Star Lore Of All Ages/Ophiuchus or Serpentarius
Ophiuchus or Serpentarius, the Serpent
Bearer and Serpens, the Serpent
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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 man, having both hands clenched in the folds of a great serpent which is writhing in his grasp with its head close to the Crown; whence the Serpent is often said "to be licking the Crown." The constellation is of great antiquity, as the records show that it was known to the ancients twelve hundred years before the Christian era. Homer refers to it, and Aratos clearly describes the figure in the following lines:
Crushing the monster's eye and platted breast.
With outstretched arms he holds the Serpent's coils,
His limbs it folds within its scaly toils.
With his right hand its writhing tail he grasps,
Its swelling neck his left securely clasps,
The reptile rears its crested head on high.
Reaching the seven-starred Crown in Northern sky.
There is something remarkable in the central position of this constellation. It is situated almost exactly in the mid-heavens, being nearly equidistant from the Poles, and mid-way between the vernal and autumnal equinoxes. The commanding location of the constellation makes the figure and its intended representation especially significant.
Manilius thus refers to the Serpent-Bearer:
Untwists his winding folds and smooths his back,
Extends his bulk, and o'er the slippery scale
His wide stretched hands on either side prevail.
The snake turns back his head and seems to rage
That war must last where equal power prevails.
In Greek mythology Ophiuchus was the great physician Æsculapius, with whose worship serpents were always associated, as symbols of prudence, wisdom, renovation, and the power of discovering herbs, and the constellation was often called "Æsculapius" or "the god of medicine."
Æsculapius was said to have been educated by his father Apollo, or by the centaur Chiron, and was the earliest of his profession, and accompanied the Argonautic expedition. Afterwards he became so skilled in practice that it is said he even restored the dead to life. His success in this latter achievement so alarmed Pluto that he persuaded Zeus to remove Æsculapius to the sky.
One of the last acts of Socrates was to offer a cock to Æsculapius, and the cock and serpent were ever sacred to this great physician. He was worshipped at Epidaurus, a city of Peloponnesus, and hence he is styled by Milton, "the god in Epidaurus."
In his Paradise Lost, Milton thus refers to Ophiuchus:
In the Middle Ages, the Serpent-Bearer was sometimes regarded as symbolising Moses with the Brazen Serpent, and Golius insisted that this sky figure represented a Serpent Charmer. Al-Sufi's title, "le Psylle," meaning one skilled in the cure of snake bites, seems to confirm this view.
Ophiuchus is also identified with Laocoōn, the priest of Neptune, who during the siege of Troy was attacked and strangled by sea serpents, for his irreverent treatment of the wooden horse.
Pliny regarded the stars in this constellation as dangerous to mankind, occasioning much mortality by poisoning.
The Serpent-Bearer has also been thought to represent Saint Paul, with the Maltese viper, Aaron, whose staff became a serpent. Saint Benedict, and the Great Physician.
The constellation is noted for the number of new stars (novæ) which have appeared within its borders,—one in 1230, "Kepler's Star" in 1604, and one in 1848. It would seem as if this part of the sky should be especially observed.
Hill calls attention to the fact, that, although Ophiuchus is not one of the zodiacal constellations, yet out of the twenty-five days from Nov. 21st to Dec. 16th, which the sun spends in passing from Libra to Sagittarius, only nine are spent in the Scorpion, the other sixteen being occupied in its journey through Ophiuchus.
Ophiuchus contains the discarded asterism known as "the Bull of Poniatowski," the Polish Bull. It consists of but four stars, three of the fourth magnitude, and one of the fifth, situated about fifteen minutes east of the star γ Ophiuchi. One of the stars in this group (70) is an interesting binary with a period, of about eighty-eight years. This star is estimated to be 120 quadrillions of miles away. Prey finds that the fainter of the two stars has four times the mass of the brighter star.
α Ophiuchi, known to the Arabs as "Ras Alhague," meaning the "Head of the Serpent Charmer," is a second magnitude star six degrees east of a Herculis. In China it was known as "How," the "Duke." It is said to be receding from the earth at the rate of twelve miles a second, and culminates at 9 p.m. July 28th.
β Ophiuchi was named "Cebalrai," or "Cheleb," meaning "the Heart of the Shepherd," the stars α Ophiuchi and α Herculis representing the shepherd and his dog.
Of the four reptiles that are found among the constellation figures, Serpens is the Serpent. Statius thus writes of it:
Tracks the clear ether and divides the sky,
And southward winding from the northern Wain
Shoots to remoter spheres its glittering train.
Burritt tells us that the Hivites of the Old Testament were worshippers of the Serpent, and that this idolatry was extremely ancient. Serpens was identified with Eve's temple in the Garden of Eden, and in the astronomy of Arabia it was known as "the Snake," although before the Hellenic influence was felt in Arabia, the stars in this region of the heaven were regarded by the Arabs as representing a pasture.
The Hebrews knew this star group as "the Serpent," ,_0375,_Laoco%C3%B6n.png)
Photo by Anderson
Laocoön
Museum of Vatican, Rome from the earliest times. The space between ν and ε Serpentis
was called by the Chinese "the Enclosure of the
Heavenly Market."
The head of the Serpent is represented by an "X"-shaped group of stars, just south of the Northern Crown, which serves to identify the figure.
None of the stars in the Serpent is of special interest.