Chronological Uncertainty
The chronographer E.J. Bickerman has suggested that Cassius' third consulship occurred in 480 BC, the same year as the Battle of Salamis. However, this assertion rests on the accuracy of Diodorus Siculus, who stated that his consulship coincided with the archonship of Calliades in Athens. Calliades was archon in 480 BC. Herodotus confirms the possibility that the battles of Thermopylae and Salamis were fought shortly after the Olympic Games of that year, and only a few months after these events: "On approach of spring, the sun suddenly quit his seat in the heavens, and disappeared" when Xerxes left Sardis, a few weeks or months before crossing over to Greece. This eclipse occurred on February 17, 478 BC, providing a valuable chronological reference.
Read more about this topic: Spurius Cassius Viscellinus
Famous quotes containing the word uncertainty:
“Now, since our condition accommodates things to itself, and transforms them according to itself, we no longer know things in their reality; for nothing comes to us that is not altered and falsified by our Senses. When the compass, the square, and the rule are untrue, all the calculations drawn from them, all the buildings erected by their measure, are of necessity also defective and out of plumb. The uncertainty of our senses renders uncertain everything that they produce.”
—Michel de Montaigne (1533–1592)