Abstract
Mons Maenalus was introduced by Johannes Hevelius in Prodromus Astronomiae (1690), created from unformed stars in the space between the southern end of Boötes and the eastern extent of Virgo (Fig. 15.1). While Hevelius’ work was highly influential, few other cartographers rushed to adopt the new figure perhaps because the included stars weren’t especially bright. Barely a decade after the posthumous publication of Hevelius’ star list, Phillipe de la Hire left Mons Maenalus off his Planisphère céléste septentrionale (1702), choosing to simply leave the space below Boötes empty (Fig. 15.2). Carel Allard similarly drew Boötes without a mountain to climb on his 1706 map Hemisphaerium meridionale et septentrionale planisphaerii coelestis.
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- 2.
“Nach den Erzählungen der Dichter war dieser Bärenhüter oder Hirte Ikarus, der Vater der Erigone (Jungfrau im Thierkriese). Er hatte vom Bacchus die Kunst Wein zu keltern gelernt, um solche die Menschen zu lehren. Dies veranlasste, dass er todt geschlagen wurde, weswegen man ihm under die Sterne versetzte. Er folgt südostwärts auf dem grossen Bären. Ein Stern erster Grösse, Arcturus, glänzt mit einem röthlichen Lichte in diesem Gestiern, rechts und links von demselben, so wie nordwärts und mach den dreyen am Schwanz des grossen Bären hin, sind Sterne 3ter und 4ter Grösse an den Fussen, dem Gürtel, den Schultern, Arm und Kopf des Bootes sehr kenntlich. Den Berg Maenel hat Hevel eigentlich zuerst unter die Fusse des Bootes gesetzt. Auf einem in Arkadien gelegenen Berge dieses Namens erbauete Maenal, ein Sohn des Königs Lykaon, eine Stadt.”
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Pausanias, Description of Greece viii, 3. §1 (second century ad)
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Pseudo-Apollodorus, Bibliotheca iii, 9, fin.
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Atalanta has a curious, possible connection to Argo Navis (Chap. 5). In some versions of the quest for the Golden Fleece, Atalanta sailed with the Argonauts as the only woman aboard the ship.
- 6.
Ovid, Metamorphoses i, 216.
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Ovid, Metamorphoses ii, 415, 442.
- 8.
Virgil, Eclogae vii, 22 (“Damon”) trans. H.R. Fairclough.
- 9.
“Rigveda, vii. 33, io, 1l.”
- 10.
“Mahabharata Vana (Tirtha-Yatra) Parva, xcvi.–xcviii. pp. 307, 314.”
- 11.
“Professor Romieu, Sur an Decan, etc., p. 39, has identified the Egyptian star of the Vulture with the constellation Lyra, the star of the goddess Ma-at, the mother of law and order; and in Egyptian mythology the vulture ruled the year. In the Rigveda the vulture Gridhra is represented as a rival ruler of time with the Ashvins, or twins, who are invoked to come and drink the Soma cup early in the morning before the greedy vulture (Rigveda, v. 77, 1), to whom the Marka or Soma cup of the dead (Mahrka) was offered.”
- 12.
Oberlies (1998) estimated a composition date of c. 1100 bc for the youngest hymns in Book 10 of the Rigveda. He cited “cumulative evidence” for a terminus post quem of the earliest hymns in the wide range of 1700\(\mbox{ \textendash }\) 1100 bc In any case, the core of the Rigveda material clearly dates to the late Bronze Age.
- 13.
Sextus Aurelius Propertius (c. 50 bc—aft. 15 bc) was a Latin elegiac poet of the Augustan era.
- 14.
Propertius, Elegies iv (5), 9, 15, trans. H.E. Butler.
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Barentine, J.C. (2016). Mons Maenalus. In: The Lost Constellations. Springer Praxis Books(). Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-22795-5_15
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