Epitome 33. Dog
IT is recounted that this is the dog that was given to Europa* for her protection, along with the lance.* Minos came to possess both of them, and later, when he was cured of an illness by Procris, he passed them on to Procris as a gift; and subsequently Cephalos gained possession of both of them, as the husband of Procris. He went to Thebes, taking the dog with him, to hunt the fox,* which, so an oracle had declared, could not be killed by anyone whatever. Zeus, being at a loss as to what to do, turned the fox to stone, and raised up the dog to set it among the constellations, judging it to be worthy of that honour.
But others say that this is the dog of Orion, which accompanied him when he was out hunting, in accordance with the general opinion that such an animal protects all hunters against wild beasts. The dog was raised up to the stars when Orion ascended there, and that doubtless came about because it had never abandoned Orion in any of his adventures.
Hyginus
The Constellation
The Dog, which is pursuing the fleeing Hare, has its hind feet cut off by the winter tropic. The right foot of Orion almost comes into contact with its head, which looks toward the west but is turned toward the equator. It sets at the rising of the Archer, and rises with the Crab. This Dog has one star on its tongue, which is called the dog-star, and on its head another star which some people call Sirius, which we have already spoken about. It has, furthermore, a faint star on each ear, two stars on its chest, three on its hind foot, three between its shoulder-blades, one on its left hip, one on its hind foot, one on its left foot, and four on its tail. In all, nineteen.
The Mythology
It is said that Zeus appointed [the Dog] to be a guard for Europa, and that it later came into the possession of Minos. When Minos fell ill, he was cured,* so they say, by Procris, the wife of Cephalos, and he gave her the dog as a reward for her services, since she was very fond of hunting and the dog had been granted the power of never failing to catch its prey. After her death the dog came to be owned by Cephalos, because Procris had been his wife. He took it with him when he went to Thebes.* There was a fox there which had been granted the power, so they say, of being able to escape from all dogs; and so when the two animals were brought together, Zeus was at a loss as to what to do, so Istros recounts, and turned both of them to stone.*
Or according to other accounts, this was Orion’s dog, and because Orion had such a passion for hunting, it was placed among the constellations along with him. Others again say that this was the dog of Icarios,* whom we have already discussed. These many suggestions have their proponents.
Now the Dog has a star on its tongue which is itself called the Dog, and on its head another star* which Isis is supposed to have placed there under her own name, calling it Sirius because of the brilliance of its light, for it is of such a nature that it seems to outshine all other stars. And so, to make it more easily recognizable, she called it Sirius.
Commentary
The Great Dog
(i) This is Orion’s dog. The brightest star in the constellation, Sirius, was initially identified as such, and the constellation was then constructed by adding other stars from the same region. With the addition of the Hare, a hunting-scene was built up in the sky, so that Orion could be seen still pursuing his favourite activity there, as Homer had portrayed him as doing in the Underworld (Od. 11.572 ff.). No specific story was developed to explain how the dog came to be placed in the sky, it was simply assumed that it was transferred together with its master, as a kind of attribute. Eratosthenes favoured the other Dog for this role (see pp. 64–5), and looked elsewhere to provide a proper astral myth for this greater one.
(ii) According to a myth that goes back to early epic (Epigonoi fr. 5 PEG; full later accounts in Antoninus Liberalis 41, Ovid, Metamorphoses 7.763 ff.), the Thebans were once persecuted by the fearsome Teumessian fox, which was fated never to be caught, and an intolerable contradiction arose when Cephalos, son of Deion, arrived from Athens with a dog which was fated always to catch its prey and set it in pursuit of the fox; so Zeus was obliged to resolve the problem by turning both beasts to stone. Eratosthenes needed to make only a slight alteration to the story, by saying that Zeus may have turned the fox to stone but judged the dog worthy of being transferred to the heavens, presumably because it was a wondrous beast that he himself had once assigned to protect his mistress Europa. Hyginus fails to make any mention of the catasterism, merely citing a Hellenistic poet for the traditional version in which the dog too was turned to stone; the present version is found only in literature relating to astronomy. We are told elsewhere that Procris was already married to Cephalos when she met Minos, having fled to Crete when her husband discovered that she had been unfaithful to him, and she passed the wonder-dog on to him when they later became reconciled, after she had engaged in a love affair with Minos (Ap. 3.15.1, Antoninus Liberalis 41). Cephalos was subsequently invited to bring his dog to Thebes to hunt the fox, or else he settled there when he was obliged to leave his native Attica after accidentally killing his wife in a hunting-accident.
Sirius
Although the dog-star Sirius (or Seirios in Greek form) was the original dog of Orion before the constellation was devised, and it was later said that the myths of that constellation could be applied to that star too (schol. Arat. 2.517), there was an important myth that was applied to this star in its specific nature as a heat-bringing star. For it was imagined to exert that effect because the period that followed its early rising was the hottest time of the year. In the myth of Icarios, as developed by Eratosthenes, the dog of Icarios led his daughter Erigone to his body, and jumped into a well after she killed herself (see p. 38). It is stated in that narrative that the dog was called Maira (a name that was applied to Sirius during the period of its greatest heat), and that it was finally transferred to the heavens to become the dog-star.
During the dog-days of summer, the heat was moderated to some extent in the Aegean region by the Etesian (i.e. Annual) winds, northerlies which were supposed to blow for forty days. On the small island of Ceos, to the south-east of Attica, annual rites were conducted to summon these winds, involving sacrifices to Zeus Ikmaios (‘of Moisture’) and to Sirius itself. Legend claimed that the rites had been introduced by Aristaios, son of Apollo and Cyrene, a culture hero from Boeotia, who had sailed to Ceos at the bidding of his father’s oracle at Delphi (A.R. 2, 516 ff., Diodorus 4.82); and in a coda to the tale of Icarios and Erigone, Eratosthenes wove this originally independent myth into theirs. He explained the heat of the dog-days by saying that the men of Attica who killed Icarios took refuge in Ceos, and that his dog, in its new nature as a star, scorched the island because the Ceans had harboured them, causing famine and disease. When Aristaios—who is already there as their king in this version—consulted the Delphic oracle, he was told to atone for the death of Icarios through sacrifices, and to found the aforementioned cult to bring the cooling winds.