This is a remarkable piece of information; for the Romans, an essentially military nation, appear hitherto to have troubled themselves very little about astronomical matters, and were content, as we have seen, to look upon phenomena, like eclipses, as mere celestial prodigies. What is thought to be the first definite mention of the solar corona occurs in a passage of Plutarch. The eclipse to which he refers is probably one which took place in A.D. 71. He says that the obscuration caused by the moon "has no time to last and no extensiveness, but some light shows itself round the sun's circumference, which does not allow the darkness to become deep and complete." No further reference to this phenomenon occurs until near the end of the sixteenth century. It should, however, be here mentioned that Mr. E.W. Maunder has pointed out the probability[6] that we have a very ancient symbolic representation of the corona in the "winged circle," "winged disc," or "ring with wings," as it is variously called, which appears so often upon Assyrian and Egyptian monuments, as the symbol of the Deity (Fig. 7). [Illustration: FIG. 7.--The "Ring with Wings." The upper is the Assyrian form of the symbol, the lower the Egyptian. (From _Knowledge_.) Compare the form of the corona on Plate VII. (B), p. 142.] The first solar eclipse recorded to have been seen in England is that of A.D. 538, mention of which is found in the _Anglo-Saxon Chronicle_. The track of totality did not, however, come near our islands, for only two-thirds of the sun's disc were eclipsed at London. In 840 a great eclipse took place in Europe, which was total for more than five minutes across what is now Bavaria. Terror at this eclipse is said to have hastened the death of Louis le Debonnaire, Emperor of the West, who lay ill at Worms. In 878--_temp._ King Alfred--an eclipse of the sun took place which was total at London. From this until 1715 no other eclipse was total at London itself; though this does not apply to other portions of England. An eclipse, generally known as the "Eclipse of Stiklastad," is said to have taken place in 1030, during the sea-fight in which Olaf of Norway is supposed to have been slain. Longfellow, in his _Saga of King Olaf_, has it that "The Sun hung red As a drop of blood," but, as in the case of most poets, the dramatic value of an eclipse seems to have escaped his notice. In the year 1140 there occurred a total eclipse of the sun, the last to be visible in England for more than five centuries. Indeed there have been only two such since--namely, those of 1715 and 1724, to which we shall allude in due course. The eclipse of 1140 took place on the 20th March, and is thus referred to in the _Anglo-Saxon Chronicle_:-- "In the Lent, the sun and the day darkened, about the noon-tide of the day, when men were eating, and they lighted candles to eat by. That was the 13th day before the calends of April. Men were very much struck with wonder."