Great comet from 373 BC
The Great Comet of 373 BC Chr. (The astronomer Heinrich Ludwig von Boguslavsky 's called the comet of Aristotle ) appeared in the winter of 373 to 372 v. Chr . at the time of Archon Asteus of Athens. Its tail stretched over a third of the sky to Orion's belt-stars . The light of the comet cast shadows like moonlight at night. Contemporaries described the comet as "streak of fire", "flaming path" and "the great torch". The historian Ephoros , an eyewitness to the event, reports that the comet broke into two parts, but Seneca has questioned this. Contemporary sources such as Callisthenes and Aristotle link the comet to the destruction of Helike and Bura by an earthquake and subsequent tsunami .
Ancient sources
- Ephoros from Kyme (eyewitness) fragment 142, obtained from Diodoros Siculus
- Seneca: Quaestiones Naturales (7.16.2–3), Seneca doubts Ephoros report on the disintegration of the comet
- Aristotle: Meteorologica chap. 1, 343b (as an approx. 12-year-old eyewitness to the comet)
- Callisthenes of Olynth (nephew and pupil of Aristotle, no eyewitness) fragment, obtained from Seneca, Naturales Quaestiones 7, 5
- Parian Chronicle (inscription carved in marble, found on the island of Paros in 1627) 72nd entry
- Diodorus Siculus: Historical Library. Book 15 chap. 50 paras. 2–3
Individual evidence
- ^ A b Frances Anne Pownall: Lessons from the Past: The Moral Use of History in Fourth-Century Prose . University of Michigan Press, 2004, ISBN 978-0-472-11327-9 , chap. 4: Ephorus's History , p. 125–126 ( chapter as PDF ).
- ↑ Julius Friedrich Wurm (see father Johann Friedrich Wurm ): Diodor's of Sicily historical library. Volume 3, Stuttgart 1838, p. 1368 ; Diodorus Siculus. Library of History (Book XV) @ uchicago.edu, accessed December 9, 2018