Mythologies of the Solar System: Part One

The names of the moons, planets and of course the Sun itself are not just household names unassociated with anything but these celestial bodies, but bodies usually named after selected characters from ancient Greek and Roman mythology. There are tales to be told about them; some fleshing out to do. These are just a few of the highlights.

The planets of the solar system are named after gods and goddesses and are known by their Roman, not Greek names. Here I’ll put the Greek equivalents in brackets afterwards. The satellites of these planets for the most part tend to be the Greek names associated in one form or another with the parent body or the god/goddess in question. Moons (and major asteroids) are identified with an asterisk.

Now you need to understand that at the time of the ancient Roman or Greek pantheon, only eight of the solar system’s celestial bodies were known. There were the three major bodies, the Sun, Moon, and Planet Earth itself of course (thus, way back then, you’d expect a mythological relationship between these three bodies), and the minor five visible planets – Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter and Saturn which were just points of light to the ancients, though it’s not surprising the ancients matched celestial physics with the personalities of their gods and named them accordingly. Apart from our satellite, the Moon, no other moons were known to the ancients.

MYTHOLOGY AND THE INNER SOLAR SYSTEM

SOL (Helios) is obviously the god of the Sun. It surprises me that given the prominence and importance of this celestial object, our Sun, that the god of the Sun didn’t take pride of place as head of the gods. Be that as it may, Sol, a first generation Titan, was born of the god Hyperion and the goddess Theia, brother to Luna (Selene) and Aurora or Dawn (Eos). His job is to bring light to men and gods alike. He rides in the sky in a fiery chariot pulled by his team of fast horses. Sol, from his vantage point, sees and hears everything (which proved to be the undoing of an illicit relationship between Mars (Ares) and Venus (Aphrodite). The god Apollo later fused as one with Sol’s image though once they were two different deities. Sol’s son, Phaethon, by the ocean nymph Clymene, once tried to ride his father’s horse-drawn chariot, but lost control and had to be killed by Jupiter (Zeus) before the runaway Sun destroyed everything. 

VULCAN (Hephaestus) was once upon a time actually sighted by astronomers and as the closest planet to the Sun, it would of course be HOT, and thusly was named after the deity of fire and blacksmithing. Alas, Vulcan turned out to be as mythical as the deity it was named after.

MERCURY (Hermes) when observed from Earth goes around the Sun quick-smart. So, it was natural to name that body after the fleetest of the gods, the messenger god who flies through the skies on a winged helmet and winged sandals, Mercury. No great mystery there.

VENUS (Aphrodite) was, because of its celestial purity of face and brightness, a female goddess, and of course THE female goddess was the goddess of love. Alas, Venus the planet turned out to be more appropriate for the Christian ruler of the underworld than the goddess of romance. Venus is Hell personified and thus the reality turned out to be vastly different than the expectation, but the ancients couldn’t have known that back then. Venus (or Aphrodite) had an unusual birth, the offspring of Gaia, but fertilized by the blood/semen of Gaia’s son and lover, Uranus, when Uranus was castrated by Saturn (Cronus).

*Neith was the name given to the lone phantom satellite of Venus. I say phantom because, like Vulcan, it was a case of ‘now you see it, now you don’t’. It vanished from the sight of astronomers across the world, but prior to that some saw something. That’s water under the bridge now. The naming of the satellite Neith broke from tradition for Neith was the mysterious early Egyptian goddess of Sais. She was identified with war and hunting and the personification of the primordial waters of creation, though later on down the track she was associated with weaving, which is what Neith means. Wisdom was one of her strong points. She had no known male companion, so was known as a ‘Virgin Mother Goddess’.

GAEA (Gaia) otherwise known as Terra or Earth was one of the original deities ‘born’ out of the original state of the universe – Chaos. Given the relative lack of bed partners around then, she mated with any and all available males, including her asexually created children, like Uranus.

*Luna (Selene) was born of the god Hyperion and the goddess Theia, sister to Sol (Helios) and Aurora or Dawn (Eos). Luna crosses the night sky on a chariot pulled by two white horses. As with Sol and Apollo, the Roman goddess Diana (Artemis) is often associated with, and has melded with Luna (as the crescent-shaped Moon) as has the goddess of the underworld, Hecate (as the New Moon). Luna remains as the Full Moon in the night sky.

MARS (Ares) son of Jupiter (Zeus) and Juno (Hera or Mrs. Zeus) was the god of war, though if mythology be believed, he was rather a wimp of a god, got his butt kicked on several occasions and was rather disliked up on Olympus.

*Deimos: Ares (the god of war) had an extramarital fling with the goddess of love, Aphrodite (who was married to the god of fire, Hephaestus) and from this union produced two sons, one being Deimos, meaning ‘fear’.

*Phobos: That Ares and Aphrodite pairing also produced another son, Phobos, meaning ‘terror’. Both Deimos and Phobos often joined daddy on the battlefield. However, apart from that, they play no significant role in mythology.

ASTEROIDS: There are only four really main or large asteroids among the tens of thousands that exist, Ceres, Pallas, Vesta and Juno.

*Ceres (Demeter) was the goddess of agriculture, the harvest, and the one who controlled the seasons. Zeus had a bedroom fling with her that resulted in Persephone, who Zeus then promised to his brother Hades as his wife. Alas, Zeus didn’t inform either Persephone or Demeter about that decision, which had major repercussions down the track.

*Juno is Mrs. Jupiter, or in the Greek, the equivalent of Hera (Mrs. Zeus). In either case, Juno/Hera is the queen of all the gods and goddesses. She is perhaps noted most of all for her vindictiveness against some of the offspring produced by her husband’s extramarital relationships, most notably, Hercules.

*Pallas is named after Pallas Athena, an alternative name for the Greek goddess Athena. In another version Pallas was the daughter of Triton, who acted as foster parent to Athena. A friendly fight between the two goddesses went sour and Pallas was killed.  

*Vesta (Hestia) was the virgin goddess of the hearth and home or home fire, a real stay-at-home sort of deity and thus doesn’t feature much in mythological adventures and doings. In the Roman version Vesta was represented by a shrine with an eternal flame guarded by the Vestal Virgins who, as a condition of their employment and of remaining alive, had better remain pure, or else. The god of war, Mars, raped one, and from that involuntary union, sprang the twins Remus and Romulus, the latter the founder of Rome. 

To be continued…