Ophiuchus
Ophiuchus
Ὀφιοῦχος Ophioukhos; "serpent-bearer"
Ophiuchus is depicted as a man grasping a serpent; the interposition of his body divides the snake constellation Serpens into two parts, Serpens Caput and Serpens Cauda.
Rasalhague (from the Arabic "the head of the serpent collector"), its brightest star, lies near the northern edge of Ophiuchus.
The earliest mention of the constellation is in Aratus, informed by the lost catalogue of Eudoxus of Cnidus (4th century BC).
Aratus of Soli
Phenomena ("Appearances")
...a verse setting of a lost work of the same name by Eudoxus of Cnidus.
The positions of the constellations, north of the ecliptic, are described by reference to the principal groups surrounding the north pole (Ursa Major, Ursa Minor, Draco, and Cepheus), whilst Orion serves as a point of departure for those to the south.
...the poem asserts the dependence of all things upon Zeus.
Aratus was also cited by the author of Acts (believed to be Luke the Evangelist), in Acts 17:28, where he relates Saint Paul's address on the Areopagus. Paul, speaking of God, quotes the fifth line of Aratus's Phenomena (Epimenides seems to be the source of the first part of Acts 17:28, although this is less clear):
Let us begin with Zeus, whom we mortals never leave unspoken.
For every street, every market-place is full of Zeus.
Even the sea and the harbour are full of this deity.
Everywhere everyone is indebted to Zeus.
For we are indeed his offspring ...—Phenomena 1–5
"I know that I am mortal by nature and ephemeral, but when I trace at my pleasure the windings to and fro of the heavenly bodies, I no longer touch earth with my feet. I stand in the presence of Zeus himself and take my fill of ambrosia." Almagest, Ptolemy
Aratus (moon crater) [yeah, right...]
Eudoxus of Cnidus
Eudoxus means "honored" or "of good repute", analogous to the Latin name Benedictus.
Went at 23 to Athens to study with the followers of Socrates. He eventually attended lectures of Plato.
Eudoxus was quite poor and could only afford an apartment at the Piraeus. To attend Plato's lectures, he walked the 7 miles (11 km) in each direction each day [7777]
Due to his poverty, his friends raised funds sufficient to send him to Heliopolis, Egypt, to pursue his study of astronomy and mathematics. He lived there for 16 months [7].
Around 367 [7] he assumed headship of the Academy during Plato's period in Syracuse, and taught Aristotle.
Craters on Mars and the Moon are named in his honor.
His fame is due to the introduction of the astronomical globe.
Apollo and python BOECKHORST, Jan van
To the ancient Greeks, the constellation represented the god Apollo struggling with a huge snake that guarded the Oracle of Delphi.
Hyginus holds that when Zeus lay with the goddess Leto, and she became pregnant with Artemis and Apollo, Hera was jealous and sent Python to pursue Leto throughout the lands, to prevent her from giving birth to the twin gods. Thus when Apollo was grown he wanted to avenge his mother's plight and pursued Python, making his way straight for Mount Parnassus where the serpent dwelled, and chased it to the oracle of Gaia at Delphi; there he dared to penetrate the sacred precinct and kill it with his arrows beside the rock cleft where the priestess sat on her tripod.
Omphalos
Greeks considered the site to be the center of the earth, represented by a stone, the omphalos or navel, which Python guarded. In the founding of the Delphic Oracle, Zeus, in his attempt to locate the center of the earth, launched two eagles from the two ends of the world, and the eagles, starting simultaneously and flying at equal speed, crossed their paths above the area of Delphi, and so was the place where Zeus placed the stone.
Zeus ordered Apollo to purify himself for the sacrilege and instituted the Pythian Games, over which Apollo was to preside, as penance for his act.
They were held in honour of Apollo every four years at his sanctuary at Delphi. They were held two years after each Olympic Games...winners received a wreath of bay laurel, sacred to Apollo, from the city of Tempe, in Thessaly.
... the 'Vale of Tempe', a beautiful valley set at the foot of Mount Olympus.
...the Vale of Tempe was cut through the rocks by the trident of Poseidon.
It was home for a time to Aristaeus, son of Apollo and Cyrene.
Apollo and Daphne in the Vale of Tempe
Apollo mocked the god of love, Eros (Cupid), for his use of bow and arrow, as Apollo is also patron of archery. “What are you doing with powerful weapons, naughty boy?” he said.
The insulted Eros then prepared two arrows: one of gold and one of lead. He shot Apollo with the gold arrow, instilling in the god a passionate love for the river nymph Daphne. He shot Daphne with the lead arrow, instilling in her a hatred for Apollo.
Due to her identity as an “aemula Phoebes” (female rival or emulator of Artemis), she had dedicated herself to perpetual virginity. Her father, the river god Ladon, demanded that she get married and give him grandchildren. She, however, begged her father to let her remain unmarried; he eventually complied.
Apollo continually followed her, begging her to stay, but the nymph continued to reject him.
She called upon her father, "Help me, Peneus (river god Ladon)! Open the earth to enclose me, or change my form, which has brought me into this danger!
She was turned into a laurel tree.
Apollo vowed to honor her forever: “Always my hair will have you, my lyres will have you, my quivers will have you, laurel tree. You will be present to two Latin places when the happy voice will sing a triumph and they will visit the great ceremonies at the Capitoline Hill.”
Apollo also used his powers of eternal youth and immortality to render Daphne evergreen; the leaves of the Bay laurel tree do not decay.
Peneus averts his gaze as Apollo, pierced by Cupid's arrow of desire, pursues Daphne, transforming into the laurel (Apollo and Daphne, 1625, by Poussin)
Heracles and Ladon
Ladon was also known as the Hesperian Dragon, for he was to be found in the Garden of the Hesperides, where he guarded the famous Golden Apples. Hyginus and Apollodorus, indicate that Ladon was a child of Typhon and Echidna...the mythological Garden of Hera; a place also known as the Garden of the Hesperides...found at the furthest west corner of the world, on the edge of the waters that was Oceanus, the earth encircling river.
The original Golden Apples had been given to Hera by Gaia, upon the marriage of Hera to Zeus.
Ladon is the constellation Draco according to Hyginus' Astronomy.
The Garden of the Hesperides - Frederic Lord Leighton (1830 - 1896)
Aristaeus ("the best"), the demigod who invented beekeeping...son of the huntress Cyrene and Apollo.
Later myths identified Ophiuchus with Laocoön, the Trojan priest of Poseidon, who warned his fellow Trojans about the Trojan Horse and was later slain by a pair of sea serpents sent by the gods to punish him.
Ὀφιοῦχος Ophioukhos; "serpent-bearer"
Ophiuchus is depicted as a man grasping a serpent; the interposition of his body divides the snake constellation Serpens into two parts, Serpens Caput and Serpens Cauda.
Rasalhague (from the Arabic "the head of the serpent collector"), its brightest star, lies near the northern edge of Ophiuchus.
The earliest mention of the constellation is in Aratus, informed by the lost catalogue of Eudoxus of Cnidus (4th century BC).
Aratus of Soli
Phenomena ("Appearances")
...a verse setting of a lost work of the same name by Eudoxus of Cnidus.
The positions of the constellations, north of the ecliptic, are described by reference to the principal groups surrounding the north pole (Ursa Major, Ursa Minor, Draco, and Cepheus), whilst Orion serves as a point of departure for those to the south.
...the poem asserts the dependence of all things upon Zeus.
Aratus was also cited by the author of Acts (believed to be Luke the Evangelist), in Acts 17:28, where he relates Saint Paul's address on the Areopagus. Paul, speaking of God, quotes the fifth line of Aratus's Phenomena (Epimenides seems to be the source of the first part of Acts 17:28, although this is less clear):
Let us begin with Zeus, whom we mortals never leave unspoken.
For every street, every market-place is full of Zeus.
Even the sea and the harbour are full of this deity.
Everywhere everyone is indebted to Zeus.
For we are indeed his offspring ...—Phenomena 1–5
"I know that I am mortal by nature and ephemeral, but when I trace at my pleasure the windings to and fro of the heavenly bodies, I no longer touch earth with my feet. I stand in the presence of Zeus himself and take my fill of ambrosia." Almagest, Ptolemy
Aratus (moon crater) [yeah, right...]
Eudoxus of Cnidus
Eudoxus means "honored" or "of good repute", analogous to the Latin name Benedictus.
Went at 23 to Athens to study with the followers of Socrates. He eventually attended lectures of Plato.
Eudoxus was quite poor and could only afford an apartment at the Piraeus. To attend Plato's lectures, he walked the 7 miles (11 km) in each direction each day [7777]
Due to his poverty, his friends raised funds sufficient to send him to Heliopolis, Egypt, to pursue his study of astronomy and mathematics. He lived there for 16 months [7].
Around 367 [7] he assumed headship of the Academy during Plato's period in Syracuse, and taught Aristotle.
Craters on Mars and the Moon are named in his honor.
His fame is due to the introduction of the astronomical globe.
Apollo and python BOECKHORST, Jan van
To the ancient Greeks, the constellation represented the god Apollo struggling with a huge snake that guarded the Oracle of Delphi.
Hyginus holds that when Zeus lay with the goddess Leto, and she became pregnant with Artemis and Apollo, Hera was jealous and sent Python to pursue Leto throughout the lands, to prevent her from giving birth to the twin gods. Thus when Apollo was grown he wanted to avenge his mother's plight and pursued Python, making his way straight for Mount Parnassus where the serpent dwelled, and chased it to the oracle of Gaia at Delphi; there he dared to penetrate the sacred precinct and kill it with his arrows beside the rock cleft where the priestess sat on her tripod.
Omphalos
Greeks considered the site to be the center of the earth, represented by a stone, the omphalos or navel, which Python guarded. In the founding of the Delphic Oracle, Zeus, in his attempt to locate the center of the earth, launched two eagles from the two ends of the world, and the eagles, starting simultaneously and flying at equal speed, crossed their paths above the area of Delphi, and so was the place where Zeus placed the stone.
Zeus ordered Apollo to purify himself for the sacrilege and instituted the Pythian Games, over which Apollo was to preside, as penance for his act.
They were held in honour of Apollo every four years at his sanctuary at Delphi. They were held two years after each Olympic Games...winners received a wreath of bay laurel, sacred to Apollo, from the city of Tempe, in Thessaly.
... the 'Vale of Tempe', a beautiful valley set at the foot of Mount Olympus.
...the Vale of Tempe was cut through the rocks by the trident of Poseidon.
It was home for a time to Aristaeus, son of Apollo and Cyrene.
Apollo and Daphne in the Vale of Tempe
Apollo mocked the god of love, Eros (Cupid), for his use of bow and arrow, as Apollo is also patron of archery. “What are you doing with powerful weapons, naughty boy?” he said.
The insulted Eros then prepared two arrows: one of gold and one of lead. He shot Apollo with the gold arrow, instilling in the god a passionate love for the river nymph Daphne. He shot Daphne with the lead arrow, instilling in her a hatred for Apollo.
Due to her identity as an “aemula Phoebes” (female rival or emulator of Artemis), she had dedicated herself to perpetual virginity. Her father, the river god Ladon, demanded that she get married and give him grandchildren. She, however, begged her father to let her remain unmarried; he eventually complied.
Apollo continually followed her, begging her to stay, but the nymph continued to reject him.
She called upon her father, "Help me, Peneus (river god Ladon)! Open the earth to enclose me, or change my form, which has brought me into this danger!
She was turned into a laurel tree.
Apollo vowed to honor her forever: “Always my hair will have you, my lyres will have you, my quivers will have you, laurel tree. You will be present to two Latin places when the happy voice will sing a triumph and they will visit the great ceremonies at the Capitoline Hill.”
Apollo also used his powers of eternal youth and immortality to render Daphne evergreen; the leaves of the Bay laurel tree do not decay.
Peneus averts his gaze as Apollo, pierced by Cupid's arrow of desire, pursues Daphne, transforming into the laurel (Apollo and Daphne, 1625, by Poussin)
Heracles and Ladon
Ladon was also known as the Hesperian Dragon, for he was to be found in the Garden of the Hesperides, where he guarded the famous Golden Apples. Hyginus and Apollodorus, indicate that Ladon was a child of Typhon and Echidna...the mythological Garden of Hera; a place also known as the Garden of the Hesperides...found at the furthest west corner of the world, on the edge of the waters that was Oceanus, the earth encircling river.
The original Golden Apples had been given to Hera by Gaia, upon the marriage of Hera to Zeus.
Ladon is the constellation Draco according to Hyginus' Astronomy.
The Garden of the Hesperides - Frederic Lord Leighton (1830 - 1896)
Aristaeus ("the best"), the demigod who invented beekeeping...son of the huntress Cyrene and Apollo.
Later myths identified Ophiuchus with Laocoön, the Trojan priest of Poseidon, who warned his fellow Trojans about the Trojan Horse and was later slain by a pair of sea serpents sent by the gods to punish him.
Serpens
Sagitta
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