PLEIADES

Below: The Pleiades are part of a larger duster made up by hundreds of thousands of stars. The seven stars that constitute the Pleiades are the brightest of all of these stars.

In Greek mythology the Pleiades were the seven daughters of the Titan Atlas and the oceanid Pleione. According to legend, the sisters were immortalized by Zeus as a cluster of stars. One version said their half sisters made up the Hyades group of stars.

The Pleiades are a Y-shaped group of seven stars that are part of the constellation Taurus (the Bull).

They are best seen in dark skies and are often almost invisible in cities because of light pollution. In the northern and southern hemispheres, the Pleiades, also known as the Seven Sisters, are located above Orion.

Although the names of the female characters involved in the Pleiades myth changed over time, the male characters generally remained the same. In one version of the myth the giant Orion, who was a hunter, became infatuated with the seven sisters and pursued them relentlessly. According to Greek mythographer Apollodorus (?l.140 BCE), the sisters were walking in Boeotia (a region of Greece) with their mother when the hunter spotted by them. He pursued all the Pleiades until the gods decided to intervene. In some of the very early versions of the myth, it was Pleione rather than her daughters who was chased by Orion.

Zeus, the king of the gods, first turned the Pleiades into rock doves and then into stars. Some ancient authors wrote that the transformation of the women into stars began with their grief at Zeus’s punishment of their father—Atlas was forced to carry the weight of the sky on his shoulders.

One story included the Hyades—five half sisters and a half brother, Hyas. Hyas died after being bitten by a snake, and the Hyades died of grief for him. The Pleiades died from mourning their half sisters. Out of pity, Zeus transformed them all—Hyades and Pleiades—into stars.

The Pleiades in Literature

Mention of the Pleiades as stars appeared much earlier than details of the myth. The cluster is mentioned in the epics of Greek poet Homer (c. ninth-eighth century BCE), the Iliad and the Odyssey, and in the epic Works and Days by Greek poet Hesiod (fl. 800 BCE). Hesiod also called the grouping of stars the Atlageneis and said that their appearance signaled the beginning of the harvest.

The first text to give the individual stars names was a mere fragment of a poem that probably dates from the time of Hesiod. The individual stars were called Taygete, Electra, Alcyone, Sterope (or Asterope), Celaeno, Maia, and Merope. As a group they were called the Pleiades by the mythical singer Musaeus who quoted the poem and said that they were the daughters of Atlas.

Below: Remains of the ruined ancient city of Troezen still stand in Greece. According to mythology the city was built by Anthas and Hyperes, sons of the deity Poseidon and the Pleiad Alcyone.