Star Tales

Eratosthenes and Hyginus both affirm that the lion was placed in the sky because it is the king of beasts. Mythologically speaking, this is reputed to be the lion of Nemea, slain by Heracles as the first of his 12 labours. Nemea is a town some way south-west of Corinth. There the lion lived in a cave with two mouths, emerging to carry off the local inhabitants, who were becoming scarce. The lion was an invulnerable beast of uncertain parentage; it was variously said to have been sired by the dog Orthrus, the monster Typhon or even to be the offspring of Selene, the Moon goddess. Its skin was proof against all weapons, as Heracles found when he shot an arrow at the lion and saw that it simply bounced off.

Undeterred, Heracles heaved up his mighty club and made after the animal, which retreated into its cave. Heracles blocked up one of the entrances and went in through the other. He grappled with the lion, locking his huge arm around its throat and choking the beast to death. Heracles carried the lion’s corpse away in triumph on his shoulders. Later he used the creature’s own razor-sharp claws to cut off its pelt, which he wore as a cloak. The lion’s gaping mouth bobbing above his own head made Heracles look more fearsome than ever.

Leo shown ready to pounce in the Atlas Coelestis of John Flamsteed (1729).

In his chest can be found the bright star Regulus, labelled Alpha. Leo lies
on the Sun’s path around the sky, the ecliptic, here marked by a dashed line.

It is easy to make out the shape of a crouching lion in the stars of Leo, its head being outlined by six stars arranged in the shape of a sickle. At the foot of the Sickle, marking the lion’s heart (where Ptolemy located it), is the constellation’s brightest star, Alpha Leonis, called Regulus, Latin for ‘little king’; its Greek name, Basiliscos, had the same meaning. On the tip of the tail is the star Beta Leonis, called Denebola from the Arabic for ‘the lion’s tail’. Gamma Leonis is called Algieba, from the Arabic meaning ‘the forehead’; this seems puzzling, since according to Ptolemy it lies in the lion’s neck, but the Arabs saw here a very much larger lion than the one visualized by the Greeks. Gamma Leonis is a celebrated double star, consisting of a pair of yellow giant stars divisible in small telescopes. Delta Leonis is called Zosma from a Greek word meaning ‘girdle’ or ‘loin cloth’, mistakenly applied to this star in Renaissance times; in fact it lies in the lion’s rump.

On Chinese star charts the Sickle of Leo is recognizable, but as part of a rather different constellation figure. From the top of the Sickle extended a snaking line that took in Lambda and Kappa Leonis before heading north into Lynx. In all, 17 stars were involved in the chain, including Regulus and Omicron and Rho Leonis either side of it; the whole formation was known as Xuanyuan, the Yellow Dragon.

Denebola (Beta Leonis) was not part of Xuanyuan, but nevertheless was connected to it in myth. In China, Denebola was called Huangdi, the Yellow Emperor. This name comes from a legendary ruler who is credited with being the main founder of Chinese civilization, and the Yellow Dragon (Xuanyuan) snaking among the other stars of Leo was said to be his image immortalized in the sky. So Xuanyuan, with the nearby Huangdi, is one of the few Chinese star patterns that can boast a mythology comparable to that of the Greek constellations.

Four faint stars to the north, south, west and east of Huangdi (i.e. Denebola) governed the four seasons. Taken together, Huangdi and its companions formed a group known as Wudi, the five Emperors. The chariots of these Emperors were represented by the five stars that outline the shape of Auriga. To the north of this group was the Emperor’s heir or crown prince, Taizi, represented by 93 Leonis, with Congguan, his personal assistant, hovering at a respectful distance (92 Leonis) and a bodyguard, Huben (72 Leonis), keeping watch.

Wudi, Taizi and Congguan fell within a larger area called Taiwei, representing a court where the Emperor met with his privy council, which extended into neighbouring Virgo. One of the boundary walls of Taiwei was marked out by a chain of five stars heading southwards from Delta via Theta, Iota and Sigma Leonis to Beta Virginis.

A fainter line of four stars stretching northwards from Leo into Leo Minor formed Shaowei, seen as either a delegation of nobility welcoming Huangdi as he approaches Taiwei, or a retinue of scholarly advisors. Sources differ as to the identity of these stars, but they could have been 53 Leonis to 41 Leonis Minoris. This same line later became known as Changyuan, an outer protective barrier for Taiwei.

Among the smaller constellations that the Chinese imagined in this area, Xi Leonis and two other nearby stars were Jiuqi, the banner of a wine maker or merchant, possibly associated with the kitchen (Waichu) in Hydra to the south. The stars Chi, 58 and 59 Leonis straddling the ecliptic represented Lingtai, the astronomical observatory, which would have been a simple lookout tower like this one. Upsilon Leonis and two other stars formed Mingtang, ‘bright hall’, an administrative centre where the Emperor announced the annual calendar of events at the start of each year; the ‘brightness’ in its title might be a reference to the luminous presence of the Emperor.