Orion was a big hero of the Bronze Age, who faded in the Iron Age.
It seems that we ought to have a collection of tales about this mighty hero, who inhabits such powerful stars. But in truth, there’s little to tell of Orion.
Yet there he remains to this day, occupying some of the best celestial real estate up there. These are some fine stars, the sort one can simply point to and say, ‘those two are the shoulders, and those three are the belt’. One of the first constellations one might learn as a child.
We’ve suggested [LINK] that the difficulty faced by those who wanted Hercules in the sky is evidence of one sort that the Greek constellations predated the Iron Age.
Here, an inverse argument for Orion as proof of a Bronze Age origin for the Greek constellations.
With Hercules, we asked ‘why was it so hard for this guy to get into the stars?’
But with Orion we ask ‘who was this guy, and why is he in the stars?’
Hyginus and earlier sources tell that Orion is the son of Poseidon and Euryale,
daughter of Minos. He winds up in Boeotia, north of the isthmus of Corinth.
There’s a story of him clearing the island of Chios of predators,
another of him raping the daughter of his host,
for which he was blinded, and blah blah blah . . .
(this last story feels like a memory
of some lost work of Greek tragedy)
As with other gods and heroes of Greek myth,
when looking at Orion consider his pedigree.
A hero of Thebes and Boeotia, he is son of Poseidon –
the original Olympian, god at first of horses,
later the god of the sea and of ships and of horses.
Before the rise of the Zeus-cult of Arcadia and the Argolid,
Poseidon was the most powerful of the Olympian gods.
Orion’s mother was Euryale, who was daughter to Minos of Crete.
(‘Minos’ is the Minoan equivalent of ‘Pharoah’,
hence ‘daughter of Minos’ = ‘a princess of Crete’.)
A hero of a pre-literate era,
Orion suggests a history of ties between Boeotia and Crete.
Orion’s death sounds like the echo of an historical / political / theological memory.
Briefly told: Apollo, the sun god, had it in for Orion. In particular, he was annoyed that his sister Artemis, goddess of the moon, thus goddess of the hunt, was so close to this demigod hunter. Recall that both the sun god and the moon goddess were children of Zeus. (Recall that the Zeus-era Greeks adopted the astrology/astronomy of Mesopotamia LINK.) Anyway, the story we’re presented is that one day Orion happened to be swimming across a bay, when Apollo and Artemis arrived upon the shore. With clear sight in daylight, Apollo recognized the figure chopping through the water, and challenged his sister to strike it with an arrow. Her own sight impaired by the brightness, Artemis couldn’t identify Orion, but could see well enough to discern the moving figure to which her brother pointed. The arrow that she lofted landed true, and the body of Orion washed up on shore not long after. Artemis was anguished at the loss of a hunting companion, and angry at her brother of whom she suspected the worst (which happened to be the truth). Apollo was feeling smug about having arranged for his sister to dispatch with this irksome hero who had altogether too many ties to Crete. . .
In the pre-literate era, storytelling was a way of remembering the past. But over several generations, eyewitness accounts devolved to mythical tales, with the actions of gods and heroes serving as allegorical shorthand. In that context, the death of Orion seems like a memory of a displacement of the palace of Thebes during the Mycenaean era (1400 – 1200).
We’ve shown [LINK] that the Greek constellations were placed in the sky following the displacement of Minoan culture by the Mycenaean-era Greeks. The fact that Orion figures so prominently in this sky tells that Thebes / Boeotia was an important part of the mainland alliance which worked to erase the heritage of Crete.
However, surviving accounts tell that Orion had ties to Crete. While the palace of Thebes may have sided with Mycenae in the displacement of the Minoans in the 14th century, it’s not outrageous to imagine that there might have remained a faction of Thebans who objected to the Minoan genocide. Might the killing of Orion be an allegory for the erasure of such a faction by the Mycenaeans in, say, the 13th century?
Although they might have crafted a story of the demise of Orion,
the Mycenaeans were stuck with his figure in the sky.
The Zeus-cult wasn’t crazy about this son of Poseidon and Minoan princess.
At some point they invented a new pedigree for Orion.
(Trigger alert: the following story is kind of nasty.)
As Hyginus tells the story, Hyrieus of Thebes
asked of Zeus and Mercury to give him a son.
(What Z&M were doing in Thebes isn’t clear;
Hyginus is frustrating in his lack of detail.)
In their honor, Hyrieus slaughtered and roasted an ox;
Zeus instructed him to save the oxhide.
After the feast, Zeus called for the oxhide to be spread out,
and things got very strange.
According to Hyginus, Zeus and Hermes ‘shed their semen’ on the oxskin,
then ordered that it be rolled up and buried.
From this, a child was born.
(Once again, Hyginus wants for detail.)
Others have argued that Zeus and Hermes pissed upon the hide,
and thus the child was named Orion.
(In English, there are puns to be made matching urine and Orion;
the same pun works in the original Greek.)
The evidence of stories and stars suggests
that Orion is a character
who might have been wholly forgotten,
if not for the fact that he was there
when the stars of the sky were named.
His stories are seldom told today
But Orion was identified
with some of the finest stars in the sky
almost 3500 years ago,
and there he remains today.