Pseudo-Eratosthenes Pegasus

Only the front part of the Horse [Pegasus] is visible, down to the navel. Aratus says this is the horse that created the spring on Mount Helicon with its hoof, whence the spring is called Hippocrene [“equine spring”]. Others say it is Pegasus, who flew up to the stars after Bellerophon's fall. Some think that the Horse cannot be Pegasus because the constellation figure has no wings. Euripides says in his Melanippe that this constellation is Chiron's daughter, Hippe, who was tricked and molested by Aeolus and fled to the mountains because of her pregnancy. Her father came searching for her as she was about to give birth. She prayed that she might assume another shape so as not to be recognized when she was found, and was thus changed into a horse. Because of her own piety and also that of her father, she was placed among the stars by Artemis in a place where she is not visible to the Centaur, for that constellation is said to be Chiron. Her lower parts are not visible so that she might not be recognized as a woman.

The Horse has two faint stars on the nostril [ε, ν?]; one star on the head [θ]; one on the jaw [ν?]; one faint star on each ear [?, ?]; four on the neck [ρ, σ, ζ, ξ], of which the one closest to the head is the brightest; one on the shoulder [β], one on the chest [λ,?]; one on the back [α]; one bright star on the edge of the belly [α And]; two stars on the front knees [η, ι]; one on either hoof [π, κ]. The total is eighteen.


- Pseudo-Eratosthenes, Catasterismi 18 (Theony Condos translation)