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The author, who is undoubtedly not Euripides The writer is likely referring to the pseudo-Euripidean play Rhesus, which contains the astronomical descriptions discussed here, writes that the Pleiades original: "Vergilias"; the Seven Sisters star cluster rise above the horizon while the Eagle The constellation Aquila is at its highest point in the sky. Furthermore, he added a notation of the time—the proximity of dawn—and finally, a most beautiful description of the part of the year in which those events are imagined to take place: the Moon first raising itself out of the horizon. Thus, by necessity, the performance of those events must have occurred during approximately the middle of the Moon's last quarter, which is to say, a few days from the new moon. Just as the Poet was able to learn this quite easily from the doctrine of the Attic Four-Year Cycle Tetraeteris: a four-year calendar cycle used by the ancient Greeks to align the lunar months with the solar year, so he could more boldly pronounce these things based on its reliability.

For that scene is set, as is established from Homer, in the same year that Troy original: "Ilion" was captured; however, as we gather from this author, it took place in the spring months, shortly before the fall of the city of Troy, namely in the month of Thargelion An Attic month roughly corresponding to May/June. This is because the Pleiades remained hidden for almost the entirety of the month of Munychion The Attic month preceding Thargelion.

Now, the year of Troy's capture falls in the third year of the Attic Four-Year Cycle, as has been diligently argued by us. In the month of Thargelion of that year, the new moon fell on the 9th or 10th of the month, around the 5th of June. Therefore, that time fits the interval between the 27th of May or the 5th of June, on the 5th or 6th day of Thargelion, in which month Troy was also captured. In these matters, understand the calculations of the age in which the Poet was writing, rather than those of the Trojan age itself, as we have advised elsewhere. Thus, that Astrology In this context, "Astrologia" refers to observational astronomy and the study of celestial motions was adapted not only for the observations of farmers, but also for the marking of fleeting time. For in our books On the Emendation of Time original: "de Emendatione"; likely referring to the author's work on chronology, we have declared how precisely those ancients [recorded] the year and day of the destruction of Troy.