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The Night Sky Above Eleusis

In the pre-electric classical age, persons woke with
the sun and went to bed with nightfall. Many festivals
- including the Eleusinian Mysteries - had a nocturnal
element. The night was almost completely black,
only a sliver of a crescent moon offering bare
illumination. The glory of the sky lay open to any who
looked up.

Poetic fancy saw in the Milky Way a road, either the
road of the gods, or the road by which stood the
palaces of the gods, or the road traveled by the souls
of the dead, or the path of the sun. Initiates possibly
read a tapestry of stories relating to the experience
they underwent.

(The information following is excepted from Theony
Condos' Star Myths of the Greek and Romans: A
Sourcebook Containing The Constellations of Pseudo-
Erasthenes and the Poetic Astronomy of Hyginus.)

It would seem safe to say that the Greeks of the
eighth and seventh centuries BCE distinguished at
least four constellations – or five if Homer’s Bootes is
counted.

Bootes:
“Hermippus who wrote about the stars, says that
Ceres mated with Iasion, the son of Electra; and
many, including Homer, say that because of that
union, as the historian Petellides of Cnossus
recounts, two sons were born, Philomelus and Plutus,
who were said to be at odds with one another,
because Plutus, who was wealthier, gave none of his
wealth to his brother. Pressed by circumstances,
Philomelus took all he had and brought two oxen,
then invented the plow. And thus, by plowing and
cultivating the fields, he was able to feed himself. His
mother, marveling at his inventions, placed him
among the stars as a ploughman, and called him
Bootes.”

Gemini “Others say the figures are Hercules and
Apollo, some even say Triptolemus, about whom we
spoke earlier, and Iasion, who were both beloved of
Ceres…”

• In antiquity, the atmospheric phenomenon now
known as St. Elmo’s fire was associated with the
Dioscuri and was interpreted as a favorable omen
when it appeared with two flames, but unfavorable if
it appeared with only one flame.

Hydra, Crater, Corvus “Concerning the Crater,
Phylarchus tells this story. In the Chersonesus,
which is located near Troy, where the tomb of
Protesilaus lies, there is a city called Eleusa. During
the reign of a certain Demiphon, widespread
devastation and an unexpected plague befell the city.
Demiphon, greatly perturbed, sent to the oracle of
Apollo to inquire how the devastation might be
halted. The response of the oracle was that a maiden
of noble birth must be sacrificed each year on the
altar of the city’s gods. Demiphon, choosing the
maidens by lottery, sacrificed all other daughters
save his own, until one of the well-born citizens
complained of the practice of Demiphon. This man
said he would not allow his daughter to be part of the
lottery unless the daughters of the king were part of it
as well. The king was angered and, selecting that
man’s daughter without a lottery, put her to death.
The maiden’s father, Mastusius by name, pretended
at the time that he would not be angry since the deed
was done on behalf of their country, for the lot might
have fallen to her later, and she might have perished
nonetheless. After a few days, the father of the
maiden lulled the king into forgetfulness, then, when
he had shown himself to be most kindly disposed to
the king, claimed that he was preparing a solemn
sacrifice and invited the king and his daughters. The
king, not suspecting that anything untoward was
about to happen, sent his daughters ahead as he was
occupied with matters of state and planed to come
later. When what Mastusius had greatly hoped for
happened, he slew the king’s daughters and, mixing
their blood with the wind in the wine-jar, ordered that
it be offered to the king to drink as he approached.
When the king looked for his daughters and
discovered what had happened to them, he ordered
that Mastusius be thrown into the sea, along with the
wine-jar. For that reason, the sea into which he was
thrown was called Mastusian in his memory, and the
port to this day called Crater (“wine-jar”). The ancient
astronomers configured it among the stars so that
men might be reminded that no one can profit from an
evil deed, and that evil deeds cannot be forgotten.

Virgo “Some day it is Demeter because of the sheaf
of grain she holds, others say it is Isis…”