Thallus (historian)

Thallus (Greek: Θαλλός) was an early historian who wrote in Koine Greek. He wrote a three-volume history of the Mediterranean world from before the Trojan War to the 167th Olympiad, c. 112-109 BC. Most of his work, like the vast majority of ancient literature, has been lost, although some of his writings were quoted by Sextus Julius Africanus in his History of the World.

The works are considered important by some Christians because they believe them to confirm the historicity of Jesus and provide non-Christian validation of the Gospel accounts: a reference to a historical eclipse, attributed to Thallus, has been taken as a mention of the worldwide darkness described in the Synoptic gospels account of the death of Jesus, although an eclipse could not have taken place during Passover when this took place. A common view in modern scholarship is that the Crucifixion darkness is a literary creation rather than a historical event.

Thallus is sometimes cited for details on Syrian and Assyrian history. Eusebius of Caesarea in a list of sources mentions his work:

However the text is preserved in an Armenian translation where many of the numerals are corrupt. The fall of Troy is 1184 BC, but the editors, Petermann and Karst, highlight that the end-date of the 167th Olympiad (109 BC) is contradicted by George Syncellus, who quotes Julius Africanus, and suggest that the end-date should read "217th Olympiad", a change of one character in Armenian.

Thallus is first mentioned around AD 180 by Theophilus Bishop of Antioch in his Ad Autolycum ('To Autolycus') 3.29:

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