Myths and Marvels of Astronomy
the new rather than the great. The same is true of comets. When one of
these fiery bodies of unusual form appears, every one is eager to know
what it means; men forget other objects to inquire about the new
arrival; they know not whether to wonder or to tremble; for many spread
fear on all sides, drawing from the phenomenon most grave prognostics.'
There is no direct reference to comets in the Bible, either in the Old
Testament or the New. It is possible that some of the signs from heaven
recorded in the Bible pages were either comets or meteors, and that even
where in some places an angel or messenger from God is said to have
appeared and delivered a message, what really happened was that some
remarkable phenomenon in the heavens was interpreted in a particular
manner by the priests, and the interpretation afterwards described as
the message of an angel. The image of the 'flaming sword which turned
every way' may have been derived from a comet; but we can form no safe
conclusion about this, any more than we can upon the question whether
the 'horror of great darkness' which fell upon Abraham (Genesis xv. 12)
when the sun was going down, was caused by an eclipse;[38] or whether
the going back of the shadow upon the dial of Ahaz was caused by a mock
sun. The star seen by the wise men from the east may have been a comet,
since the word translated 'star' signifies any bright object seen in the
heavens, and is in fact the same word which Homer, in a passage
frequently referred to, uses to signify either a comet or a meteor. The
way in which it appeared to go before them, when (directed by Herod, be
it noticed) they went to Bethlehem, almost due south of Jerusalem, would
correspond to a meridian culmination low down--for the star had
manifestly not been visible in the earlier evening, since we are told
that they rejoiced when they saw the star again. It was probably a comet
travelling southwards; and, as the wise men had travelled from the east,
it had very likely been first seen in the west as an evening star,
wherefore its course was retrograde--that is, supposing it _was_ a
comet.[39] It may possibly have been an apparition of Halley's comet,
following a course somewhat similar to that which it followed in the
year 1835, when the perihelion passage was made on November 15, and the
comet running southwards disappeared from northern astronomers, though
in January it was '_received_' by Sir J. Herschel, to use his own
expression, 'in the southern hemisphere.' There was an apparition of
Halley's comet in the year 66, or seventy years after the Nativity; and
the period of the comet varies, according to the perturbing influences
affecting the comet's motion, from sixty-nine to eighty years.
Homer does not, to the best of my recollection, refer anywhere directly
to comets. Pope, indeed, who made very free with Homer's references to
the heavenly bodies,[40] introduces a comet--and a red one, too!--into
the simile of the heavenly portent in Book IV.:--
As the red comet from Saturnius sent
To fright the nations with a dire portent
(A fatal sign to armies in the plain,
Or trembling sailors on the wintry main),
With sweeping glories glides along in air,
And shakes the sparkles from its blazing hair:
Between two armies thus, in open sight,
Shot the bright goddess in a trail of light.
But Homer says nothing of this comet. If Homer had introduced a comet,
we may be sure it would not have shaken sparkles from its blazing tail.
Homer said simply that 'Pallas rushed from the peaks of heaven, like the
bright star sent by the son of crafty-counselled Kronus (as a sign
either to sailors, or the broad array of the nations), from which many
sparks proceed.' Strangely enough, Pingre and Lalande, the former noted
for his researches into ancient comets, the latter a skilful astronomer,
agree in considering that Homer really referred to a comet, and they
even regard this comet as an apparition of the comet of 1680. They cite
in support of this opinion the portent which followed the prayer of
Anchises, 'AEneid,' Book II. 692, etc.: 'Scarce had the old man ceased
from praying, when a peal of thunder was heard on the left, and a star,
gliding from the heavens amid the darkness, rushed through space
followed by a long train of light; we saw the star,' says AEneas,
'suspended for a moment above the roof, brighten our home with its
fires, then, tracing out a brilliant course, disappear in the forests of
Ida; then a long train of flame illuminated us, and the place around
reeked with the smell of sulphur. Overcome by these startling portents,
my father arose, invoked the gods, and worshipped the holy star.' It is
impossible to recognise here the description of a comet. The noise, the
trail of light, the visible motion, the smell of sulphur, all correspond
with the fall of a meteorite close by; and doubtless Virgil simply
introduced into the narrative the circumstances of some such phenomenon
which had been witnessed in his own time. To base on such a point the
theory that the comet of 1680 was visible at the time of the fall of
Troy, the date of which is unknown, is venturesome in the extreme. True,
the period calculated for the comet of 1680, when Pingre and Lalande
agreed in this unhappy guess, was 575 years; and if we multiply this
period by five we obtain 2875 years, taking 1680 from which leaves 1195
years B.C., near enough to the supposed date of the capture of Troy.
Unfortunately, Encke (the eminent astronomer to whom we owe that
determination of the sun's distance which for nearly half a century held
its place in our books, but has within the last twenty years been
replaced by a distance three millions of miles less) went over afresh
the calculations of the motions of that famous comet, and found that,
instead of 575 years, the most probable period is about 8814 years. The
difference amounts only to 8239 years; but even this small difference
rather impairs the theory of Lalande and Pingre.[41]
Three hundred and seventy-one years before the Christian era, a comet
appeared which Aristotle (who was a boy at the time) has described.
Diodorus Siculus writes thus respecting it: 'In the first year of the
102d Olympiad, Alcisthenes being Archon of Athens, several prodigies
announced the approaching humiliation of the Lacedaemonians; a blazing
torch of extraordinary size, which was compared to a flaming beam, was
seen during several nights.' Guillemin, from whose interesting work on
Comets I have translated the above passage, remarks that this same comet
was regarded by the ancients as having not merely presaged but produced
the earthquakes which caused the towns of Helice and Bura to be
submerged. This was clearly in the thoughts of Seneca when he said of
this comet that as soon as it appeared it brought about the submergence
of Bura and Helice.
In those times, however, comets were not regarded solely as signs of
disaster. As the misfortunes of one nation were commonly held to be of
advantage to other nations, so the same comet might be regarded very
differently by different nations or different rulers. Thus the comet of
the year 344 B.C. was regarded by Timoleon of Corinth as presaging the
success of his expedition against Corinth. 'The gods announced,' said
Diodorus Siculus, 'by a remarkable portent, his success and future
greatness; a blazing torch appeared in the heavens at night, and went
before the fleet of Timoleon until he arrived in Sicily.' The comets of
the years 134 B.C. and 118 B.C. were not regarded as portents of death,
but as signalising, the former the birth, the latter the accession, of
Mithridates. The comet of 43 B.C. was held by some to be the soul of
Julius Caesar on its way to the abode of the gods. Bodin, a French lawyer
of the sixteenth century, regarded this as the usual significance of
comets. He was, indeed, sufficiently modest to attribute the opinion to
Democritus, but the whole credit of the discovery belonged to himself.
He maintained that comets only indicate approaching misfortunes because
they are the spirits or souls of illustrious men, who for many years
have acted the part of guardian angels, and, being at last ready to die,
celebrate their last triumph by voyaging to the firmament as flaming
stars. 'Naturally,' he says, 'the appearance of a comet is followed by
plague, pestilence, and civil war; for the nations are deprived of the
guidance of their worthy rulers, who, while they were alive, gave all
their efforts to prevent intestine disorders.' Pingre comments justly on
this, saying that 'it must be classed among base and shameful
flatteries, not among philosophic opinions.'
Usually, however, it must be admitted that the ancients, like the men of
the Middle Ages, regarded comets as harbingers of evil. 'A fearful star
is the comet,' says Pliny, 'and not easily appeased, as appeared in the
late civil troubles when Octavius was consul; a second time by the
intestine war of Pompey and Caesar; and, in our own time, when, Claudius
Caesar having been poisoned, the empire was left to Domitian, in whose
reign there appeared a blazing comet.' Lucan tells us of the second
event here referred to, that during the war 'the darkest nights were lit
up by unknown stars' (a rather singular way of saying that there were no
dark nights); 'the heavens appeared on fire, flaming torches traversed
in all directions the depths of space; a comet, that fearful star which
overthrows the powers of the earth, showed its horrid hair.' Seneca also
expressed the opinion that some comets portend mischief: 'Some comets,'
he said, 'are very cruel and portend the worst misfortunes; they bring
with them and leave behind them the seeds of blood and slaughter.'
It was held, indeed, by many in those times a subject for reproach that
some were too hard of heart to believe when these signs were sent. It
was a point of religious faith that 'God worketh' these 'signs and
wonders in heaven.' When troubles were about to befall men, 'nation
rising against nation, and kingdom against kingdom, with great
earthquakes in divers places, and famines, and pestilences, and fearful
sights,' then 'great signs shall there be from heaven.' Says Josephus,
commenting on the obstinacy of the Jews in such matters, 'when they were
at any time premonished from the lips of truth itself, by prodigies and
other premonitory signs of their approaching ruin, they had neither eyes
nor ears nor understanding to make a right use of them, but passed them
over without heeding or so much as thinking of them; as, for example,
what shall we say of the comet in the form of a sword that hung over
Jerusalem for a whole year together?' This was probably the comet
described by Dion Cassius (_Hist. Roman._ lxv. 8) as having been visible
between the months of April and December in the year 69 A.D. This or the
comet of 66 A.D. might have been Halley's comet. The account of Josephus
as to the time during which it was visible would not apply to Halley's,
or, indeed, to any known comet whatever; doubtless he exaggerated. He
says: 'The comet was of the kind called _Xiphias_, because their tail
resembles the blade of a sword,' and this would apply fairly well to
Halley's comet as seen in 1682, 1759, and 1835; though it is to be
remembered that comets vary very much even at successive apparitions,
and it would be quite unsafe to judge from the appearance of a comet
seen eighteen centuries ago that it either was or was not the same as
some comet now known to be periodic.
The comet of 79 A.D. is interesting as having given rise to a happy
retort from Vespasian, whose death the comet was held to portend. Seeing
some of his courtiers whispering about the comet, 'That hairy star,' he
said, 'does not portend evil to me. It menaces rather the king of the