G06 D'ARCY WENTWORTH THOMPSON ON THE 



Jim on is beueficio inter astra collocatus, quod cum Herculem contra Hydram lernacam con- 

 stitisset, ex palude pedem ejus mordicus arripuisset ; qua de re Herculem permotum, 

 cum interfecisse (Hygin., P. A., ii. 23; cf. Schol., in C. German. Aratea, Cataster., 

 p. 245 ; Manil., ii. 33). This was while the Sun was in his second zodiacal sign, the sign 

 Virgo, which is placed in part over the long body of the constellation Hydra, and the 

 latter, indeed, rises together with the sign, as far as that portion of its body on which 

 is placed the Cup, avreXXei S' "YSprj fiev em irXeov oi)(pi irap avrov Kptjrijpa (Alt AT., G02, cf 

 IIygin., iii. 24). The sign Virgo was identified by some with Ceres (Hygin., ii. 25, cf 

 C.I.G., vii. 759, etc., etc.*), and was represented as the seat of Ceres in the Eoman par- 

 tition of the signs among the twelve greater gods t ; and we find another indication of 

 the link between Virgo and Demeter on the one hand, and the fabled Hydra on the 

 other, in the celebration of the mysteries of Demeter at Lerna, koI reXerhv Aepvala 



ay over iv evrauOa A)'i/u(.t)Tpi (PaUS., ii. 36, 7). 



We can trace an association with the Crab in the case, also, of the Babylonian 

 Hercules, Gilgames, the rVX-ya/xo? of Aelian. (xii. 21) ; on a certain cylinder (Layard, 

 Culte de Mithra, pi. xxxiv. 7), he "appears triumphantly bearing a crab (Cancer) at 

 the end of a stick over his left shoulder, whilst his right hand holds two fishes " (R. 

 Brown, jun., "The Celest. Eq. of Aratos," Tr. ix. Brit. Or. Congr., 1892, p. 461). Mr 

 Robert Brown has told us also how, in the Euphratean epic, Gilgames slays, under the 

 sign of the Crab, the tyrant Khumbaba, the KvpfiaPos of Lucian (de Syr. D., xix., R. 

 Brown, jun., Semitic Influences, p. 178). 



In the classical sequence of the story, which begins with Leo, the sign Cancer 

 corresponds to the last of the Hero's labours, though in the legend the Crab itself does 

 not figure in the twelfth scene ; but the great epic had many variants, and we need not 

 assume that the Crab on the cylinder of Gilgames refers to the same episode as that of 

 the second labour, in which Cancer appears as a paranatellon and not as the dominant 

 sign. On coins of Croton, of Cos, and in the later coinage of Agrigentum, Hercules and 

 the Crab figure on opposite sides of coins that depict for us no details of a story : the 

 allusion may possibly be simply to the circumstance that as Cancer rises, Engonasis, the 

 kneeling Hercules, sets, " Cancer exoriens obscurat . . . caput cum reliquo corpore ad 

 umbilicum ejus qui Engonasis vocatur" (Hygin., Poet. Astr., iv. 12). 



For the understanding of most of the other representations of the Crab on coins, and 

 of the emblems that are shown in conjunction with it, it is necessary to know the rela- 

 tive positions, not only of the constellations adjacent to Cancer, but also of those thai 

 rise or set in conjunction with or in opposition to it. 



According to Martianus Capella (viii. 283 G), Oriente cancro, occidunt Corona 

 Ariadnes et austrini Piscis pars dimidia : Ophiuchus a pedibus ad usque humcros, 

 Serpensque quern detinet, praeter fauces caputque totum : Bootis etiam medietas. 



* Si:e also Berakd, Gultes Arcadiens, p. 180. 



t Of. Manil., ii. 442 ; also, int. al., Petersen, Das Zwolfijottersxjstem der Gr. und II, Hamburg, 1853; Durlin. 

 1670. 



