of the results thus obtained has given rise among some students of each science to an excessive scepticism of results obtained from the other. Our true path is the via media. We must weigh our evidence with caution. Most of the results achieved are of solid value and where they can be confirmed by other evidence they are of great weight. Each science has need of the other, but neither has a right to force from the other more than it is able to give.
Supplementary Note.
Since the note on p. 26 was written I have learned from Dr. Fellowes that he had carefully determined in advance the places where stars might be expected. He found Vega with field glasses, but the other stars were picked up with the naked eye. In The Journal of the British Astronomical Association, xxxi (1921), 308, 309, Mr. H. J. Pleydell, of the Caterham Valley Council School (maximum phase 10·54 digits) reports the observation of Venus and two other stars which he unhesitatingly identifies as Vega and Altair. He states that he had difficulty in pointing them out to other observers. This is the smallest phase at which any star other than Venus was reported.
- ↑ Unger is an honourable exception. See his paper 'Die römischen Quellen des Livius in der vierten und fünften Dekade', Philologus, Suppl.-Bd. iii (1878), 201-6.
