Epitome 18. Horse
ONLY the front half of it is visible, down to its navel. According to Aratus,* this is the horse that created, with a blow of its hoof on Mount Helicon, the spring that is known accordingly as Hippocrene (the Horse’s Spring).
Others say, however, that this is Pegasos, which flew up to heaven after Bellerophon’s fall; but some regard this account as implausible because the Horse has no wings.
Euripides for his part says in his Melanippe that this is Hippe, the daughter of Cheiron, who was deceived and seduced by Aiolos, and had to flee into the mountains because her belly swelled up. As she was about to give birth there, her father came in search of her, and when she was on the point of being discovered, she prayed to be transformed and become a horse to save her from being recognized. And so, because of her piety and that of her father, she was placed among the constellations by Artemis, in a position in which she is out of sight of the Centaur (for that constellation is said to be Cheiron*). The hind part of her body is invisible, so that no one should know that she is female.
The Vatican Fragments give a slightly more detailed account of the Hippe story:
It is recorded that she was brought up on Mount Pelion, was fond of hunting, and devoted herself to the study of nature. After she was tricked and seduced by Aiolos, she managed to conceal the matter for a certain length of time, but when it became evident through the swelling of her belly, she fled into the mountains; and as she was about to give birth there, her father came in search of her, but when she was on the point of being discovered, she prayed to be transformed so as not to be recognized, and she was thus turned into a horse and gave birth to her child.
Hyginus
The Constellation
The Horse, which looks toward the arctic circle, can be seen to be resting its hooves on the summer tropic, and to be touching the head of the Dolphin with the end of its muzzle. The right hand of the Water-pourer touches the back of its neck, and it is hemmed in by the two Fishes, which belong among the twelve signs, as we will show later. Its body can be seen to be depicted among the stars only as far as its navel. It sets with the first of the two Fishes, that which is above its back; and it rises with the Water-pourer as a whole, with the Fish with which its sets, and with the right hand of the Water-pourer.
It has two faint stars on its muzzle, one on its head, one on its jaw, and one on each ear, and four faint stars on its neck, the brightest being that which is closest to its head, and one bright star on its shoulder, one star on its chest, one on its back, a star on its navel, as the hindmost, which is also called the head of Andromeda, and one on each knee, and one on each shin. There are thus eighteen stars in all.
The Mythology
According to Aratus and many other authors, this is Pegasos, offspring of Poseidon and the Gorgon Medusa, who kicked the ground with his hoof on Mount Helicon in Boeotia to open up a spring, which is named Hippocrene (the Horse’s Spring) after him.
Others say that when Bellerophon* came to visit Proitos, the king of the Argives, the king’s wife, Anteia, fell in love with the guest, and begged him to satisfy her desires, promising him her husband’s throne. When she failed to achieve her wish, she feared that he would denounce her to the king, and so forestalled him by telling her husband that he had tried to rape her. Having taken a liking to Bellerophon, Proitos was unwilling to inflict punishment on him directly, but knowing that he had the horse Pegasos, sent him over to Iobates,* the father of Anteia (who is sometimes called Stheneboia),* to allow Iobates to defend his daughter’s honour by sending him out against the Chimaira,* which was devastating the land of the Lycians at that time with the flame that it breathed out. Bellerophon escaped victorious, however, and after the spring was created, tried to fly up to the heavens,* but when he was not far short of his goal, he looked down toward the earth and was so overcome by fear (so the story goes) that he fell off and was killed. The horse for his part flew up on his way, and Zeus established him among the constellations. According to other accounts, he fled from Argos not because of Anteia’s accusations, but so as not to have to listen any longer to what he had no wish to hear, and so as not to allow himself to be moved by her pleas.
Euripides for his part says in his Melanippe that Hippe, daughter of Cheiron, was previously called Thetis; she was brought up on Mount Pelion, and was extremely fond of hunting, but was seduced one day by Aiolos, son of Hellen, a grandson of Zeus, and found herself pregnant. When the time was approaching for the birth of her child, she fled into the forest to prevent her father, who still supposed her to be a virgin, from seeing her give birth to a grandson. When her father set out in search of her, she thus appealed to the power of the gods, so it is said, not to allow her to be seen by her father in childbirth. The gods granted her wish, and after she had given birth to her child, she was changed into a mare and placed among the constellations. Or according to some accounts, she was a prophetess, but was turned into a horse because she was in the habit of divulging the plans of the gods* to mortals; while Callimachus says for his part that because she stopped hunting and ceased to worship Artemis, the goddess changed her into the aforementioned form. This is also why she is out of sight of the Centaur, so they say, who is sometimes said to be Cheiron, and indeed why only half of her is visible, because she did not want it to be known that she was a woman.
Commentary
(i) Three identifications were suggested for the Horse, as this constellation was originally known, all of them mentioned by Eratosthenes. On Mount Helicon in Boeotia there was a spring known as Hippocrene (the Horse’s Spring); Hesiod refers to it when invoking the aid of the Heliconian Muses at the beginning of his Theogony, as the place where the Muses washed before dancing, and it came to be associated with poetic inspiration. Aratus (216 ff.) suggests that the Horse in the heavens is the one that created this spring, without explaining how it came to be placed there. He does not name it as Pegasos, and it would seem that Eratosthenes explicitly contrasted Aratus’s interpretation with that in which it is presented as being Pegasos. In the subsequent tradition, however, the two horses came to be identified with one another (e.g. Pausanias 9.31.3), and the two originally separate astral myths came to be combined accordingly, as can be seen in Hyginus.
(ii) This is the winged horse Pegasos, on which Bellerophon rode out to confront and kill the monstrous Chimaira; Hyginus offers a full account of that hero’s life (cf. Ap. 2.3.1; Pegasos is already mentioned in connection with the Chimaira in Hesiod, Theogony 319–25). According to a tale first recounted by Pindar (Isthmian Ode 7.43–8), Bellerophon came to a bad end after his moment of glory, falling from the back of Pegasos, or being forced off, when he tried to transcend human bounds by riding up to heaven on him. For present purposes, it could be said that Pegasos continued his way after his master fell off, and can still be seen flying through the heavens.
(iii) It is stated in the Epitome that ‘some think’ that the Horse in the sky cannot be Pegasos because it has no wings. Since it had no wings in Eratosthenes’ description, and this third story also explains why only the front part of it is represented, it may well have been presented by Eratosthenes himself as being the most plausible. This is the tale in which Hippe (‘Mare’), daughter of Cheiron, prayed to the gods to be transformed to prevent her father from seeing her give birth to a child outside wedlock. The catasterism was added to a version of her story that had been presented in one of Euripides’ two lost plays about Melanippe (that being the name of the daughter who was brought to birth by her in the circumstances that led to her transformation).