Open Daily: 10am - 10pm | Alley door pickup 10am - 7pm 3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
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  • Open Daily: 10am - 10pm
    Alley-side Pickup: 10am - 7pm

    3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
    612-822-4611

Open Daily: 10am - 10pm | Alley-side Pickup: 10am - 7pm
3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
612-822-4611
Constellation Myths: With Aratus's Phaenomena

Constellation Myths: With Aratus's Phaenomena

Eratosthenes
Hyginus
Aratus

Paperback

Series: Oxford World's Classics

Mythology & FolkloreFiction Anthologies

Publisher Price: $15.95

ISBN10: 0198716982
ISBN13: 9780198716983
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Published: Aug 1 2015
Pages: 256
Weight: 0.67
Height: 0.35 Width: 4.86 Depth: 7.83
Language: English
Athena seized the writhing serpent and hurled it into the sky, and fixed it to the very pole of the heavens.

The constellations we recognize today were first mapped by the ancient Greeks, who arranged the stars into patterns for that purpose. In the third century BC Eratosthenes compiled a handbook of astral mythology in which the constellations were associated with figures from legend, and myths were provided to explain how each person, creature, or object came to be placed in the sky. Thus we can see Heracles killing the Dragon, and Perseus slaying the sea-monster to save Andromeda; Orion chases the seven maidens transformed by Zeus into the Pleiades, and Aries, the golden ram, is identified flying up to the heavens.

This translation brings together the later summaries from Eratosthenes's lost handbook with a guide to astronomy compiled by Hyginus, librarian to Augustus. Together with Aratus's astronomical poem the Phaenomena, these texts provide a complete collection of Greek astral myths; imaginative and picturesque, they also offer an intriguing insight into ancient science and culture.

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