TALLO (Thallus, Θάλλος, but in Jacoby, Fragm. d. gr. Historiker, Ἄλλος). — Historian, a native of Samaria and freedman of Tiberius, author of a Greek Chronography in three books, recounting events from King Belo of Assyria to the beginning of the imperial period. In a passage from the third book of his history, quoted by Giulio Africano (PG 17, 309), he calls the darkening of the sun that occurred at the death of Jesus an eclipse. Giulio Africano expresses himself as follows: «This darkness, T., in the third book of the Histories, interprets as an eclipse of the sun, unreasonably in my opinion». If it is accepted that T. wrote in Rome ca. 50, this text acquires considerable importance, since it becomes known that, at that date, «in Rome, in circles close to the imperial Court, Christ was being discussed and written polemics were being directed against Christians, on account of the accounts of the Passion» (Tondelli).
The impossibility of an eclipse occurring during the day of the full moon, as was the case at the Jewish Passover, provided the anti-Christian polemicists, above all Celso, with an argument for attacking Christianity; but Origene, s. Girolamo, and s. Giovanni Crisostomo were able to reply effectively that this was not an eclipse but an extraordinary and supernatural darkening (ἀναστίσθη ὁ ἥλιος; Lc. 22, 45), which, together with other phenomena, followed the death of the Redeemer.
As for the eclipse which, according to Flegone di Tralle, a freedman of the period of Adriano (author of a Chronicle in 16 books divided by Olympiads), is said to have occurred in the third year of the 202nd Olympiad, that is, in A.D. 32, it does not refer to the event that followed the death of Jesus; in fact, neither s. Giustino, nor Taziano, nor Arnobio, nor Lattanzio, nor s. Girolamo (except insofar as he translates the Chronicle of Eusebio) mentions the Chronicle of Flegone.