29. History by number

The preceding inquiry looked at several ways to date the Eponym List. Neither astronomical nor "historial" (non-astronomical) documents could independently furnish the absolute dates of the List; the line of reasoning that determined the dates had to navigate between "history" and astronomy, and consequently both disciplines bear on the soundness of the results.

The fuzziness associated with ancient astronomical observations is reasonably well documented - 6th and 7th century BC observations agree with modern computed values reasonably well, though the match is not always as exact as astronomers would like. Further, data in "historical" documents are not readily quantifiable, and here the grounds for dispute are boundless.