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Meteorites, or Celestial Stones: Aegospotami

In 405 B.C., Lysander won his great victory over the Althenian fleet at Aegospotami in Thrace, and Plutarch writes, in his life of Lysander, that a stone which fell from the heavens a short time before the battle was regarded by many as a portent predicting the dreadful slaughter that was to ensue. At the time Plutarch wrote (circa 150 A.D.) this stone could still be seen at Aegospotami, where it was regarded with great veneration by the Chersonites. The Greek philosopher Anaxagorus is said to have predicted the fall of this meteorite, as he had observed certain pertur-bations in the movements of the heavenly bodies. As Anaxagorus died in 428 B.C., his prediction must have long antedated the fall of the meteorite.

A detail given in one of the early recitals might possibly have constituted the basis of a prediction by some contemporary physicist. In the latter part of his account of the phenomenon Plutarch quotes from a Treatise on Religion, by a certain Daimachus, to the effect that, for seventy-five days before the fall of the meteorite, a vast fiery body was seen in the heavens, in appearance "like a flaming cloud. This well describes the appearance of a great comet, and might be regarded as significant when we consider the latest modern theory of the origin of meteors, according to which these bodies are detached particles of a cometary aggregation. Of this meteoric mass said to have fallen at Aegospotami, Pliny states that it was as large as a wagon and of a dusky hue, adding that a brilliant comet was visible at the time of its fall. Regarding the assertion that Anaxagorus predicted the occurrence, Pliny declares that this prediction, if true, was a greater miracle than the fall of the meteor. A portion of the stone was preserved as a venerated relic in the town of Potidaea.