The Battle of Halys, also known as the Battle of the Eclipse, took place at the Halys River (present-day "Kızılırmak" river in Turkey—(Zoomable Map centered at Mouth locus at 41.72° N 35.95° E ) on May 28, 585 BC between the Medes and the Lydians. The final battle of a fifteen-year war between Alyattes II of Lydia and Cyaxares of the Medes, the battle ended abruptly due to a total solar eclipse; the eclipse was perceived as an omen, indicating that the gods wanted the fighting to stop. In the Aeneid, Halys is a Trojan who defends Aeneas camp from a Rutullian attack. ... May 28 is the 148th day of the year in the Gregorian calendar (149th in leap years). ... Centuries: 7th century BC - 6th century BC - 5th century BC Decades: 620s BC - 610s BC - 600s BC - 590s BC - 580s BC - 570s BC - 560s BC - 550s BC - 540s BC - 530s BC Events and Trends 589 BC - Apries succeeds Psammetichus II as king of Egypt 588 BC _ Nebuchadnezzar II of... Medea (Medea Proper), ca. ... See 110 Lydia for the asteroid. ... Alyattes II, king of Lydia (619_560 BC), the real founder of the Lydian empire, was the son of Sadyattes, of the house of the Mermnadae. ... Lydia (Greek ) is a historic region of western Anatolia, congruent with Turkeys modern provinces of Ä°zmir and Manisa. ... Hvakhshathra or Cyaxares (r. ... Medea (Medea Proper), ca. ... Photo taken during the 1999 eclipse. ... now. ... Look up deity in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. ...

Causes

The war is thought to have started because of clashing interests in Anatolia; Herodotus (Histories, 1.73-74) claims, however, that some Scythian hunters employed by the Medes who once returned empty-handed were insulted by Cyaxares. In revenge the hunters slaughtered one of his sons and served him to the Medes. The hunters then fled to Sardis, the capital of the Lydians. When Cyaxares asked for the Scythians to be returned to him, Alyattes refused to hand them over; in response, the Medes invaded. This article or section does not cite its references or sources. ... Bust of Herodotus Herodotus of Halicarnassus (in Greek, , Herodotos Halikarnasseus) was a Dorian Greek historian who lived in the 5th century BC (484 BC–ca. ... The Histories of Herodotus of Halicarnassus is considered the first work of history in Western literature. ... Scythia was an area in Eurasia inhabited in ancient times by an Indo-Aryans known as the Scythians. ... A recent view of the ceremonial court of the thermae–gymnasium complex in Sardis, dated to 211—212 AD Sardis, (also Sardes, Greek: Σάρδεις), modern Sart in the Manisa province of Turkey, was the capital of the ancient kingdom of Lydia, the seat of a proconsul under the Roman Empire, and...

Aftermath

A truce was hastily arranged. As part of the terms of the agreement, Alyattes's daughter Aryenis was married to Cyaxares's son Astyages, and the river Halys was declared to be the border of the two warring nations. Aryenis of Lydia was the daughter of King Alyattes of Lydia, the sister of King Croesus of Lydia, the wife of King Astyages of Media, the mother of Mandane of Media, and grandmother of Cyrus II. She was given in marriage to Astyages to seal a treaty between Cyaraxes of... Astyages (so-called by Herodotos; called Astyigas by Ctesias, and Aspadas by Diodorus; Akkadian: Ishtumegu) (reigned 585 BCE-550 BCE) was the son of King Cyaxares, and the last king of the Median Empire. ... In the Aeneid, Halys is a Trojan who defends Aeneas camp from a Rutullian attack. ...

The eclipse

According to Herodotus (1.74):

"In the sixth year a battle took place in which it happened, when the fight had begun, that suddenly the day became night. And this change of the day Thales the Milesian had foretold to the Ionians laying down as a limit this very year in which the change took place. The Lydians however and the Medes, when they saw that it had become night instead of day, ceased from their fighting and were much more eager both of them that peace should be made between them."

Since the exact dates of eclipses can be calculated, the Battle of the Eclipse is the earliest historical event of which the date is known with such precision. Thales of Miletus Thales of Miletus also known as Thales the Milesian (Θαλῆς ὁ Μιλήσιος), (ca. ...

According to NASA, the eclipse peaked over the Atlantic Ocean at 37.9° N 46.2° W and the umbral path reached south-western Anatolia in the evening hours, and the Halys River is just within the error margin for delta-T provided. [1] The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) is an agency of the United States Government, responsible for that nations public space program. ... To meet Wikipedias quality standards, this article or section may require cleanup. ... In the Aeneid, Halys is a Trojan who defends Aeneas camp from a Rutullian attack. ... Delta T, delta-T, deltaT, ΔT, or DT is the time difference obtained by subtracting Universal Time from Terrestrial Time. ...

References

• G. B. Airy, On the Eclipses of Agathocles, Thales, and Xerxes, Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London, Vol. 143, 1853, pp. 179-200
• Alden A. Mosshammer, Thales' Eclipse, Transactions of the American Philological Association, Vol. 111, 1981, pp. 145-155

This article about a historical battle is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by expanding it.