This page will remain a work in progress indefinitely. Its purpose is to give some background account of the characters that appear in my descriptions of the mythological connections of the constellations.
I acknowledge The Penguin Book of Classical Myths by Jenny March (Allen Lane of the Penguin Group, 2008), which is the major source of the account given below. Dr. March gives a much more detailed account and includes variations to the stories as told by different classical authors. The choice of which story to tell (and even which name to use sometimes) is entirely mine and based on total ignorance of the original texts.
Most of the names used for objects in the sky are based on Greek and Roman mythology. In general the names are taken from Roman myths but these are all based on the Greek myths, and not all the names have Roman equivalents. For this reason I shall keep to the Greek names unless I feel that using the Greek names will cause unnecessary confusion. For example, had the planets been named after Greek gods, rather than their Roman equivalents, if I include Pluto, their names would have been, in the usual order, Hermes, Aphrodite, Gaia, Ares, Zeus, Kronos, Ouranos, Poseidon, and Hades. (Actually Uranus is the latinised form of Ouranos and is Greek. The Roman equivalent is Caelus.)
In the beginning there were four primaeval entities, Chaos, the Great Void, Gaia, the Earth, Tartaros, the underworld far below the Earth (see footnote), and Eros, sexual love (the cosmic force that drove all later procreation). These beings are, of course, immortal and initially gave rise to more immortal beings asexually, but eventually Eros began to dominate and sexual promiscuity became rampant in all its forms and created both mortal and immortal offspring.
Chaos gave rise to Erebos, the darkness of the Underworld, and Nyx or Night, darkness that falls on the Earth. Erabos mated with Night to produce Aither, the clear upper air far from the Earth, and Hemera or Day. Night promptly went off to live in Tartaros emerging only at dusk to bring darkness to the cosmos as her daughter Hemera (Day) was retiring. Without a mate, Night gave rise to a whole gamut of powerful abstract forces such as Fate, Doom, Death and Sleep. Sleep gave rise to a thousand offspring called Dreams, which he sprinkled on sleeping mortals. Of all the children of Night, only Eris, the goddess of Strife, gave rise to further offspring such as Toil, Neglect, and Delusion (Ate), of which only Ate had a distinct mythological identity, clouding the mind and driving people to acts of folly. Later Zeus created the Apologies whose job it was to follow Ate around and help to heal the damage cause to deluded humanity.
By far the most important of the primaeval entities, as far as the future of the Universe is concerned, was Gaia who gave rise to two great families and from whose bounty every living thing derives nourishment. Of herself she produced Ouranos (the Sky), Pontos (the Sea), and Mountains. Gaia promptly mated with Ouranos and bore a race of gods called the Titans, which include such familiar names as Hyperion, Iapetos, and Rheia (satellites of Saturn) but, far more significant for our story, Kronos the wily, the youngest and most terrible of her sons who hated his father. Gaia also gave birth to mighty giants, the three Hundred-handers with fifty heads and a hundred arms, and the one-eyed Cyclopes. Ouranos hated his children and, fearing that one day they might challenge his sovereignty, he forced them back into their mother's womb until, unable to bear the pain, Gaia asked Kronos for help He lay in wait for his father when he came to Gaia at night and cut off his father's genitals and threw them into the sea. However the blood spilled on Gaia was fertile and she gave birth to the Furies, the Giants, and the Meliads (Tree-nymphs). The Furies were the goddesses of Retribution, the Giants were monstrous beings of incredible strength, but the Meliads were benign fairy-like creatures each associated with a tree. Although long-lived, the nymphs were mortal, dying when their tree died. Meanwhile Ouranos' severed genitals were carried across the waves and eventually gave birth to Aphrodite, the goddess of love.
Having overthrown his father, Kronos became master of the Universe, and he freed the other Titans from their imprisonment in Gaia. Kronos mated with one of them, Rheia, who gave birth to five children. Kronos feared that he too might be deposed by one of his children. He could not kill them because they were immortal, so, soon after each was born, he swallowed them whole. When she gave birth to her sixth child, Zeus, she hid him and handed a stone wrapped in swaddling clothes which Kronos swallowed. Zeus was brought up in secret by local nymphs and, when he came to maturity, he confronted his father and forced him to disgorge his other children the youngest of whom was Poseidon, the god of the sea. The eldest Titan, Okeanos (Ocean), was the god of the Great River that surrounded the flat Earth, separating the land of mortals from strange and awesome places beyond. Okeanos mated with his sister, Tethys, who produced the 3,000 Rivers that are on the Earth and the 3,000 nymphs of land and water, the Oceanids*. Theia mated with her brother Hyperion and produced three children, Helios (the Sun), Selene (the Moon) and Eos (the Dawn, Aurora to the Romans). Each had children who became kings of nations. The Titan, Kreios, mated with Eurybia, a daughter of Pontos, and produced Astraios, Pallas, and Perses. Astraios mated with his cousin Eos and produced the three main winds, Boreas (North), Notos (South), and Zephyros (West). They also produced all the Stars in the heavens, including the morning and evening stars, Phosphorus and Hesperos. Further mating between the Titans produced many beings, mortal and immortal the most significant being the union of Kronos and Rheia which produced many of the gods of Olympos.
Needless to say, Kronos was not very popular with his offspring and it was not long before, lead by Zeus, they rose up against him and a terrible war ensued which lasted ten years. The younger gods, fighting from Mount Olympos, eventually prevailed when Zeus freed the Cyclopes and the Hundred-handers from their imprisonment deep within the Earth, where their father, Ouranos, had imprisoned them, and fed them with nectar and ambrosia to give them strength. Zeus now reigned in his father's place and he imprisoned those Titans who had supported Kronos in the depths of Tartaros and appointed the Hundred-handers to guard them. In Greek myth, Kronos was imprisoned also, but in Roman myth his counterpart, Saturn, was banished from Olympos and became the first king of Latium where he taught the people agriculture and the advantages of civilisation - his reign was a golden age of peace and prosperity.
The second great dynasty arose from the union of Gaia with her second son Pontos. Their eldest son, Nereus, the Old Man of the Sea, mated with an Oceanid, Doris, and produced the Nereids, sea-nymphs of outstanding beauty, few of which appear individually in myth. Pontos and Gaia had four more children, two boys, Thaumas and Phorkys and two girls, Keto and Eurybia, who became the wife of Kreios. Thaumas mated with Elektra and produced many spirits of the air including Iris, goddess of the rainbow and messenger of the gods, and the Harpies, goddesses of the storm winds that swept mortals away never to be seen again. Phorkeys partnered his sister Keto and bred some monstrous children, the Graiai, the Gorgons, Echidna, and Ladon, a monstrous snake which helped the Hesperides to guard their golden apples. The Graiai were born young and lovely with white hair, but became blind, old women with one eye and one tooth between them which they passed around as required. The Gorgons were fearful monsters who lived far beyond the river Ocean. Two, Stheno and Euryal were immortal but the third, Medusa, was mortal. Their heads sprouted writhing snakes, they had large tusks, hands of bronze, and wings of gold, and anyone looking at them was turned to stone. Medusa was finally killed by Perseus and from her severed head would be born her children by Poseidon, Pegasos, the winged horse, and Chrysaor, the Golden Sword. Echidna was even more terrible than the Gorgons, half beautiful woman, half monstrous snake, immortal and living beneath the Earth devouring raw flesh. She mated with Typhon, a monster even more frightful than herself (the son of Gaia and Tartaros, he had hundreds of serpents sprouting from his shoulders, hands and theighs; he was so tall his head brushed the stars and with outstetched hands he could touch the East and the West) and produced several monstrous beasts including Kerberos, the multi-headed dog who guards the entrance to the Underworld, and Orthos, the two-headed watchdog of Geryon, son of Chrysaor. Echidna mated with Orthos and produced two more monsters, the Sphinx, and the Nemean Lion whose skin was impervious to any weapon.
This completes, I think, the background and introduces all the characters we will meet in the myths that underpin the constellations.
* The most significant of the Oceanids, as far as astronomers are cencerned, are the Nephelai, who are the nymphs that create the clouds which water the earth and keep the streams running.
Footnote:
Tartaros is as far below the Earth as Heaven is above. A bronze anvil dropped from Heaven would take nine days to fall to Earth, arriving on the tenth; similarly to fall from Earth to Tartaros. (Back to the text)
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