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Obsequens’ Liber de Prodigiis (Book of Prodigies),
    â€œIn the consulate of Aulo Postumio Albino Regillense and Spurio Furio Medullino Fusco, once again and with great splendor a burning in the sky and many other prodigies appeared with shapes and strange figures, frightening the spectators.”
    Such accounts are frequently found in old texts, yet they are of only marginal interest to us, in spite of their tantalizing context, because they give no hint of a description of an actual event. A “burning in the sky” could be a common meteor or an auroral display, and there is no evidence that the “shapes and strange figures” were seen in the air. These considerations, well understood by most scholars of ancient texts, have led us to exclude many such references from our Chronology.
    It is important to note that the version of Obsequens’ chronicle containing the reference cited here was not the original. In 1552, humanist Conrad Wolffhart (1518-1561), who took the Greek name of Lycosthenes, edited the chronicle and added illustrations from wood-cuts. Obsequens’ Liber de prodigiis (Book of Prodigies) was an account of the portents observed in Rome between 190 BC and 12 BC. As some of the original text had not survived, Lycosthenes reconstructed the missing parts himself, starting at 749 BC, from other historical sources. Therefore, the records attributed to Obsequens from prior to 190 BC were possibly not in the Latin original.
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    Source: Lycosthenes, Julii Obsequentis Prodigiorum Liber…per Conradum Lycosthenem Rubeaquensem integrati suae restitutus (Basel, 1552).
    6.
    404 BC, Attica, Greece
Guided by a glowing pillar in the sky
    â€œWhen Thrasybulus was bringing back the exiles from Phyla, and wished to elude observation, a pillar became his guide as he marched over a trackless region…The sky being moonless and stormy, a fire appeared leading the way, which, having conducted them safely, left them near Munychia, where is now the altar of the light-bringer.”
    Note: We have found no comet recorded for that period, and the observation remains unexplained.
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    Source: Clement of Alexandria, Stromata , Book I, Chapter 24. Cited in The Ante-Nicene Fathers, translations of the writings of the Fathers down to AD 325 , by Rev. Alexander Roberts and James Donaldson (eds.) revised and arranged by A. Cleveland Coxe, Vol. II: Fathers of the Second Century (Edinburgh reprint, 2001).
    7.
    Circa 343 BC, Near Sicily, Italy: a blazing light
    In Diodorus Siculus’ first century text Historical Library , (book 16, 24-5) we read that the voyage of Timoleon from Corinth to Sicily was guided by one or more blazing lights referred to as lampas : “Heaven came to the support of his venture and foretold his coming fame and the glory of his achievements, for all through the night he was preceded by a torch blazing in the sky up to the moment when the squadron made harbor in Italy.”
    Note: This might have been a comet, but it has never been matched with any known cometary object, according to Gary Kronk’s Cometography . P. J. Bicknell, writing in The Classical Quarterly (“The Date of Timoleon’s Crossing to Italy and the Comet of 361 BC” in New Series , Vol. 34, No. 1, 1984, 130-134) argues that “a cometary hypothesis is barely compatible with the implication of Diodorus’ account that the lampas were visible in the east at nightfall and therefore in opposition to the sun…All in all it is difficult to resist the conclusion that Diodorus (or his source) elaborated on the lampas for dramatic effect…”
    Bicknell leans towards the interpretation of the objects as a spectacular meteor shower, possibly the Lyrids, which would put the date of his voyage at 21 March 344 BC However this does not account for a phenomenon seen “all through the night” in a fixed direction.
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    Source: Gary Kronk. Cometography–A Catalog of Comets, Volume