An eclipse of the Moon took place in the 4th year of the 91st Olympiad, answering to August 27, 413 B.C., which produced very disastrous consequences to an Athenian army, owing to the ignorance and incapacity of Nicias, the commander. The army was in Sicily, confronted by a Syracusan army, and having failed, more or less, and sickness having broken out, it was decided that the Athenians should embark and quit the island. Plutarch, in his _Life of Nicias_, says:—“Everything accordingly was prepared for embarkation, and the enemy paid no attention to these movements, because they did not expect them. But in the night there happened an eclipse of the Moon, at which Nicias and all the rest were struck with a great panic, either through ignorance or superstition. As for an eclipse of the Sun, which happens at the Conjunction, even the common people had some idea of its being caused by the interposition of the Moon; but they could not easily form a conception, by the interposition of what body the Moon, when at the full, should suddenly lose her light, and assume such a variety of colours. They looked upon it therefore as a strange and preternatural phenomenon, a sign by which the gods announced some great calamity.” And the calamity came to pass, but only indirectly was it caused by the Moon! Plutarch and Pliny both mention that eleven days before the victory of Alexander over Darius, at Arbela in Assyria, there was an eclipse of the Moon. Plutarch’s words (_Life of Alexander_) are, that “there happened an eclipse of the Moon, about the beginning of the festival of the great mysteries at Athens. The eleventh night after that eclipse, the two armies being in view of each other, Darius kept his men under arms, and took a general review of his troops by torch-light.” This seems to have led to a great deal of disorderly tumult in the Assyrian camp, a fact which was noticed by Alexander. Several of his friends urged him to make a night attack on the enemy’s camp, but he preferred that his Macedonians should have a good night’s rest, and it was then that he uttered the celebrated answer, “I will not steal a victory.” Plutarch enters upon some rather interesting moral reflections connected with this answer, but which of course are foreign to the subject of this volume. This eclipse happened on September 20, 331 B.C., and was total, the middle of the eclipse being at about 8.15 p.m. It follows therefore, that the celebrated battle of Arbela was fought on October 1, 331 B.C. In 219 B.C. an eclipse of the Moon was seen in Mysia, according to Polybius.[123] The date of September 1 has been assigned for this eclipse which is said to have so greatly alarmed some Gaulish Mercenary troops in the service of Attalus, King of Pergamos, that he had to get rid of them as soon as he could—make terms with them to go home.