Serpent-Bearer
With seventy-four refulgent stars.
Eudosia.
The title "Ophiuchus" is derived from the Greek words όφι and οὖχος, meaning the man that holds the serpent. According to Plunket the constellation was probably invented about 3500 b.c. in latitude 35° north. "At this time the constellation would have been in opposition to the sun at the season of the spring equinox, triumphing over the powers of darkness, namely the Scorpion, on which the giant Ophiuchus treads, and the Serpent which he crushes in his hands."
Of all the constellational figures, Hercules and Ophiuchus are perhaps the most remarkable in conception and design, for they are each clearly intended to be combined with star groups which from time immemorial have been universally considered to represent serpents. They are the only two constellations that seem identical in design, and in these ancient constellations we see clearly a desire on the part of primitive man to place on record, for all the ages to read, the great fact of the triumph of man over the serpent, the symbol of the powers of evil.
Krishna, one of the most revered gods of India, is often represented as standing with one foot on a serpent's head, and holding it up by the tail, a reduplication of the figures and the ideas embodied in the constellation figures, Hercules and Ophiuchus.
On the old maps, Ophiuchus is represented as a venerable
267
