CAPRICORNUS - Αἰγόκερως

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The Constellation of Capricornus has one of the oldest myths of the constellations. The constellation marked one of the four cardinal points of the year in the Middle Bronze Age.

Capricornus is Latin for "Horned Goat" and is consistently depicted as a Goat-Fish hybrid, dating all the way back to Babylonian times. The cluster of stars, known then as the MULSUḪUR.MAŠ—the Goat-Fish—served as a symbol of their god Enki (Ea) and marked the Winter Solstice in the Southern Hemisphere.

Later, the Greeks would adapt these stories of the stars and the Goat-Fish to tell their own mythos on the origins of the universe.

Capricornus was first indexed by the Greek astronomer Claudius Ptolemy in his work Almagest in the 2nd century CE. In Greek mythology, the constellation is often associated with Pan, the god of the wild, and with the goat Amalthea, who cared for Zeus when he was an infant.

Though Pan was the most popular god the Greeks attached to the constellation, my research uncovered this old story of the Sea-Goat Pricus. In this alternate legend, he now watches over his children in the sky as the constellation Capricornus, but his place as a guardian did not come easily.

The Story of Pricus (Τιμές)- 

Once upon a Greek myth there lived Cronos (Kronos - Krónoς), the youngest of the Greek’s first generation of Titans. A divine descendant of Uranus (the sky) and Gaia (the earth), Cronos was the leader of the Titans and the God of Time. As the God of Time, he created a magnificent beast to help his quest with the high clock, and thus Pricus was born.

Pricus, the first of his kind, was a hybrid sea-goat with the body of a goat and the tail end of a fish. He lived in the sea but near the shore, and because he was created by Cronos, he was a wise, immortal ruler of time.

Pricus was also the father of the race of Sea-Goats, which were intelligent beasts favored by the Gods. Pricus had many children and taught them how to speak, think and live with honor.

They were playful and loved to sing songs and make music with their front legs. They galloped through the waters of the Mediterranean sea and surrounding waters, in harmony with all other living things they encountered.

But one day, three of his especially fun-loving children—Am, Al, and Theia—were singing and playing near a coral reef. They were drawn to the shore by a piece of coral that floated away, reflecting the sun’s rays on its path. They chased the coral through the water to the sands and found their hooves made musical sounds as they moved across the land.

The other sea-goats heard their music and followed the rhythm of their hooves. They used their front legs to pull themselves to shore and lay on the beach in the sun. The more they all lay in the sun, the more goat-like they became. They lost their fish tales and grew hind legs. They lost their intelligence and could no longer speak or think.

Pricus saw his children lose the beautiful tails that had helped them swim, saw them lose all of the knowledge and skills he’d proudly bestowed upon them. Though still beautiful, the new music their hooves made was different. It echoed as greatly as ever in the sea, but on land it had lost the tone and rhythm that reflected the ocean.

Fearing he had lost his children to the land; he used his ability to manipulate time to reverse what had been done. He stepped aside and watched as his children grew back their tales and returned to singing songs in the sea. But the sea-goats were once again drawn to the shore and again lost their tales.

Pricus spent ages reversing time to return his children to the sea, only to succumb to the realization that this was his children's fate, held within the high clock all along. He understood now and stopped reversing the clock, accepting his children would leave him to walk the earth.

Pricus stayed near to the shore and watched as his children as they played and galloped and climbed the rocky mounds. He watched until he could no longer see his children or hear their music.

All alone now, Pricus was filled with grief and sadness. He visited Cronos to plea with him to take his immortality and let him live out the rest of his days near the shore, left to die, for without his children's songs, he could not bear to live.

Cronos had watched Pricus lose his children and felt great sympathy for the creature. But Pricus was precious to Cronos for his ability to teach and guide others.

He denied Pricus' request, and instead placed Pricus among the stars in the constellation Capricornus, where he travels the sky, giving him the gift of forever gazing upon his children and hearing their beautiful melodies. 

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