AQUARIUS- Ὑδροχόος

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The Constellation of Aquarius has one of the oldest myths of the constellations. Known as GU.LA in Old Babylonian astrology, it represents the god Enki (Ea) the ruler of the southernmost quarter of the Sun's path and marked the Winter Solstice in the Southern Hemisphere. Aquarius was associated with several flood origins including destructive floods the Babylonians experienced and the annual flood of the Nile in Ancient Egypt astronomy. It was said that the Nile would flood when Aquarius would put his jar in the river, signaling the beginning of spring.

Later, the Greeks would adapt these stories of the stars to tell their own mythos on the origins of the universe. Aquarius was indexed by the Greek astronomer Claudius Ptolemy in his work Almagest in the 2nd century CE. Latin for "water-carrier" or "cup-carrier" the constellation came to be represented simply as a single vase from which a stream poured down to the constellation Piscis Austrinus.  

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Aquarius is found in a region of the night sky often called The Sea, because of all the constellations with watery associations. It is next to Cetus the whale, Pisces the fish, and Eridanus the river. Like most of the constellations, there are multiple tales of how it came to be. Today we are going to focus on the story of Deucalion and the great flood story of The Bronze Age.

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The Story of Deucalion  (Δευκαλίων)- 

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Once upon a Greek myth there lived Prometheus, the Titan God of fire, who was said to have created man from clay. He stole fire from the gods and gave it to mankind, trying to improve the human existence. One of his children was Deucalion, who reigned over the region of Phthia in Thessaly. He was married to a woman named Pyrrha who he had at least two children with. 

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Deucalion was warned by Prometheus of Zeus's anger toward the king of Arcadia and a plan for a great flood to end mankind. This king had sacrificed a young boy to Zeus, who was sickened by the savage offering and planned to put an end to the Bronze Age. Deucalion was instructed to build a chest, careful to build it well, that he and his wife would use to carry them safely to shore after the flood waters receded, the only surviving humans. (No animals were included in this flood myth). Zeus unleashed a deluge, so that the rivers and seas would flood the land and wash everything clean. After 9 days the waters had dried and Deucalion gave thanks to Zeus.

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Now he and his wife were the only two humans, and needed to repopulate the land. It is said that Deucalion was in his 80s at the time, and could procreate no longer. So he consulted an oracle of the Greek Titan Themis, and was told "cover your head and throw the bones of your mother behind your shoulder". "Mother" meaning Gaia, the mother of all living things, and "bones" meant rocks, so Deucalion and Pyrrha both threw rocks behind them and the stones formed humans. Pyrrha's "bones" became women, while Deucalion's became men.

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According to Hegesianax of Alexandria, who was a known astronomical-mythological poet, Deucalion was to be identified with the constellation of Aquarius, "because during his reign such quantities of water poured from the sky that the great Flood resulted".

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