In north temperate latitudes this constellation never sets, and the Greeks therefore saw in it an emblem of eternal vigilance, symbolised by this Dragon of the Garden, guarding the precious fruit. Juno, it is said, presented these golden apples to Jupiter on the day of their nuptials, and rewarded Draco for his faithful services by placing him among the stars. The legend relates that the serpent was slain by Hercules, and in the old maps Hercules is represented as crushing the head of the Dragon under his foot.
Others claim that this was the snake snatched by Minerva from the giants, and whirled to the sky before it had a chance to uncoil, and that thus twisted it sleeps to-day in the heavens around the axes of the world.
According to another story this is the dragon killed by Cadmus, who was ordered by his father to go in quest of his sister Europa, whom Jupiter had carried away, and never to return to Phœnicia without her. Cadmus having slain the dragon, sowed its teeth and reaped a crop of armed men, who presently engaged in mortal combat from which five only survived. These assisted Cadmus to build the city of Bœotia.
There is an allusion to the Dragon in connection with the familiar story of Phaëton and his desperate adventure with the steeds of day: "When Phaëton rode the chariot of the sun, the horses rushed headlong. Then for the first time the Great and Little Bears were scorched with heat and would fain if it were possible have plunged into the water, and the serpent (Draco) which coils around the North Pole, torpid and harmless, grew warm, and with warmth felt his rage revive."
In Egypt the Dragon was called "Typhon." Plutarch tells us that the hippopotamus, or its variant the crocodile, was certainly one of the forms of Typhon. On the planisphere of Denderah, and the walls of the Ramesseum at Thebes, these animals appear in the circumpolar region, and show clearly that they owe their position to the old
