Can there be anything more awe-inspiring to the superstitious than the stealthy approach of a comet as it wends its way among the stars, finally blazing out with a marvelous train as it draws near to the sun to pay homage? As a distant relative of that luminary, it comes for an occasional visit from far-off realms, and after a brief display during which it adorns itself with a splendor befitting the momentous occasion, it withdraws into the obscurity from which it emerged. In these enlightened days a comet is greeted with enthusiasm, and the camera keeps a faithful record of its varying appearance, but in olden times it was regarded as a portent of evil. Comets have sometimes been pictured as dragons, and according to Pliny the shape of a comet indicated its character as a portent. Thus, some were shown as arrow heads, sea monsters, swords, lances, and flames. In A.D. 69, according to Josephus, several signs appeared in the sky announcing the destruction of Jerusalem. “Amongst other warnings, a comet, one of the kind called Xiphias, because their tails appear to represent the blade of a sword, was seen above the city for the space of a whole year.” Regarding the comet of A.D. 79, it is said to have preceded the death of the Roman Emperor Vespasian. When the physicians reproved the emperor for continuing to live as usual, attending to the business of the state, although attacked by a serious malady, he replied, “It is fitting that an emperor should die standing.” Then perceiving some courtiers who were conversing together in a low tone of voice about the comet, gazing significantly in his direction meanwhile, he remarked: “This hairy star does not concern me; it menaces rather the King of the Parthians, for he is hairy and I am bald.” Feeling his end approach, he observed, “I think that I am becoming a god.” Virgil compares a hero in his shining armor to a comet, and makes another allusion to these objects at the end of the first Georgic (Bk. I, 487–488) in the couplet thus rendered by the Rev. Canon Newbolt: “At no other time did more thunderbolts fall in a clear sky, nor so often did dread comets blaze.” In the natural history of Pliny we find several passages relating to the significance attached to comets by the ancients. For instance, when referring to the comet of 48 B.C., he observes: “We have in the war between Cæsar and Pompey an example of the terrible effects which follow the apparition of a comet.... That fearful star, which overthrows the powers of the earth, showed its terrible locks.” The superstitious dread in which comets were held in the Middle Ages is exemplified in the gloomy forebodings of disaster, such as wars, pestilence, and the death of kings, when these apparitions were seen in the heavens. Well known is Shakespeare’s allusion to comets in Act II, Sc. 2 of “Julius Cæsar”: