It is probable that many of the phantom combats which are recorded to have appeared in forms of fire in the air on the evenings preceding great battles might be traced to Auroræ, invested with distinct characteristics by the imagination of the beholders. Auroræ are said to have appeared in the shape of armies of horse and foot engaged in battle in the sky before the death of Julius Cæsar, which they were supposed to foretell. For more than a year before the siege and destruction of Jerusalem by Titus Vespasian, the Aurora was said to have been frequently visible in Palestine. Josephus, in his ‘Wars of the Jews’ (Whiston’s Translation, Book VI. chap. v. sect. 3), in referring to the signs and wonders preceding the destruction of Jerusalem, speaks of a star or comet, and that a great light shone round about the altar and the holy house, which light lasted for half an hour, and that a few days after the feast of unleavened bread a certain prodigious and incredible phenomenon appeared—“for before sunsetting chariots and troops of soldiers in their armour were seen running about among the clouds, and surrounding of cities.” (This, if an Aurora, must have been an instance of a daylight one.) We find in Book II. of Maccabees, chap. v. verses 1, 2, 3, 4 (B.C. about 176 years):— “1. About this same time Antiochus prepared his second voyage into Egypt: “2. And then it happened that through all the city, for the space almost of forty days, there were seen horsemen running in the air, in cloth of gold, and armed with lances like a band of soldiers. “3. And troops of horsemen in array, encountering and running one against another, with shaking of shields and multitude of pikes, and drawing of swords and casting of darts, and glittering of golden ornaments and harness of all sorts. “4. Wherefore every man prayed that that apparition might turn to good.” [Sidenote: Early descriptions of Auroræ.] In Aristotle’s ‘De Meteoris,’ Lib. I. c. iv. and v., the Aurora is described as an appearance resembling flame mingled with smoke, and of a purple red or blue colour. Pliny (Lib. II. c. xxvii.) speaks of a bloody appearance of the heavens which seemed like a fire descending on the earth, seen in the third year of the 107th Olympiad, and of a light seen in the nighttime equal to the brightness of the day, in the Consulship of Cæcilius and Papirius (Lib. II. c. xxxiii.), both of which may be referred to Auroræ. In the ‘Annals of Philosophy,’ vol. ix. p. 250, it is stated that the Aurora among English writers is first described by Matthew of Westminster, who relates that in A.D. 555 lances were seen in the air (“quasi species lancearum in aëre visæ sunt a septentrionali usque ad occidentem”).