Talk:Eclipse of Thales

Section
the alleged possibility that the Halys has changed its course is without basis. "to meander" doesn't mean "to change course", it just means "having many turns". Whether rivers do that, or whether they change their course, depends on the local topography. What we are looking at is a river flowing through highlands. The "Halys bend" is a major landmark of Hittite geography, and nothing I've ever heard suggests that it has ever changed its course in any significant way, certainly not sufficient to matter on the scale required here. dab (&#5839;) 07:10, 5 May 2006 (UTC)

We are told that the exact date of this battle is known. But is the date given according to the proleptic Julian Calendar, the proleptic Gregorian calendar, or what? PatGallacher 16:19, 24 June 2007 (UTC)

about the eclipse
Does noone else feel that the text in the section on the eclipse: "According to NASA, the eclipse peaked over the Atlantic Ocean at 37.9° N 46.2° W and the umbral path reached south-western Anatolia in the evening hours, and the Halys River is just within the error margin for delta-T provided." is gobbledegook? can someone who knows what delta-T is perhaps make it more accessible to people reading an ancient history article.--5telios 22:52, 19 August 2007 (UTC)

Article name with date?
Is there a reason for the name of the article to contain the date (i.e. is there any other Battle of Halys)? I don't think this is the usual naming protocal, so I'd like to propose renaming it without the date. Twofistedcoffeedrinker (talk) 18:02, 23 July 2008 (UTC)


 * Oh, so there is - one in 430 AD. Disregard the above proposal :) Twofistedcoffeedrinker (talk) 18:10, 23 July 2008 (UTC)


 * Actually there is no Battle of Halys (430 AD). The Battle of Halys (430) that comes up from a Google search contains snippets of another page that has been deleted now. The deleted page can be found on the Internet archive Wayback Machine, the links on the bottom of that page show that the text is the summary of a DBM war game set in ancient times. It is purely fictional. --İnfoCan (talk) 15:57, 8 August 2010 (UTC)

Date discrepancy?
The year mentioned in this article conflits with the year given in the NASA's picture (584 BC). —Preceding unsigned comment added by 115.187.16.1 (talk) 14:29, 6 August 2009 (UTC)


 * Actually NASA's picture says 28May -584. Astronomers do not like BC and AD so they use a system in which 1BC becomes the year zero. This leaves all the AD dates equal to the astronomical dates but the BC dates are not the same as the minus dates. So, -1 = 2BC and -584 = 585BC(E). This accounts for that discrepancy. --İnfoCan (talk) 14:03, 9 August 2010 (UTC)

Earliest dated event in history?
I've read that the battle was the earliest event in history for which there is a precise date; if that's actually the case it would seem worth mentioning. Apepper (talk) 09:36, 22 August 2009 (UTC)


 * This is actually debatable. An article listed in the References (Thomas D. Worthen, "Herodotus's Report on Thales's Eclipse," Electronic Antiquity vol. 3.7 (May 1997), ) suggests that Herodotos was recounting carelessly events that he did not witness personally and furthermore the solar eclipse story is a misinterpretation of his text. According to that article, it is quite possible what happened was a lunar eclipse that happened right before moonrise, at dusk.  If the warriors had planned their battle activities expecting a full moon as in the previous few days, it would have been quite a shock to have dusk fall suddenly as an occluded moon rose. If this theory is correct, the battle's date would be not 585 BC (date given by Pliny based on date of solar eclipse), but possibly 3 Sept 609 BC or 4 July 587 BC, dates when such dusk-time lunar eclipses did occur. --İnfoCan (talk) 17:27, 8 August 2010 (UTC)

(name) River
I'm probably spitting in the wind on this one, but "(name) River" seems to me an American pleonasm. We colonials are accustomed to rivers named after someone or something else, like Henry Hudson or the Arkansas tribe, but in the Old World a river's name generally belongs to it solely (or primarily); so I imagine that a phrase like "Halys River" is as absurd to Old World ears as "Cuba Island" or "Artemis Goddess". (The usual construction in England, when disambiguation is needed, seems to be "the river Thames".) —Tamfang (talk) 18:47, 31 May 2011 (UTC)


 * And "Kızılırmak River" is worse: kızıl means 'red', ırmak means 'river'. —Tamfang (talk) 06:33, 10 March 2014 (UTC)

Requested move

 * The following discussion is an archived discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review. No further edits should be made to this section. 

The result of the move request was: moved to Eclipse of Thales. Somebody should rewrite the lead to match the new title. Favonian (talk) 20:12, 3 March 2014 (UTC)

Battle of Halys → Battle of the Halys – All the pages in Wikipedia about battle names involving a river are named with the format: Battle of the (river), not just Battle of (river). Examples include Battle of the Somme, Battle of the Nile, Battle of the Scheldt, Battle of the Dnieper, etc. This should be the case here too. Relisted. Favonian (talk) 17:45, 24 February 2014 (UTC). King Philip V of Spain (talk) 18:23, 16 February 2014 (UTC)
 * Support Red Slash 21:50, 16 February 2014 (UTC)
 * Strong oppose both! Support Eclipse of Thales instead.  Wow, looks like Wikipedia just made this term up entirely.  Checking both Herodotus & modern sources, none of them call it either "Battle of Halys" or "Battle of the Halys."  Which isn't surprising, as Herodotus does not claim the battle took place there!  He says earlier that the Halys River was the border of the territory between the Medes and Lydians, and then he later mentions Croesus attacking the Persians noticeably afterward (e.g. after a truce and an oracle) via crossing the Halys, but it is no where stated that the Halys River was where the fight was.  That wouldn't matter if that's what modern historians called it, but there doesn't seem to be much evidence of that either - this modern source says it's a wild guess since it was on the border "As seen from the region of the Halys river (assumed site of the battle)", and certainly doesn't call it "Battle of Halys."  In any case, since there's basically no details on the battle anyway and it's not particularly interesting, I suggest Eclipse of Thales instead, as that's the interesting thing.  I see there are lots of papers discussing did Thales really predict the eclipse, how did he predict it if so, etc., which is a much more fruitful area for investigation than a battle which we possess absolutely no details on!
 * For the curious, here's what Heroduts has to say: "another combat took place in the sixth year, in the course of which, just as the battle was growing warm, day was on a sudden changed into night. This event had been foretold by Thales, the Milesian, who forewarned the Ionians of it, fixing for it the very year in which it actually took place. The Medes and Lydians, when they observed the change, ceased fighting, and were alike anxious to have terms of peace agreed on." http://classics.mit.edu/Herodotus/history.mb.txt  SnowFire (talk) 00:28, 19 February 2014 (UTC)

I did a few Google Books searches:
 * Support as improvement per Tucker - 2009 A Global Chronology of Conflict Page 197 "Battle of the Halys". Battle on the Halys would also be an improvement, and in any case should redirect. Muhammad A. Dandamaev, ‎Vladimir G. Lukonin The Culture and Social Institutions of Ancient Iran- 2004 - Page 61  "A solar eclipse, which was interpreted by both belligerents as a bad omen, occurred on May 29, 585 B.C. during the battle on the Halys...". The "battle of the eclipse" seems to be common enough in Victorian sources, but may present confusion. That's for another RM, not a reason to oppose this one. No objection to Eclipse of Thales either. In ictu oculi (talk) 23:03, 24 February 2014 (UTC)
 * Support Eclipse of Thales, since the eclipse seems to be the remarkable event, in both the original source and the Wikipedia article as it is currently written. Xoloz (talk) 03:19, 25 February 2014 (UTC)
 * Rename to Eclipse of Thales, per WP:COMMONNAME.
 * "Eclipse of Thales" 31,700 hits
 * "Battle of the Halys" 1,730 hits
 * "Battle of Halys" 88 hits
 * -- Brown HairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 20:06, 3 March 2014 (UTC)
 * The above discussion is preserved as an archive of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page or in a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.

Was it a "truce" or a "peace settlement"?
The article says that, after the eclipse, a truce was reached. But it also says that the son of one leader would marry the daughter of the other, and they agreed on a border. This sounds more like a peace settlement than a truce. A truce is an often temporary end to hostilities to make room for a diplomatic resolution to the conflict. A peace settlement is an actual resolution. —MiguelMunoz (talk) 19:47, 11 September 2014 (UTC)

External links modified (January 2018)
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Latin Name Spelling and other Latin language usage
Herodutus's...?? plurality could be used differently. 'Herodities'? of course English is the dominant language and seems more eloquent on linguistics. Herrodies maybe, Herrotties, Herodotenes, and it is purely Latin combined in English grammar and text but seen too often in writing and without combined format to fit the content of the writing. The first spelling sounds like Herodituss-ess, maybe different vocabulary. Herroditusses could be a spelling. A sermon. No, not exactly, American English and pronunciation and frowned upon by European scholars since America became America. Also the cause and effect of misspelling until approved by the big shot. Frankly I hope we can quit worrying about them, he, she alike. America ='s; Country of many languages. 2600:1700:EEA0:4F10:74DB:DC40:AD35:A806 (talk) 14:44, 28 May 2022 (UTC)

Herodotus: eclipse
232 A.U.C. is a more significant historical description than using the term "585 B.C." 67.42.230.251 (talk) 01:31, 28 May 2024 (UTC)