In Greece, the eagle was the bird of Zeus, and is represented as bearing aloft in his talons a beautiful boy. This youth is sometimes called Ganymede, whom Jupiter, as the story runs, desiring for his cup-bearer, sent the eagle to seize and carry up to heaven.
One of Ovid's Metamorphoses treats of Ganymede, the youthful cup-bearer, and Elizabeth Barrett Browning thus translates it in part:
High percher on the lightning, the great eagle,
Drove down with rushing wings; and thinking how,
By Cupid's help, he bore from Ida's brow
A cup-boy for his master, he inclined
To yield, in just return, an influence kind;
The god being honoured in his lady's woe.
Aquarius as we have seen was also supposed to represent Ganymede, and there seems to have been a connection between the constellations Aquarius and Aquila.
Another story claims that Jupiter himself assumed the form of an eagle and seized and carried off Ganymede, and Aquila was known as the bird of Jove and bearer of his thunder.
Horace thus alludes to this famous bird:
And carrier of his thunder, too,
The bird whom golden Ganymede
Too well for trusty agent knew.
Gladstone's translation.
Some have imagined that Aquila was the eagle which brought nectar to Jupiter, while he lay concealed in the cave at Crete to avoid the fury of his father Saturn, and this is in accordance with the legend of the Rig-Veda that Aquila bore the Soma (the invigorating juice) to India, "rushing impetuously to the vase or pitcher" (the constellation Aquarius). This legend serves to corroborate
