The Legend of Pisces Pisces: the Babylonians, Greeks, Syrians, Persians and Turks considered this constellation to represent two fish. Signifying the twelfth sign of the zodiac, the fish do not actually touch the ecliptic but are arranged on either side of the line. A ribbon connecting their tails brings this once important constellation to a position within the path of the planets. Precession placed the position of the spring equinox within the boundaries of Pisces for the period from 4000 to 2000 BC but the equinox was still celebrated in Aries. Why, when at a time following some of the most intense geometric and astronomical expertise, would this obvious flaw have gone unchanged? The possibility of two answers exist. The lack of a strong individual government at the time that would have backed such an obviously important change and the loss of the library at Alexandria. The library held the accumulated works of art, literature, science, history and philosophy to that time. The fire was considered to be the greatest loss of cultural treasures ever. No one at the time could reconstruct the mythologies and the astronomical observations were unfortunately beyond the abilities of the people then living. Not until the rise of the great Arabic astronomers in the eighth century AD was this error discovered. Pisces missed a place of prominence by more than 2000 years. A conjunction of the planets Jupiter and Saturn took place within the constellation three years before the birth of Moses leading to a place of importance in the Hebrew zodiac. Another conjunction in 7 BC is sometimes considered to be connected with, or a herald of, the birth of Christ.
Mesopotamia: the goddess Anunitu was a Babylonian associated with childbirth. She represents the north-eastern part of the constellation of Pisces. Another myth of the fish concerns the birth of the goddess Istar. An egg fell from the moon and landed in the River Euphrates. Two fish pushed the egg to the riverbank where the goddess hatched. In gratitude the fish were rewarded with a place in the sky.
Between 6000 and 4000 BC, the cardinal constellations were Gemini, Virgo, Sagittarius and Pisces. The ecliptic, celestial horizon, meridian and Milky Way all coincided in the equinoctial signs Sagittarius and Gemini. The meridian of the solstices went from Virgo to the pole star Thuban, through the center of the Milky Way, across the Square of Pegasus and ended at Pisces, the position of the winter equinox. These constellations were further connected in that Gemini represented the Great Twins, the brothers Lugal-irra and Meslamta-ea, guardians of the entrance to the underworld through which the souls of the recently deceased passed. Virgo marked the summer solstice, Sagittarius guarded the door along the Milky Way where souls awaited the autumnal equinox and the Great Square of Pegasus was identified as Paradise. The precession of the equinoxes removed these constellations from their places of importance, but the coincidence of these positions was not lost on the Sumerian astronomers of the time. See the Mesopotamian legends of Gemini, Sagittarius and Virgo.
Greece: the goddess Aphrodite was the object of the affections of the monster Typhon. One day while she and her son Eros were walking along the Euphrates River the monster began to pursue them. In a fright, the two gods panicked. The river nymphs protected them by transforming them into twin fishes. In thanks for their aid, the image of the fish was placed in the sky.
Christianity: the secret symbol of early Christians.Back to the Constellations
