Chariot Driver Myrtilus Into The Sea example essay topic

Auriga, the Charioteer is the last of the autumn constellations with a right ascension of six hours and a declination of 41.73 degrees. Auriga is an ancient Northern Hemisphere constellation featuring one of the brightest stars in the sky: Capella. Auriga is usually shown as a charioteer; the young Auriga wields a whip in one hand and holds a goat (Capella) and her two / three kids in the other. To find Auriga, first locate Orion. Taurus is to the right (west) and just above these two, much higher in the sky, you will see Capella. While this star marks roughly the mid-point of the constellation, north to south, most of the more interesting aspects of the constellation are found to the south of the star, all the way down to El Nath, the second brightest star (gamma Auriga) which is actually shared with Taurus, and also known as beta Taurus.

Auriga's stars are fairly bright; five are second magnitude or brighter. Alpha Auriga (Capella) is the sixth brightness star, at a visual magnitude of 0.08. The star is 43.5 light years away, and is about ten times the size of our Sun. Capella's visual magnitude is really the combined brightness of the primary star and another star that revolves every 104 days. This star is also known as Menkalinan. The star name derives from the Arabic name Al Man kib dhi'l I nan, "The Shoulder of the One Who Holds the Reins", that is, "The Shoulder of the Charioteer".

Several open clusters are found in Auriga. Each contains about 100 stars and is about 2,700 light years away. The main part of Auriga is a five-sided figure of first, second, third magnitude stars. The Charioteer has two strange variable stars. Epsilon is usually a third magnitude star, then once every twenty-seve years it undergoes an eclipse, dimming by almost a magnitude for nearly two years. The next scheduled eclipse is in the late summer of 2010.

The Charioteer may be the legendary King Erichthonius of Athens. He was the son of Hephaestus, the God of Fire, which the Romans called Vulcan. Like his father Erichthonius he was also crippled. Erichthonius was raised by Athene, the patron goddess of Athens, and from her he learned how tame horses. He was the first to harness four horses to one chariot, in imitation of the Chariot of the Sun. For this he was honored by Zeus by being placed among the stars as the constellation of Auriga.

Others say that The Charioteer represents Hippolytus, the son of the very same Theseus of Athens who sailed to Crete, traveled to the Labyrinth with the help of King Minos' daughter Ariadne and killed the monstrous Minotaur. It is said that Hippolytus stepmother Phaedra desired the young man and killed herself in despair after he rejected her, but not before writing a note to her husband, Theseus charging Hippolytus with rape. Reading the note, Theseus banished Hippolytus from the city and prayed to that the god Poseidon should strike him down. As Hippolytus drove off in his chariot, the horses drawing the chariot were thrown into a panic by the vision of a giant bull emerging from the sea. The chariot crashed and Hippolytus was killed.

Some people identify The Charioteer with Myrtilus, a son of Hermes and the chariot driver for King Oenomaus of Elis. The king had a beautiful daughter Hippodamia. There were many suitors who sought her hand in marriage. But to marry her, a suitor had first to win a chariot race with the king, who rode in a chariot driven by Myrtilus.

Any suitor who could not beat the king's chariot, had his head lopped off. Hippodamia's chances of marriage did not look very good until Pelops son of Tantalus showed up. She fell in love with him and arranged that Myrtilus would throw the chariot race. He sabotaged the king's chariot so that a wheel came off during the race and the king was thrown to his death. The ungrateful Pelops threw the chariot driver Myrtilus into the sea, where he drowned.

Hermes memorialized his drowned son Myrtilus by putting the image of the Chariot Driver among the stars. The Chariot Driver is shown as holding a small goat. The goat is usually identified as the animal that had fed the baby Zeus on the Island of Crete milk, where his mother Rhea had hid him from his father Cronus. Cronus was a Titan, one of the elder gods. Because of a prophesy that one of his children would other throw him, Cronus swallowed each of his children as they were born. Out of gratitude to the goat that had fed him, Zeus placed the image of the goat into the stars.

Another story tells us that the goat was so very ugly that it could frighten even the Titans. When Zeus became an adult, he made a cloak from the hide of this ugly goat. This was Zeus "aegis" which protected him and frightened his enemies. There is no explanation of how the goat became associated with the Chariot Driver.