No less than eight different dates have been assigned by different chronologists for this eclipse,—the most ancient 625 B. C., the most recent 583 B. C. Volney is for 625 B. C.; Larcher for 597 B. C.; Des Vignoles for 585 B. C.; Mr. Clinton for 603 B. C. Volney observes, with justice, that the eclipse on this occasion “n’est pas l’accessoire, la broderie du fait, mais le _fait principal_ lui-même,” (p. 347:) the astronomical calculations concerning the eclipse are, therefore, by far the most important items in the chronological reckoning of this event. Now in regard to the eclipse of 625 B. C., Volney is obliged to admit that it does not suit the case; for it would be visible only at half-past five in the morning on February 3, and the sun would hardly be risen at that hour in the latitude of Media and Lydia (p. 343). He seeks to escape from this difficulty by saying that the data for the calculation, according to the astronomer Pingré, are not quite accurate for these early eclipses; but after all, if there be error, it may just as well be in one direction as in another, _i. e._ the true hour at which the eclipse would be visible for those latitudes is as likely to have been _earlier_ than half-past five A. M. as to have been later, which would put this eclipse still more out of the question. The chronology of that period presents difficulties which our means of knowledge hardly enable us to clear up. Volney remarks, and the language of Herodotus is with him, that not merely the war between Kyaxarês and Alyattês (which lasted five years, and was terminated by the eclipse), but also the conquest made by Kyaxarês of the territory up to the river Halys, took place anterior (Herodot. i, 103: compare i, 16) to the _first siege_ of Nineveh by Kyaxarês,—that siege which he was forced to raise by the inroad of the Scythians. This constitutes a strong presumption in favor of Volney’s date for the eclipse (625 B. C.) if astronomical considerations would admit of it, which they will not. Mr. Clinton, on the other hand, puts the first siege of Nineveh in the very first year of the reign of Kyaxarês, which is not to be reconciled with the language of Herodotus. In placing the eclipse, therefore, in 603 B. C., we depart from the relative arrangement of events which Herodotus conceived, in deference to astronomical reasons: and Herodotus is our only authority in regard to the general chronology.