Did Alexander stage the date of the battle at Gaugamela?

[aleksandros]

Did he intend to take advantage of the psychological effect the lunar eclipse would have on the persian soldiers?

[Paralus]

What leads you assume that Alexander was able to predict the dates of a lunar eclipse?

[aleksandros]

The greek scientists of Alexander's time were able to predict solar and lunar eclipses.
That kind of knowledge was not new for the time. You can study some more on the history of greek astronomers.

[marcus]

Did he intend to take advantage of the psychological effect the lunar eclipse would have on the persian soldiers?

He had to work pretty fast to turn the psychological effect of the eclipse on his own soldiers to his advantage, without worrying about the Persians.

ATB

[aleksandros]

Did he intend to take advantage of the psychological effect the lunar eclipse would have on the persian soldiers?

He had to work pretty fast to turn the psychological effect of the eclipse on his own soldiers to his advantage, without worrying about the Persians.

ATB

I ve read that the lunar eclipse had devastating effect on persians cause the moon symbolized the persian king or something.

[Paralus]

The two - undisputed - mechanisms (at the time) for "predicting" lunar elcipses were the cycles known to the Babylonian astronomer priests. That known as the "Saros" postulates an eclipse recurring each 18 odd years (from memory). The other was a 19 year cycle.

These predictive tools were far from being faultless. To begin with, one might postulate that an eclipse might happen on the given cycle date. And it might well. The problem is, it might ocurr - if it ocurrs - during the day at the predicted site. There was no way of the ancients knowing this.

Therefore it is difficult to conceive of Alexander or his seer acurately predicting the eclipse prior to Gaugamela much less Alexander hanging the outcome of the climactic battle on such.

As Marcus has observed, the Greeks and Macedonians themeselves will not have been too chuffed at the phenomena prior to battle. Ask Nicias who sacrificed an entire Athenian armament on the altar of an eclipse in Sicily.

To the Iranians the eclipse - and the other astronomical events concurrent with it - were indeed a portent of the fall of the Persian king. Jona Lendering has much more on the "Astronomical Diaries" and Gaugamela here.

[aleksandros]

Shortly after Oenopides, in 432 BC, Meton and Euctemon discovered the better value of 18 years, equal to 223 months (the so-called Saros period).
The Saros cycle is an eclipse cycle with a period of about 18 years 11 days 8 hours (approximately 6585⅓ days) that can be used to predict eclipses of the Sun and Moon.

Anyone into science history?

[Paralus]

The Saros cycle is an eclipse cycle with a period of about 18 years 11 days 8 hours (approximately 6585⅓ days) that can be used to predict eclipses of the Sun and Moon.

Anyone into science history?

Read the above.

[marcus]

As Marcus has observed, the Greeks and Macedonians themeselves will not have been too chuffed at the phenomena prior to battle.

Indeed and now I have some references:

Justin and Diodorus say nothing of the eclipse. Plutarch merely says:

Plutarch, Alexander.
31.4 It so happened that in the month Boëdromion the moon suffered an eclipse, about the beginning of the Mysteries at Athens, and on the eleventh night after the eclipse, the armies being now in sight of one another, Dareius kept his forces under arms, and held a review of them by torch-light; but Alexander, while his Macedonians slept, himself passed the night in front of his tent with his seer Aristander, celebrating certain mysterious sacred rites and sacrificing to the god Fear.

Which says nothing about the state of mind about either side. The sacrifice to Phoibos (Fear) has nothing to do with the eclipse, by the way, and was done while the army was asleep anyway.

Arrian, similarly, offers no psychological consequences:

Arrian, Anabasis
III.7.6 There he gave his army a rest. There was an almost total eclipse of the moon, and Alexander sacrificed to the Moon, Sun and Earth, who are all said to cause an eclipse. Aristander thought that the eclipse was favourable to the Macedonians and Alexander, that the battle would take place that month, and that the sacrifices portended victory to Alexander.

Curtius is the only one who gives any more.

Curtius
4.10.
[1] Alexander encamped there for two days and had marching orders proclaimed for the third, [2] but at about the first watch there was an eclipse of the moon. First the moon lost its usual brightness, and then became suffused with a blood-red colour which caused a general dimness in the light it shed. Right of the brink of a decisive battle the men were already in a state of anxiety, and this now struck them with a deep religious awe which precipitated a kind of panic. [3] The complained that the gods opposed their being taken to the ends of the earth, that now rivers forbade them access, heavenly bodies did not maintain their erstwhile brightness, and they were met everywhere by desolation and desert. The blood of thousands was paying for the grandiose plans of one man who despised his country, disowned his father Philip, and had deluded ideas about aspiring to heaven.
[4] Mutiny was but a step away when, unperturbed by all this, Alexander summoned a full meeting of his generals and officers in his tent and ordered the Egyptian seers (whom he believed to possess expert knowledge of the sky and the stars) to give their opinion. [5] They were well aware that the annual cycle follows a pattern of changes, that the moon is eclipsed when it passes behind the earth or is blocked by the sun, but they did not give this explanation, which they themselves knew, to the common soldiers. [6] Instead, they declared that the sun represented the Greeks and the moon the Persians, and that an eclipse of the moon predicted disaster and slaughter for those nations. They then listed examples from history of Persian kings whom a lunar eclipse had demonstrated to have fought without divine approval. [7] Nothing exercises greater control over the masses than superstition. Usually ungovernable, cruel and capricious, when the are gripped by superstition the obey prophets more readily than their generals. Thus the dissemination of the Egyptians’ responses restored hope and confidence to the dispirited soldiers. [8] The king felt he should exploit this surge of confidence, and at the second watch he moved camp, keeping the Tigris on his right and the so-called Gordyaean Mountains on his left.

Much of what he says is clearly Curtius' own take, as the Macedonians' fears are a precursor to Cleitus' complaints, and largely refer to complaints that the army cannot have had by 331BC; but there is no reason to doubt that the Macedonians were terrified by the eclipse and needed reassurance.

However, more to the point is that there is no mention of the effect of the eclipse on the Persians; nor is there any evidence that Alexander knew it was going to happen, and so no indication that he could have timed the battle to coincide with the eclipse. (Anyway, the battle actually happened a few days after the eclipse, so it doesn't really work as a theory for that reason.)

ATB

[Phoebus]

Marcus,

I really don't appreciate this; Apollo is my namesake (Φοιβος), not Fear (Φοβος).

[Paralus]

[However, more to the point is that there is no mention of the effect of the eclipse on the Persians; nor is there any evidence that Alexander knew it was going to happen, and so no indication that he could have timed the battle to coincide with the eclipse. (Anyway, the battle actually happened a few days after the eclipse, so it doesn't really work as a theory for that reason.)

No, evidence for the effect on the Persians is absent. That because very little - near enough to none - of the evidence left to us is interested in either the Persians or what they thought. Outside of, that is, the view (entirely Hellenic) of them being effeminate, degraded and useless in war. What evidence we do have comes from the Babylonian "Astronomical Diaries" and Jona Lendering's writings on them, linked above, should be read by anyone interested in this battle. The Iranians (Persians and Medes) in this battle well knew what the eclipse and the surrounding astronomical phenomena portended.

I agree that the extant evidence gives no credence to Alexander or his seer predicting this eclipse. The known methods could not tell one (if they accurately predicted an eclipse) that it would be visible at Arbela. Australian Aborigines might well have been wondering at a sight not visible during the day elsewhere.

More to the point is that Alexander was not in "control" of the battle's location. He was marching an army of some 47,000 (and their supply train, camp followers etc) into the heart of empire and his supply lines were perilously thin. He had to cross the Euphrates (among other rivers) and will have had little idea of how long this would take until the river's state was assessed. But it is the supply lines and Darius that denoted his route.

Alexander was not to know until he entered Mesopotamia proper where the army of Darius was for it too was on the move - to Darius' chosen field. Alexander desperately needed the final confrontation and so sought him out. With supplies at a premium, Alexander skirted the north of Mesopotamia, traversing the rich watersheds of Armenia and the northern Zagros for here was food.

Darius chose the ground and set himself for a defensive battle; Alexander followed the script and sought him out. That, amongst everything else he was concerned with, he planned to arrive to take advantage of an eclipse that might have occurred is quite unlikely to my way of thinking.

[aleksandros]

Hey, lunar eclipses are visible almost by the half planet (the one that has night).
I think that almost every lunar eclipse seen in Greece can be seen in Alexandria and Babylon too.
Correct me if i am wrong.

[Paralus]

Hey, lunar eclipses are visible almost by the half planet (the one that has night).

...almost by the half planet ...

Bingo! You got it.

[amyntoros]

Hey, lunar eclipses are visible almost by the half planet (the one that has night).
I think that almost every lunar eclipse seen in Greece can be seen in Alexandria and Babylon too.
Correct me if i am wrong.

It's likely, because they're very close in longitude. Pliny's Natural History has the following to say about the Gaugamela eclipse. (2.180 in the Loeb edition, but Book II, Chapter 72 at Perseus online.)

Hence it is that the inhabitants of the east do not see those eclipses of the sun or of the moon which occur in the evening, nor the inhabitants of the west those in the morning, while such as take place at noon are more frequently visible. We are told, that at the time of the famous victory of Alexander the Great, at Arbela, the moon was eclipsed at the second hour of the night, while, in Sicily, the moon was rising at the same hour.

I think the point that others are trying to make is that when Alexander set out on his campaigns he couldn't possibly have known that an eclipse of the moon would be visible at a particular location because even though the astronomers were able to closely predict a date it's very unlikely they could accurately forsee the time. More than this, I doubt that Alexander could have planned a battle (in advance) to coincide fairly closely with the eclipse. It wasn't just up to Alexander when he fought, but Darius had a say also.

My opinion is that this is just another instance where Alexander the opportunist turned a situation to his advantage.

Best regards,

[Paralus]

Marcus my good man, did you type up that quote from Curtius or lift it from an online version?

For the bloody life of me, I can't find my copy and if I've lent it, I can't remember who to!

An online English version would be a marvellous temporary solution.

It'll be in this house somewhere....