Aries March 21 - April 19Before Aries was a fleece, it was a ram that played an important role in the lives of two children. It begins as the usual evil stepmother story. One of Jason's uncles, Athamas, king of the Minyons, married Nephele, goddess of the clouds. He had two children by her, Phrixus and Helle. Athamas then fell in love with Ino, later to become the goddess of sea foam. She hated Nephele's children and urged Athamas to sacrifice Phrixus to the gods to end a famine. Nephele appeared in a vision to Phrixus the night before the sacrifice, bearing a ram with a golden fleece. Phrixus and Helle escaped on the Ram's back. Helle fell off and drowned as the ram crossed the sea. That particular location is sometimes still called the Hellespont (more often the Dardanelles, after Dardanus, one of the founders of Troy). Phrixus continued to the eastern end of the Black Sea (called the Euxine in ancient times), settled in Colchis (current western Georgia), sacrificed the ram and placed the ram's fleece under the care of a never sleeping dragon.
Taurus April 20 - May 20The Greek deity Zeus lusted after the beautiful maiden Europa, the daughter of Telephassa and Agenor (the king of Phoenicia). One morning, she and other maidens went to pick flowers in the meadow by the sea. Zeus wanted her so badly, he disguised himself as a beautiful, innocent looking white bull, and roamed the meadow where the women lingered. Europa soon noticed Bull's presence and approached him. She admired his beauty and gentleness, and on a whim mounted him. Zeus, the Bull, leaped up and carried her over 600 miles across the water to the Island of Crete in the Mediterranean Sea. There she became the mother of King Minos of Crete, King Rhadamanthus of the Cyclades Islands, and Prince Sarpedon of Lycia.
Gemini May 21 - June 21Zeus loved countless women, and loved to disguise himself as different creatures to get close to the woman he wanted. This time he fell in love with Leda, the wife of King Tyndareus. He ravished Leda disguised as a swan. Some months later, she laid two eggs, one hatching Castor and Clytemnestra, the other hatching Pollux and Helen. Castor and Clytemnestra were mortals fathered by Tyndareus, but Pollux and Helen were immortal, because Zeus was their father.
The two brothers Castor and Pollux were raised together, and they identical; no-one could tell them apart. Fond of adventure, they joined Jason's expedition aboard the Argo to the Black Sea in search of the Golden Fleece. The ship had to stop at the entrance to the King Amycus' realm. Amycus, a brutal man, never let visitors pass through his land without challenging them to a boxing match. He allowed no-one to decline, and nobody survived. The brothers were known for their athletic ability, so Pollux was the first Argonaut to step forward. As soon as the chance presented, he drove his fist into Amycus' temple, crushing the skull and killing the King.
The story of Castor and Pollux ends sadly. Their final adventure took them to Arcadia with two cousins (ex-Argonauts) to raid cattle. When the spoils were divided, the cousins tricked the brothers, and took everything for themselves. Castor and Pollux gave chase. The brothers took a shortcut and waited for them. Unfortunately, a cousin discovered Castor first shot him. Pollux avenged his brother. The other cousin, however, struck Pollux with a rock, knocking him unconscious. He ran in to finish him off.
Luckily, Zeus watched the ordeal and killed the cousin with a thunderbolt. When Pollux regained consciousness, he realized that he no longer have Castor with him. He wished to join his brother, so he begged Zeus to remove his immortality. Zeus granted his wish and placed the twins in the sky to remind us of brotherly love.
Cancer June 22 - July 22 The oracle at Delphi assigned Heracles (often called Hercules) a series of labors to expiate the sin of murdering his family. The second labor involved going to Lerna to kill the hideous Hydra (now a constellation of that name). Heracles brought his nephew Iolaus (son of his twin brother Iphicles) on this trip as his assistant. This creature of nine heads lived in a swamp. Its mere breath could kill a person. Heracles shot a fire-arrow into the Hydra's den to lure the monster out while Iolaus set the nearby shrubs on fire to confuse the creature. Actually killing the Hydra was easier said than done, since one of the heads was immortal, and the others almost as bad. When Heracles chopped off one, two new heads grew up to replace them.
To aid Hydra, Hera, Heracles' nemesis, sent a crab (Cancer) to distract him, but as soon as the crab came out of the swamp, Heracles crushed it (this is the reason the constellation of Cancer has a crooked shape). Eventually Heracles succeed in killing the Hydra, and the crab got a rather dull group of stars for its efforts.
Leo July 23 - August 22After killing his family in an insane rage, Herakles (also known as Hercules) received orders from the oracle at Delphi to perform 12 labors to purge his sin. These were assigned by Eurystheus, king of Mycenae.
The first involved killing the monstrous, man-eating lion of Nemaea (Leo, the Lion). He tried to kill it with his special arrows and his club, but both weapons broke into pieces as if they were made of clay. After using the weapons in vain, he strangled the lion with his bare hands, succeeding his first task.
Virgo August 23 - September 22We often identify Virgo with Persephone. She was the daughter of Zeus' sister Demeter (goddess of agriculture and guardian of marriage) and Zeus (making Zeus Persephone's uncle and father). One spring day, Persephone picked flowers and Hades (Zeus' brother, Persephone's uncle, and god of the underworld) espied her from his chariot. Entranced by her beauty, he wished to marry her. He sweet-talked her into his chariot. She hesitated, but when she finally got on, Hades swept her away to his kingdom before she could do anything about it.
When Demeter discovered her precious daughter missing, she began a frantic search. She sought her without ceasing, not eating or sleeping. At last she learned Hades had taken her daughter; she went to persuade Hades to give her daughter back, but he would not listen to her. In her grief, she failed in her duties as goddess of agriculture. That year was the most dreadful and cruel ever experienced by humanity. No seed sprang up from the ground. People died of starvation and Demeter herself looked feeble. After watching the famine's progression, Zeus took matters into his own hand. He spoke gently to Demeter, trying to persuade her to do her job. But she would not listen, and replied she would never let anything grow on the earth until she saw her child, Persephone.
Zeus realized his brother Hades must yield. He eventually did, and Zeus told Demeter that her daughter could come home, provided she had not eaten anything while in the underworld. He sent Hermes (the messenger) to the underworld to fetch Persephone. Hades, downcast, knew he must obey the word of Zeus. Persephone was elated to hear the news that she could finally return to her mother. Before her departure with Hermes, Hades told her not to forget him, and to think kindly of him. He tricked her to eat a few pomegranate seeds, knowing in his heart that if she did so she must return to him.
Demeter and Persephone had a happy reunion, they had a lot to talk about. Demeter grieved when she learned about the pomegranate seeds. Zeus sent his mother Rhea to speak to Demeter. Rhea explained that Persephone could remain with her 8 months out of a year, but the rest of the year, she has to go back down to the underworld to be with Hades. Demeter understood and apologized for the desolation she had brought about. She made the fields rich and productive again, but during the four months that Persephone is in the underworld, she still grieves for her daughter, letting winter rule the world.
Libra September 23 - October 23The Greeks saw Libra, perhaps the most recent constellation of the Zodiac, as the claws of the scorpion. The change from claws, while initiated by the Romans perhaps as early as the first century B.C., did not gain final acceptance as the balance scales until the Middle Ages.
Scorpio October 24 - November 21In Greek mythology, the story of Scorpius involves Orion, the hunter. Orion boasted that he was the greatest hunter in the universe. When Zeus' wife, Hera, heard what he was saying, she became infuriated and sent a poisonous scorpion to kill him. Orion fought with this creature for days and nights without any success. When weary Orion was not looking, the creature sneaked in and stung him to death. Zeus took pity on Orion and placed him in the heavens where he appears as a giant, with a girdle, sword, lion's skin, and club. Hera placed the scorpion in the heavens at the opposite end of the sky, so even now, Orion tries to avoid the creature by hiding until it is completely under the horizon. On the other hand Scorpius rises in the east when a few stars of Orion still linger above the western horizon.
Sagittarius November 22 - December 21Images of Sagittarius typically show a centaur firing a bow and arrow, hardly the image of a wise healer. Chiron earned fame for his skills in hunting, music, prophecy, botany, astronomy and medicine.
Capricorn December 22 - January 19The Greek god Pan was having a drunken feast with some of his friends, when Typhon crashed the party. Everyone fled, transforming themselved into some kind of animal. Pan panicked. As he fled to the water he lacked the presence of mind to make a consistent transformation. He jumped into the river; the part submerged became a fish's tail; the part above became a goat. Zeus thought this so funny, he placed the shape into the sky.
Aquarius January 20 - February 18Known as the water bearer, or cup bearer, this constellation of the zodiac frequently gets depicted as a god (often Zeus) pouring the waters of life into a wet region of the sky. In ancient times (and to a certain extent today) when the sun passes through Aquarius, it was the rainy season.
Pisces February 19 - March 20One beautiful afternoon, Aphrodite, Goddess of Love, and her son Eros were having a picnic by the Euphrates River (the Euphrates Rises in Turkey, crosses Syria, and enters Iraq where, in the south, it unites with the Tigris to form the Shatt al-Arab. It is 1,700 miles long).
Suddenly, the hideous monster Typhon appeared out of nowhere. Typhon was the youngest son of Gaea (the Mother Earth). He possessed a hundred fire throwing heads and his body writhed with poisonous snakes. Tall enough to touch the heavens, his horrifying shrieks drove even gods insane. Immediately, Aphrodite and Eros leaped into the river transforming themselves into fish to swim faster.
