Star Lore Of All Ages/The Minor Constellations/Coma Berenices

by William Tyler Olcott

Coma Berenices

Coma Berenices
Berenice's Hair

Now behold the glittering maze of Berenice's hair.

Eratosthenes was the first to mention this faint yet beautiful cluster, and called it "Ariadne's Hair," but Tycho Brahe was the first one to catalogue it as a separate constellation in 1602.

Catullus, in his translation of the Greek of Callimachus, thus refers to the location of Coma Berenices:

Just by the Virgin in the starry sphere,
The savage Lion and Northern Bear
Full to the west with sparkling beam I lead,
And bright Boötes in my course precede.

Allen thinks that the group was known to the Egyptians as "the Many Stars." Other titles for it are "Berenice's Periwig," "Rosa," and "Berenice's Bush," and the figure has been thought to represent the tuft of hair in the Lion's tail, and the sheaf of wheat held by the Virgin.

The Chinese took a great interest in this group, and gave it many fanciful names.

Burritt gives the following brief history of the constellation: "Berenice was of royal descent, and a lady of great beauty, who married Ptolemy Soter or Euergetes, one of the kings of Egypt, her own brother. When he was going on a dangerous expedition against the Assyrians she vowed to dedicate her hair to the goddess of beauty, if he returned Sometime after the victorious return of her in safety. husband the locks, which she had deposited in the temple of Venus, disappeared. The King expressed great regret at the loss, whereupon Conon his astronomer publicly reported that Jupiter had taken away the Queen's locks from the temple and placed them among the stars in this figure."^[1]

According to Argelander there are thirty-six stars in this group.

Photo by Brogi
Berenice
Bronze Bust in National Museum, Naples

1. The early Christians thought that this cluster represented the Scourge of Christ, Absalom's hair, or Samson's Hair.