Catasterismi

Catasterismi (Greek Καταστερισμοί Katasterismoi, "placings among the stars") is an Alexandrian prose retelling of the mythic origins of stars and constellations, as they were interpreted in Hellenistic culture. The work survives in an epitome assembled at the end of the 1st century CE, based on a lost original with some possible relation to the work of Eratosthenes of Cyrene; thus the author is alluded to as Pseudo-Eratosthenes. The pseudepigraphic attribution to Eratosthenes presumably was meant to bolster the work's credibility, but while the Catasterismi describes constellations, it is more concerned with the mythological narrative attached to each than with the mathematical tradition of astronomy.[1] Although there is no absolute distinction between astronomy and astrology in antiquity,[2] intellectual circles in Alexandria during the 1st BCE began to distinguish between astrology for making predictions and astronomical observation for scientific conjecture.

Summary

Catasterismi records the mature and definitive development of a long process: the Hellenes' assimilation of a Mesopotamian zodiac, transmitted through Persian interpreters and translated and harmonized with the known terms of Greek mythology. A fundamental effort in this translation was the application of Greek mythic nomenclature to designate individual stars, both asterisms like the Pleiades and Hyades, and the constellations. In Classical Greece, the "wandering stars" and the gods who directed them were separate entities, as for Plato; in Hellenistic culture, the association became an inseparable identification, so that Apollo, no longer the regent of the Sun, actually was Helios (Seznec 1981, pp 37–40).

Chapters 1–42 of Catasterismi treat forty-three of the forty-eight constellations (including the Pleiades) known to Ptolemy (2nd century CE); chapters 43–44 treat the five planets and the Milky Way.


  1. Ursa Major
  2. Ursa Minor
  3. Draco
  4. "The Kneeler" (Hercules)
  5. "The Crown" (Corona Borealis)
  6. Ophiuchus
  7. Scorpius
  8. Boötes
  9. Virgo
  10. Gemini
  11. Cancer
  12. Leo
  13. Auriga
  14. Taurus
  15. Cepheus
  16. Cassiopeia
  17. Andromeda
  18. "The Horse" (Pegasus)
  19. Aries
  20. "The Delta-Shape" (Triangulum)
  21. Pisces
  22. Perseus
  23. The Pleiades†
  24. Lyra
  25. "The Bird" or "The Swan" (Cygnus)
  26. Aquarius
  27. Capricornus
  28. Sagittarius
  29. Sagitta
  30. Aquila
  31. Delphinus
  32. Orion
  33. "The Dog" (Canis Major)
  34. Lepus
  35. Argo Navis†
  36. Cetus
  37. "The River" (Eridanus)
  38. "The Fish" (Piscis Austrinus)
  39. Ara
  40. Centaurus
  41. Hydra, Crater, and Corvus
  42. "The One Preceding the Dog"/"Procyon" (Canis Minor)
  43. "The Planets"†
  44. "The Galaxy" (Milky Way)†

† Not one of the modern constellations.

Of the 48 Ptolemaic constellations, the ones not included are Corona Australis, Equuleus, Libra, Lupus, and Serpens. In modern times, Argo Navis (the ship Argo) has been divided into three constellations: Carina (the keel), Puppis (the stern), and Vela (the sails); and the Pleiades are recognized as a star cluster within the constellation Taurus.

The work cites in some places the lost Astronomia attributed to Hesiod. Many of the mythic themes in Catasterismi are simply drawn from Aratus, Phaenomena (ca 275 BCE) and the sequential arrangement is essentially that of Aratus as well. On the other hand, a similar later account is the Poeticon Astronomicon, or De Astronomica (tellingly also titled De Astrologia in some manuscripts that follow Hyginus' usage in his text) attributed to Gaius Julius Hyginus.

During the Renaissance, printing of Catasterismi, invariably attributed to Eratosthenes, began early, but the work was always overshadowed by Hyginus, the only other ancient repertory of catasterisms. Catasterismi was illustrated by woodcuts in the first illustrated edition by Erhard Ratdolt, (Venice 1482). Johann Schaubach's[3] edition of Catasterismi (Meiningen 1791) was also illustrated with celestial maps drawn from another work, Johann Buhle's Aratus (Leipzig, 2 volumes, 1793–1801).

After the old Teubner edition of A. Olivieri, Pseudo-Eratosthenis Catasterismi (Leipzig 1897), the text has a new complete edition including the recensio Fragmenta Vaticana[4]

Notes
  1. Elly Deker, Illustrating the Phaenomena: Celestial Cartography in Antiquity and the Middle Ages (Oxford University Press, 2013), pp. 2–3.
  2. Roger Beck, A Brief History of Ancient Astrology (Blackwell, 2007), pp. 1, 7.
  3. Johann Konrad Schaubach (1764-1849), a historian of ancient astronomy and educator in Meiningen, was also the author of Geschichte der griechischen Astronomie bis auf Eratosthenes (1802).
  4. Eratòstenes de Cirene, Catasterismes, Introducció, edició crítica, traducció i notes de J. PÀMIAS I MASSANA, Barcelona 2004 and ERATOSTHENES, Catasterismi, Text, Übers., Komm. von J. PÀMIAS u. K. GEUS, Oberhaid 2007.

Further reading
  • Seznec, Jean, The Survival of the Pagan Gods (Princeton [NJ]: Princeton University Press, 1981).
  • Condos, Theony, Star Myths of the Greeks and Romans: A Sourcebook, Containing The Constellations of Pseudo-Eratosthenes and the Poetic Astronomy of Hyginus (Grand Rapids [MI]: Phanes Press, 1997) ISBN 1-890482-92-7 (hb); ISBN 1-890482-93-5 (pb). Reviewed by Roger Ceragioli in: Journal for the History of Astronomy, 30.1 (1999), pp. 313–315; by John McMahon in: Archaeoastronomy: The Journal of Astronomy in Culture, XVI (2001), pp. 98–99 and by John T. Ramsey, as "Bryn Mawr Classical Review 98.6.28".
  • Hard, Robin (transl.), Eratosthenes and Hyginus: Constellation Myths, with Aratus's Phaenomena (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2015) ISBN 978-0-19-871698-3.
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