Epitome 27. Capricorn
THIS figure is similar in appearance to Aigipan, and is moreover modelled on him.* His lower limbs are formed like those of a beast, and he has horns on his head. He was honoured in this way because he was suckled together with Zeus, according to Epimenides, the author of the Cretan Tales, who reports that he was living on Ida with Zeus when that god set out to attack the Titans. It seems that he discovered the seashell that served as a weapon to the allied gods, because of the so-called panic-making sound that it emitted, which put the Titans to flight. After taking power, Zeus placed him among the stars, along with his mother, the Goat.* He has the tail of a fish to indicate that he discovered the shell in the sea.
Hyginus
The Constellation
Capricorn looks toward the west and is depicted wholly within the circle of the zodiac; his tail and the whole of his body are cut through the middle by the winter tropic. He lies under the left hand of the Water-pourer. He sets head first, and rises vertically.
He has one star on his nose, one beneath his neck, two on his chest, one on his hind foot, another on the same, seven on his back, five on his belly, and two on his tail. That makes twenty stars in all.
The Mythology
His [Capricorn’s] appearance is similar to that of Aigipan. Zeus, having been suckled with him, wanted to place him among the stars, in the same way as the goat that had been his nurse, which we have already spoken about. It is said too that when Zeus went off to attack the Titans, he was the first to arouse so-called panic fear in the enemy, as Eratosthenes recounts. It is for that reason, and because he hurled seashells at the enemy instead of stones, that the lower part of his body is formed like that of a fish.
Egyptian priests and poets say, however, that when many of the gods had once gathered together in Egypt, Typhon,* a very fierce giant and great enemy of the gods, suddenly appeared there. Overcome by fear, the gods assumed different forms, Hermes turning into an ibis, and Apollo into the so-called Thracian bird, while Artemis took on the appearance of a cat.* It is for that reason, so it is said, that the Egyptians do not allow any ill-treatment to be inflicted on these creatures, because they regard them as being images of the gods. On that same occasion, so the story goes, Pan hurled himself into the river, giving the lower part of his body the appearance of a fish, and the rest of it that of a goat, and thus escaped from Typhon. Zeus so admired his stratagem that he placed an image of him among the constellations.
Alternative account
When the gods, in Egypt, took fright at the ferocity of Typhon, Pan told them to turn themselves into wild beasts to deceive him the more easily, and Zeus struck him dead with a thunderbolt. By the will of the gods, Pan was placed among the stars because his advice had enabled them to escape from the power of Typhon; and because he had turned himself into a goat on that occasion, he was called Aigōkeros, which we translate as Capricorn.
Commentary
(i) This constellation of eastern origin represents a goat-fish, with the foreparts of a goat and the hind parts of a fish. Since there was nothing of that kind in Greek myth, a certain amount of ingenuity was required to develop a myth to account for its origin. Its goat-like features would inevitably call to mind the rustic deity Pan, who was often pictured as having a goat’s head or horns and goat’s legs. Eratosthenes suggested accordingly that the figure in the constellation is Aigipan (Goat-Pan); it is not entirely clear whether we are intended to regard this as a name for Pan himself, in specific reference to his goat-like features, or to view Aigipan as being a separate being related to Pan, but the former interpretation is perhaps to be preferred. But what of Capricorn’s fish-like features? In Eratosthenes’ account, they were presented as being merely symbolic. Aigipan came to the assistance of Zeus and his fellow-gods in their war against the Titans by inducing ‘Panic’ fear in the enemy by blowing a conch-shell horn, and he was then represented in the sky as part-fish to indicate the marine origin of the horn. The seashell horn was originally associated with the minor sea-god Triton, who is indeed mentioned by Hyginus in this connection (see p. 67), and was transferred to Aigipan specifically to allow the development of this astral myth. Aigipan’s services in this regard would suffice to justify his transference to the heavens, but as observed in connection with the Goat star (see pp. 42 and 44), there were myths in which Zeus was said to have been suckled by a goat, and through the suggestion that this Goat-Pan had been suckled by it alongside Zeus, not only could additional justification be provided for the catasterism, but it could be suggested that there had been a joint catasterism in which the goat and Aigipan were placed among the stars at the same time.
(ii) As in the case of the Fishes (see p. 83), use could be made of the myth in which the gods were said to have assumed different animal forms to escape the monster Typhon. This myth (the best account is that by Antoninus Liberalis, 40) provided an explanation for why Egyptian gods were portrayed partially or wholly in animal form. For present purposes, the god Pan, who already had goat-like features, could be said to have changed himself into a goat-fish after jumping in the Nile, and to have come to be represented in the sky in the form that he had temporarily assumed.