Metropolitan Museum of ArtOn August 12, Europe – in particular the Iberian peninsula – will look to the sky to witness a historic solar eclipse. bradhostetler/Wikimedia Commons, CC BYAncient Rome was no exception to this, as the sun played a major role in its pre-Christian religion. The Roman intellectuals Pliny the Elder and Seneca – in their respective works Natural History and Thyestes – theorised abut eclipses. On July 17 in the year 188BC, another eclipse plunged Rome into darkness for nearly two hours. In 49BC, Cassius Dio mentioned a total solar eclipse amongst a series of omens that foretold misfortune for Rome.