THIS is the eagle that carried Ganymedes through the sky to Zeus, so that he might have a cup-bearer; it is also among the constellations because, at an earlier time, when the gods were dividing the birds between them, this bird fell to Zeus. It alone of all creatures flies directly toward the sun without yielding to its rays, and it holds dominion over all the other birds. It is represented with its wings outstretched, as though gliding.
Aglaosthenes says in his Naxian Tales that when Zeus, after his birth in Crete, was being ruthlessly hunted down, he was stolen away from Crete and taken to Naxos; and when he grew up and came of age, he assumed sovereignty over the gods. As he was setting off from Naxos to attack the Titans, an eagle appeared and accompanied him on his way; seeing this as a good omen, Zeus appointed the eagle to be his sacred bird, and that is why it was adjudged worthy of the honour of being represented in the sky.
Hyginus
The Constellation
With its right wing the Eagle stretches across the equator, while its left wing can be seen to be depicted not far from the head of the Serpent-bearer. Its beak is separated, furthermore, from the rest of its body by the circle which, as we have said above, runs from the Crab to Capricorn. The central part of it is marked by the milky circle as we have pointed out above. It sets at the rising of the Lion, and rises with Capricorn. It has one star on its head, one on each wing, and one on its tail.
The Mythology
This is the eagle that is said to have snatched away Ganymedes to deliver him to Zeus, who had taken a fancy to him; Zeus is also said to have chosen the eagle above all other birds. It alone, so the story goes, strives to fly straight into the rays of the rising sun. And thus it can be seen flying above the Water-pourer, for that is commonly imagined to be Ganymedes.
Or according to some accounts, there was a certain Merops, who reigned over the island of Cos, which he named after his daughter, while naming its inhabitants the Meropians after himself. He had a wife called Ethemeia, who was born from the race of the nymphs; when she stopped worshipping Artemis, the goddess began to transfix her with her arrows, but she was finally carried off to the Underworld by Persephone while still alive. Merops for his part yearned so desperately for his wife that he wanted to kill himself; but Hera took pity on him and turned him into an eagle and placed him among the stars, so that he would not retain his memory and long for his wife, as he would have done if she had placed him there in human form.
Aglaosthenes, the author of the Naxian Tales, recounts that Zeus was secretly removed from Crete and taken to Naxos, where he was reared. When he grew up to become a man and wanted to make war against the Titans, an eagle appeared to him as an omen while he was offering a sacrifice; he paid due heed to the omen and placed the eagle among the stars.
Some say that Hermes, or according to others, Anaplades,* was captivated by the beauty of Aphrodite and fell in love with her; but when he failed to win his way with her, he became disheartened, as though he had suffered an insult. But Zeus took pity on him, and while Aphrodite was bathing in the river Acheloos,* he sent an eagle to carry her slipper off to Amythaonia in Egypt* and entrust it to Hermes. So Aphrodite set off in search of it and arrived in the presence of her admirer; and on achieving his desire, Hermes rewarded the eagle by placing it in the heavens.
Commentary
(i) This is the eagle that abducted Ganymedes, as represented in the constellation of Water-pourer, which lies nearby, south of the equator; he was taken up to Olympos to become cup-bearer to Zeus (see pp. 81–2). Although the myth of Ganymedes was very ancient, appearing in the Iliad (20.298 ff.), there is no mention of the eagle in early sources; the fifth Homeric Hymn, to Apollo, talks merely of a heaven-sent whirlwind, and the eagle is not attested even in the visual arts before the fourth century. As with Europa’s bull, there was disagreement as to whether Zeus sent it or assumed its form, but the former alternative is chosen here, as would be expected. We are also told that the eagle deserved its place in the heavens because it was the bird of Zeus, possessing certain remarkable qualities, but Eratosthenes seems to have put this forward as additional justification, rather than an alternative explanation for why it was placed there as in the case of the Lion (see pp. 69–71).
(ii) Or in another account, relating to the early life of Zeus, the eagle was thought worthy of being placed in the sky because it had provided a favourable omen to Zeus before he set out against the Titans; this explains at the same time why it became the bird of Zeus.
(iii) Merops, a primordial king of Cos, so grieved for his dead wife that Hera, as goddess of marriage, transformed him into an eagle and set him in the heavens. The idea that the transformation would save him from being tormented by painful memories seems reasonable enough, but that does not explain why he was turned into an eagle specifically. Since merops means bee-eater in Greek, it is possible that he was turned into that bird in the original story, and was later said to have been turned into an eagle instead for the specific purpose of explaining the origin of this constellation.
(iv) Zeus sent his eagle to help Hermes to seduce Aphrodite, and it was Hermes who placed it in the sky. Hermes says in the Odyssey (8.335–42) how much he would like to sleep with Aphrodite, but the stolen slipper, rather like Cinderella’s shoe, is a motif from folklore, and the story as a whole follows the pattern of a folktale. A very similar tale is recorded, in which an eagle took the slipper of the courtesan Rhodopis and dropped it into the lap of the king of Egypt, who arranged for the owner to be tracked down, and then took her as his wife (Strabo 17.1.33, Aelian, Historical Miscellany, 13.37).
(v) Since the Eagle lies close to the Swan, the main myth associated with that constellation, in which Zeus changed into a swan to father Helen, was adapted to provide a joint explanation of the origin of the two neighbouring bird constellations (see pp. 20–2).
(vi) According to the early Hellenistic poet Moiro, this is an eagle that had brought nectar to the infant Zeus; see further on p. 92.