THIS is said to be Arcas, the son of Callisto and Zeus; Lycaon cut him up and served him to Zeus* at table while the god was staying with him as a guest. So Zeus overturned the table—that is why the city of Trapezous* is called by that name—and struck Lycaon’s house with a thunderbolt in disgust at his cruelty. He then reassembled Arcas, making him whole again, and raised him up to be set among the constellations.*
The Vatican Fragments provide a fuller account, explaining how Arcas came to be transferred to the heavens:
This is said to be Arcas, the son of Callisto and Zeus; he lived near the sanctuary of Lycaean Zeus, where Zeus had raped his mother. Pretending to have no knowledge of the matter, Lycaon invited Zeus to visit him, as Hesiod recounts,* and cut up the baby [Arcas] and served him at table;* whereupon Zeus overturned the table—that is why the city of Trapezous is called by that name—and struck the house with a thunderbolt, and transformed Lycaon into a wild beast, turning him into a wolf. He then reassembled Arcas, making him whole again, and the boy was reared by a goatherd. When he had grown up to become a young man, it would seem that he rushed into the sanctuary of Lycaean Zeus and, without realizing who she was, had intercourse with his mother.* When the local people were about to sacrifice the two of them in accordance with the law, Zeus snatched them away because of the bond that united him to them, and raised them up to be set among the constellations.
Hyginus
The Constellation
His left hand is enclosed within the arctic circle, so that it can be seen neither to set nor to rise. He himself is located between the arctic circle and the summer tropic, inclined longitudinally, and with his right foot set on the summer tropic. His shoulders and chest are divided from the rest of his body by the circle that passes through the two poles and touches the Ram and the Claws (i.e. the equinoctial colure). Because he sets with the rising of the Bull, Twins, Crab, and Lion, he is said to be late in his setting. He arrives at the horizon well upright on his feet, but can be seen rising obliquely at greater speed along with the Claws.
On his left foot he has four stars which are said never to set, and he has one star on his head, one on each shoulder, one on each nipple, that on the right being brighter and standing above the other, which is faint, and a bright star on his right elbow, and one on his belt* which is brighter than all the others, and is known as Arcturus, and a star on each foot. In all, fourteen.
The Mythology
This is said to be Arcas, son of Callisto and Zeus, whom Lycaon is supposed to have served up at table, chopped up along with some other meat, when Zeus was visiting him as a guest. For Lycaon wanted to know whether the person who had sought his hospitality really was a god.* Through this deed he brought no slight punishment on himself, because Zeus immediately overturned the table and burned his house down with a thunderbolt, turning Lycaon himself into a wolf. As for the boy, he gathered up his limbs and reassembled them, and then entrusted him to the care of an Aetolian.* While Arcas was hunting in the forest after he had grown up to become a young man, he caught sight of his mother who had been changed into a bear, without knowing who she was. Intent on killing her, he pursued her into the temple of Lycaean Zeus, even though anyone who enters it is subject to the penalty of death under Arcadian law. It thus came about that, since both of them would have to be killed, Zeus took pity on them and snatched them away to place them among the constellations, as we have already stated.* So Arcas can be seen following the bear, and as guardian of the Bear he has been given the name of Arctophylax (Bear-guard).
Or according to some authors, this is Icarios, the father of Erigone. Because of his righteousness and piety, Dionysos is supposed to have entrusted the gift of wine to him, and the vine and the grape, so that he could show people how to cultivate the vine, and what use to make of its fruit once it had grown. When he had planted the vine and tended it with great care, easily causing it to flourish, a goat broke into the vineyard, so the story goes, and nibbled away the most tender leaves that it could see there. In his anger at this, Icarios killed the goat and made a bag from its hide, which he inflated and tied up; and he then threw it among his companions, telling them to dance around it. Eratosthenes says accordingly:
‘At the feet of Icarios they first danced around a goat.’*
Others say that Icarios, after receiving the vine from Dionysos, immediately set to work to load up a cart with wine-skins; because of that, he is also called Bootes (the Ox-driver). Passing through Attica, he introduced wine to the shepherds, and some of them, full of greed and much attracted by this new form of drink, sank to the ground in a stupor, one in one place and one in another. As though half-dead, they threw their limbs around and babbled away in an unseemly fashion, and the other shepherds, thinking that Icarios had administered poison to them to drive their flocks away to his own land, killed him and threw his body into a well, or, according to other accounts, buried him at the foot of a tree. Those who had fallen asleep, however, declared on awakening that they had never enjoyed better rest, and enquired after Icarios, wanting to reward him for his gift; troubled by their conscience, his murderers immediately took flight, and made their way to the island of Ceos. And receiving a friendly welcome there, they decided to make it their home.
But when Erigone, the daughter of Icarios, who had been overcome by longing for her father when she did not see him return, was about to set off in search of him, the dog of Icarios, Maira by name,* returned to her, howling as if it was lamenting the death of its master. This gave her no small reason to suspect that he had met his death, for the timid girl could only suppose that he had been killed, now that he had been away for so many days and months. The dog for its part grasped her dress with its teeth and led her to his body. At the sight of it, his daughter was filled with despair, and overcome by the thought of her loneliness and destitution, she shed many tears of sorrow and took her own life, hanging herself on the very tree that marked her father’s grave. And the dog appeased the spirit of the dead girl through its own death. According to some accounts, it threw itself into a well called Anigros, with the result that no one has drunk from that well ever since that time, so tradition reports. Taking pity on the three of them for their misfortune, Zeus represented their bodies among the stars, and many have thus identified Icarios as Bootes, and Erigone as the Maiden (about whom we will speak later); as for the dog, on account of its name and form it has come to be called Canicula (the Little Dog). Because it rises before the larger Dog, the Greeks call it Procyon* (the Foredog). According to other accounts, it was Dionysos who represented them among the stars.
In the mean time, many girls on Athenian territory took their own lives for no apparent reason by hanging themselves, because Erigone had prayed at her death that the daughters of the Athenians should meet the same death as the one that she was to suffer, if the Athenians did not investigate and avenge the death of Icarios. And so, when the events just described came about, the Athenians consulted Apollo, and were told that, if they wanted to be delivered from their predicament, they would have to appease Erigone. Since she had hanged herself, they established the custom of suspending themselves on ropes with a plank attached at the bottom, so as to be moved about like a hanged person agitated by the wind. They established this as an annual rite,* which they celebrate both in private and in public, calling it the Aletides, because when Erigone had been searching for her father with his dog, as one who was necessarily unknown and solitary, she had been called a mendicant, aletides being the Greek name for such people.
Canicula, furthermore, when rising with its heat,* robbed the territory and fields of the Ceans of their crops, and struck the Ceans themselves with disease, causing them to expiate through their own sufferings for the death of Icarios, as punishment for having harboured the criminals. Their king Aristaios, son of Apollo and Cyrene, and father of Actaion, asked his father what needed to be done to deliver his land from this affliction; and the god told him to expiate for the death of Icarios through many sacrifices, and to pray to Zeus that when Canicula rises, he should cause a wind to blow for forty days to temper its heat. Aristaios fulfilled these orders, and obtained as a favour from Zeus that the Etesian winds should blow. Some have called them etesian because they blow up at a fixed time each year, since etos is the Greek word for a year; although some have said that they are called by that name because they were ‘requested’* from Zeus and came to be granted accordingly. But we will leave the matter unresolved, lest we should be thought to be claiming to have an answer prepared for every question.
But to return to our main subject, Hermippos,* the author of astronomical works, says that Demeter slept with Iasion, son of Theseus, and was struck with a thunderbolt as a consequence, as is reported by many authors, including Homer.* According to Petellides of Cnossos,* the author of histories, two sons were born from that liaison, Philomelos and Ploutos (Wealth), who are said to have been on bad terms with one another; for Ploutos, who was the richer, was unwilling to share any of his wealth with his brother. Under force of necessity, Philomelos scraped together all that he possessed to buy two oxen, and became the first man to construct a wagon. And he was thus able to support himself by ploughing and cultivating the fields. In admiration for his invention, his mother Demeter placed him among the constellations in the form of a ploughman, and called him Bootes (the Oxherd). It is said that he had a son called Parios, and that it was after him that the Parians and the town of Parion* were named.
Alternative account
When Dionysos went to visit human beings to show them the sweet and agreeable nature of his fruits, he enjoyed generous hospitality from Icarios and Erigone. He gave them a skin filled with wine as a gift, and told them to spread knowledge of it to all other lands. Icarios loaded up a wagon, and, accompanied by his daughter Erigone* and dog Maira, went to see the shepherds of Attica, and showed them what pleasure can be found in wine. After having drunk to excess, the shepherds fell down intoxicated, and thinking that Icarios had given them poison to drink, they clubbed him to death. By howling in front of the corpse of Icarios, the dog Maira showed Erigone where her father was lying unburied. On arriving there, she took her own life by hanging herself on a tree above her father’s body. Angered by what had happened, Dionysos inflicted a corresponding penalty on the daughters of the Athenians. When the Athenians consulted the oracle of Apollo about the matter, they were told that they had failed to pay any heed to the deaths of Icarios and Erigone. On receiving this response, they inflicted punishment on the shepherds, and founded the festival of swinging in honour of Erigone as a result of that affliction, resolving that, at the grape-harvest, the first fruits should be dedicated to Icarios and Erigone. By will of the gods, these latter were placed among the stars, Erigone becoming the constellation of the Maiden, whom we call Justice,* while Icarios received among the stars the name of Arcturus,* and the dog Maira that of Canicula. (Mythical Tales 130, Icarios and Erigone)
Commentary
(i) In so far as the constellation-figure was named as Arctophylax, the Bear-guard, it could be associated with the neighbouring large Bear, and a joint myth was put forward to explain the origin of both constellations, in which the Arcadian hero Arcas was said to have been transferred to the sky together with his mother Callisto, who had been transformed into a bear (see pp. 5–7).
(ii) The other two myths that were proposed with regard to this constellation are founded on the notion that this is Bootes, the Oxherd or Ox-driver. One is the myth of Icarios, who received the gift of wine from Dionysos, and loaded wine-skins on to an ox-drawn cart to spread knowledge of wine through Attica. Icarios, who is presented as a humble farmer, was the eponym of the village of Icaria, near Athens. There were two myths in which both bread and wine, as basic features of civilized life, were said to have been revealed to the human race in Attica, bread by Demeter at Eleusis, to be spread by Triptolemos (see p. 60 ff.), and wine by Dionysos at Icaria, to be spread by Icarios. The myth turns on the ambiguous character of wine, as a source both of delight and of frenzy; Icarios, who sets out as a benefactor, meets his death because its effects are misinterpreted, and his daughter Erigone commits suicide as a consequence. Eratosthenes, who lived in Athens for a while, wrote a lost poem, the Erigone, in which the tale of Icarios was developed into an astral myth; although there is no reference to Icarios and Erigone in the Epitome, it is hard to believe that Eratosthenes would have omitted this story from his compendium of constellation myths. The story gave occasion for three catasterisms: Icarios could be identified with Bootes for the reason already indicated—Hyginus mentions specifically that he was driving an ox-cart (cf. schol. Od. 5.272); while Erigone could be said to have been placed in the sky as the neighbouring constellation of the Maiden, which lies under Bootes; and finally there was the family dog, which could be said to have become the scorching dog-star, so enabling a remarkable coda to be added to the myth: see further on p. 117.
(iii) Or this is Philomelos, the inventor of the wagon and the plough. There was an ancient myth (Hes. Theog. 969 ff., Homer, Od. 5.125 ff.) in which the corn-goddess Demeter was said to have slept with Iasion in a thrice-ploughed field, to conceive a child Ploutos (Wealth), who symbolized the wealth of the earth and the riches of the grain-harvest. This inspired a certain Petellides, who is otherwise unknown, to develop a little tale on the basis of the folk-motif of the rich and poor sons, in which, as customary, the rich brother refuses to help the poor brother, who comes out best in the end nonetheless. In this case, the poor Philomelos makes his two agricultural inventions under force of necessity, and is raised to the sky as a consequence by his divine mother. Both the wagon and the plough could be drawn by oxen, but Hyginus’s narrative places more emphasis on the plough.