Since the time when Airy and Hind examined this question, all the known facts have been again reviewed by Mr. W. T. Lynn, who pronounces, but with some hesitation, in favour of the eclipse of October 2, 480 B.C., as the one associated with the battle of Salamis. He does this by refusing to see in the above quotations from Herodotus any allusion to a solar eclipse at all, but invites us to consider a later statement in Herodotus[46] as relating to an eclipse though the historian only calls it a prodigy. After the battle of Thermopylæ the Peloponnesian Greeks commenced to fortify the isthmus of Corinth with the view of defending it with their small army against the invading host of Xerxes. The Spartan troops were under the command of Cleombrotus, the brother of Leonidas, the hero of Thermopylæ. He had been consulting the oracles at Sparta, and Herodotus states that “while he was offering sacrifice to know if he should march out against the Persian, the Sun was suddenly darkened in mid-sky.” This occurrence so frightened Cleombrotus that he drew off his forces and returned home. It is uncertain from the narrative of Herodotus whether Cleombrotus returned to Sparta in the autumn of the year of the battle of Salamis, or in the spring of the next following year which was that in which the battle of Platæa was fought. Bishop Thirlwall[47] thinks that it was the latter, but Lynn pronounces for the former, adding that the date may well have been in October, and the solar eclipse of October 2, 480 B.C. may have been the phenomenon which attracted notice, particularly as the Sun would have been high in the heavens, the greatest phase (6/10ths) occurring, according to Hind, at 50 minutes past noon. Here I must leave the matter, merely remarking that this alternative explanation obviates the necessity for disturbing the commonly received date of the battle of Salamis.