Eclipses are endlessly fascinating and there are a few ways to interpret them. This particular eclipse is extraordinarily dramatic and the visual impact, mapped is rich in significance both during the period of the eclipse but also the events augered by its duration and place of maximum eclipse.

What is generally known as The Battle of Carthage was fought in 698 between a Byzantine expeditionary force and the armies of the fifth Umayyad Caliphate. There were, in fact, several battles s in Carthage over the centuries, but one of them was decisive and the wreckage became part of the Caliphate.

One might expect such an occurrence to have generated details for posterity.  The fact is that the battle of Carthage in 698 AD JC. was a complete demolition.  The Arab general, Hasan ibn al-Nu’man  was annoyed that he had to defeat the Carthaginians twice. There was no thought of settling in the city under the Caliphate,. The city was razed to nothing after a siege. The harbours were filled with dirt and rocks, the fields burned, all farms, crop and livestock were killed. Even the aqueducts which supplied the city with its only fresh water supply were demolished.

The most curious element from an astrological point of view is that the eclipse that one might naturally associate with the event actually occurred at the end of the year, 08 December 698. Nevertheless, I’m pleased that this eclipse brought my attention to the events because it soon becomes evident that the battle of Carthage, while certainly not the only victim of the Islamic Caliphate, was more like the root than the flower in terms of a sequence. With a duration of 10m28s and a path of visibility that reaches modern-day Kazakhstan, we need to look at what ensues and not only at what has passed.

Considering the Chart of the Year preceding the battle of Carthage, we find that the Sun exalted in Aries is the Lord of the Year. However, Mars himself is Peregrine and conjunct Saturn. The Libra Ascending makes Carthage the weaker partner in conflict and the Lady of the Ascendant is Venus in the 8th house of Death. The ‘ordinary’ people of the 6th house have an exalted Jupiter as their Lord, but the Jupiter conjunction with the N. Node is not auspicious.

The duration of the eclipse was 10.5 minutes, which translates to 10,5 years of influence,  The Arab siege of Carthage marked the end of Christianity in the Atlas Mountains countries of North Africa. Carthage was the centre or capital city of the ancient Carthaginian civilization, on the eastern side of the Lake of Tunis in what is now the Tunis Governorate in Tunisia. But the work was not yet finished. The waves of Arab and Berber invasions had no intention of backing down or holding back. They wanted not only North Africa, but also the Iberian Peninsula.

If we study the events surrounding the incursion of Berber-Arab armies into the Iberian peninsula in 709-10, we find that this leads to Muslim domination of the region that would last 800 years. Witness the fateful Battle of Guadalete and the Arabs’ advance north, and consider both the immediate legacy of the invasion and its overall impact on European history.

This brief article attempts to consider a relevant and very striking eclipse that not only augers for events several years into the future but also describes current events. Time is, of course, a continuum. When we examine celestial events such as this, an understanding of history is crucial. The complete destruction of the historically important city. Carthage is one part of an even larger event. With the conquering of the Iberian Peninsula, the final presentation of the Byzantium Empire was finished in North Africa and most of the Meditteranean. This displacement by the Caliphate would have momentous influence not only on the region but on Western Civilization as a whole. Out of the extreme violence, Islam and Europe would exchange ideas for a very long time.