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