THIS is the Archer, who is a Centaur according to most accounts. Others deny this, however, because he cannot be seen to be four-legged, but is standing upright and drawing a bow; and no Centaur ever made use of a bow. This is surely a man, but one who has the legs of a horse and a tail like that of the Satyrs.* That is why these find it hard to believe that this is a Centaur, but prefer to think that it is Crotos, the son of Eupheme,* nurse of the Muses.
This Crotos lived and passed his life on Mount Helicon. The Muses inspired him to discover the use of the bow, so that he would be able to procure food by hunting wild beasts, as Sositheos* recounts. He mixed with the Muses on familiar terms, and when listening to their performances, he indicated his approval by clapping his hands. Now the sound was feeble with only one person clapping in applause, but when they saw what he was doing, the others too followed his example. For that reason the Muses, when they came to enjoy the delight of fame as a result of his approval, asked Zeus to grant him renown for his piety, and he was thus placed among the constellations because of the use that he had made of his hands, taking his archery there too as a distinguishing sign. This practice of his has been perpetuated among human beings. The presence of the Boat* also serves to indicate that he will be visible to all, not only to those who are on dry land, but also to those who are out at sea. For these reasons, those who write that this is a Centaur are mistaken.
Hyginus
The Constellation
The Archer, who looks toward the west, is represented with the body of a Centaur, as though about to shoot an arrow; from his feet to his shoulders, he is set within the winter tropic, in such a way that only his head seems to project above the aforementioned circle. His bow is cut through the middle by the milky circle. At his feet there is a crown formed from stars, which we have already talked about. He sets head first, and rises vertically.
He has two stars on his head, two on his bow, one on his arrows, one on his right elbow, one on his front foot, one on his belly, one on his back, one on his tail, one on his front knee, one on his foot, one on his lower knee, and one on his shin. In all, fifteen. The Centaur’s crown* for its part has seven stars.
The Mythology
Many have said that this is a Centaur, but others have denied that on the ground that no Centaur ever made use of arrows. The question is also raised as to why he is represented with horse’s legs and has a tail like that of a Satyr. Some say that he is a man called Crotos, who was son of Eupheme and nurse of the Muses. According to Sositheos, the author of tragedies, he had his home on Mount Helicon and used to take pleasure in the company of the Muses, and sometimes also liked to go hunting. And he thus won great acclaim for the zeal with which he pursued these activities, for he had become at once very swift in running through the woods and very skilled in the arts. Because of the efforts that he had made, the Muses asked Zeus to portray him in a group of stars, and he fulfilled their request; but wanting to illustrate all his skills in a single image, Zeus gave him horse’s legs, because he had often gone riding, and added some arrows to indicate both his sharpness of mind and his speed. And he attached a Satyr’s tail to his body because the Muses had taken no less pleasure in his company than Dionysos in that of the Satyrs. In front of his feet there are a few stars arranged in a circle; some have said that this is his crown, cast off by him as though in play.
Commentary
(i) There was disagreement as to whether the figure represented in this constellation is four-footed or two-footed, and thus whether it can be regarded as a Centaur. According to the dominant view in the astronomical literature, advanced by Eudoxos and later by Hipparchos, it is four-footed, as Aratus indicates (400) through his reference to its ‘forelegs’. But some authors who wrote about astral mythology argued against this, on iconographic and, more playfully, mythical grounds, saying that no Centaur ever used a bow. While this was true of the Centaurs in general, who preferred to resort to cruder weapons such as rocks and uprooted trees, Cheiron could be supposed to differ from them in this as in other respects, and was sometimes explicitly stated to have been a skilful archer. In any case, Eratosthenes himself apparently took the lead in advancing the argument that this could not be a Centaur, because he described the constellation-figure as resembling a Satyr, and appealed to the none too serious myth of Crotos, derived from a Satyr play, to explain its origin. It should be noted that this Crotos, who was no more than Applause personified, was himself shaped like a normal human being, and not like a Satyr, but was said to have been represented in the sky with a horse’s legs and tail for symbolic reasons. Incidentally, the word krotos could mean either clapping with one’s hand or beating with one’s foot (which could itself be a sign of approval), and it is not entirely clear which is intended in this narrative, although the former interpretation has generally been assumed.
(ii) When regarded as a Centaur, the Archer was inevitably identified with the noble Centaur Cheiron (cited as an alternative by Nigidius, fr. 97 Sw., cf. Seneca, Thyestes 861, Lucan 9.536). In that case, a different interpretation was needed for the constellation of the Centaur.