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The Northern Lights in history |
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the comets do. Those fragments came loose during rushing and unexpected movements." The northern lights occurred one to three times per decade on the horizon of ancient Greece. Altogether dozens of reliable observations of the northern lights are known from the years BC. About 360 BC, Philip, king of Macedonia, was going to attack with his army the city of Byzantium. The city having sturdy walls, Philip commanded his soldiers to dig tunnels under them. In |
the middle of the night, at zero hour, the tunnels were filled with soldiers. Their task was to open the other end of the tunnels and
then simply take Byzantium. Surprisingly, that particular night was not dark. A sudden bright light,
shaped like a crescent moon, was illuminating the landscape. This was the reason why Byzantium
was saved. A special coin was struck after this event. The crescent figure on the coin was probably
an auroral arc, instead of the moon because the crescent moon is not bright enough to illuminate the
landscape when there is no snow. The same figure still exists on many flags and is usually interpreted
as the moon. However, the figure is oriented in the wrong way if you think about the crescent you see
in the Mediterranean region.
In ancient Rome, the oldest description of the northern lights |
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