Antigone To Aquarius (Greco-Roman Mythology)

Antigone

Greek

Tragedy by Sophocles that was written c. 411 B.C. In it Antigone buries her dead brother, Polyneices, in defiance of the Theban king, Creon, but in accordance with the wishes of the gods. As punishment Creon imprisons Antigone in a cave, but after receiving warning that he has defied the gods, he goes to the cave, where he finds that Antigone has hanged herself.

Antiloch(us)

Greek

The gallant son of Nestor who, too young to sail with the original expedition from Aulis, joined his father when old enough. He was killed by Memnon while defending his father. After his death he dwelled with other heroes on the White Island or the Islands of the Blessed.

Antin(i)ous 1. Greek

The leader of the unruly mob of potential suitors who besieged Penelope while Odysseus was away fighting in the Trojan War. When Odysseus returned he used the great bow of Eurytus to kill Antinous.

2. Roman

A beautiful Bithynian youth from Claud-iopolis who became the favorite of Emperor Hadrian and his companion on all his journeys. He was made a god by Hadrian after his drowning in the River Nile, near Besa, in A.D. 122, perhaps by suicide. Hadrian also founded the city of Antinopolis on the banks of the Nile in his memory.

Antiope

Greek


1. A queen of the Amazons who was carried off by Theseus when he accompanied Heracles to their country. According to another tradition, Theseus did not take Antiope but instead took her sister, Hippolyte; by whichever Amazon queen he took Theseus became the father of Hippolytus.

2. The daughter of Nycteus of Thebes, or of the River Asophus. She was of such beauty that she attracted the attentions of Zeus, who made her pregnant, but she had to flee from her father’s anger and then married Epopeus, king of Sicyon. Out of shame Nycteus killed himself, but not before making his brother, King Lycus of Thebes, promise to punish her. At Eleutherae Antiope gave birth to twin boys, Amphion and Zethus, who were exposed on Mount Cithaeron and subsequently raised by cattle herders.

Returning to Thebes, Antiope was imprisoned by Lycus and cruelly treated by his wife, Dirce. Some accounts say that Antiope was Lycus’s first wife, divorced by him for her infidelity with Zeus, and it was Dirce’s jealousy of her that caused her to be treated badly. However, one day Antiope was miraculously freed, and just as Dirce was about to have her tied to the horns of a wild bull, two young men turned up and recognized Antiope as their mother. These youths were Amphion and Zethus, and they inflicted on Dirce the punishment she had planned for their mother, her body being thrown into a fountain that thenceforth carried her name.

Then they killed Lycus and seized the city of Thebes.

Dionysos, who favored Dirce, now drove Antiope mad until she was cured by Phocus, son of Ornytion. Antiope married him, and when they died they were buried together at Tithorea in Phocis.

Aphaia

Greek

A goddess whose purpose, characteristics, and attributes are not clear but to whom a temple was built at Aegina c. 490 B.C.

Apharetidae

Greek

Names used to collectively refer to Idas and Lynceus, as they were the children of Aphareus.

Aphareus

Greek

The king of Messene and father of Idas and Lynceus, who were hence called Apharetidae.

Aphidnae

Greek

The village in Attica where Theseus hid the maiden Helen in the care of his mother; here she was rescued by the Dioscuri, Castor and Polydeuces, after Academus revealed the hiding place to them.

Aphrodite

Greek

One of the 12 elite Olympian deities, Aphrodite was the goddess of love (especially sensual), feminine beauty, marriage, and fertility and was the patroness of prostitutes. Identified by the Romans with Venus, though Venus’s origins were markedly different, as she was originally the patroness of vegetable gardens. It was not until the cult of Aphrodite proper had been introduced into Rome around the end of the third century B.C. from Sicily that Venus took on her attributes and legends. However, the Julian family claimed their descent from her through her grandson, Aeneas. Her cult was of eastern origin, seemingly Anatolian, her counterpart being the orgiastic Astarte/Ashtoreth of Phoenician Syria or Ishtar of Babylon, though it is also thought that she may have derived from a Minoan goddess. The Greeks recognized her oriental nature, and Herodotus states that her oldest shrine was at Ashkelon. In Roman times she was worshipped in Syria in the form of a fish as the Syrian Goddess.

Older aspects of her cult survive in her various names. She was Apostrophia, or "she who turns herself away"; Androphonos, "man killer"; Tymborychos, "gravedigger"; Anosia, "the unholy"; Epitymbidia, "she upon the tombs"; and, above all else, Pasiphaessa, "the far shining queen of the Underworld." The Athenians regarded her as the oldest Moirae— the senior of the Fates, and as goddess of love Aphrodite also collected special epithets, like Kallipygos, or "she of the beautiful buttocks"; Morpho, "the shapely"; and Ambologera, "she who postpones old age."

Her worship in Hellenic Greece was derived from the earlier worship of the Great Goddess of pre-Hellenic times. She was worshipped as a fertility goddess in Paphos, her chief cult center, from where the Phoenicians took her worship to Cythera, the supposed place of her birth (hence her surname, Cytherea). It was not until possibly as late as the eighth century B.C. that her fertility cult was established on the Acrocorinthos (Akrocorinth) above Corinth. There was a similar sanctuary on Mount Eryx in Sicily, the cult being introduced into Rome sometime around the end of the third century B.C. In all these places Aphrodite was served by young girls who emphasized her cult of sacred prostitution, a trait reflected in the myth of the daughters of Cinyras, who became her votaries. In other Greek states her worship focused more on her role as protectress of the city. In Athens during the Arrephoria festival two maidens carried phallic symbols to her shrine, thus demonstrating that she still functioned as a fertility goddess.

According to Hesiod, Aphrodite was born out of sea foam that had been fertilized by drops of blood after Cronos emasculated Uranos. She rose naked from the sea and stepped ashore from a scallop shell near the island of Cythera off the southern Pelo-ponnesos, then passed on to Paphos in Cyprus. She was therefore also sometimes regarded as the goddess of the sea and seafaring. However, Homer makes Aphrodite the daughter of Zeus and Dione. The Greeks explained her name as deriving from aphros, or "foam," seemingly concurring with Hesiod in respect of her origin, though this is not a "traditional" Olympian origin, as it would make her more ancient and therefore more essential than Zeus.

When Olympus was attacked by the monstrous Typhon, created by Ge in revenge for the destruction of the giants, Aphrodite fled, with the other gods, to Egypt in the form of a fish, the other deities taking other animal forms.

She loved many gods and legendary mortals and in Homer’s Odyssey is the wife of the smith god Hephaistos, though in Homer’s Iliad his wife is said to be Charis. On one occasion Aphrodite was caught in bed with her lover, Ares, by an invisible net that Hephaistos had made. This story, and how Hephaistos exposed the pair to the ridicule of the other gods, is told in a poem known as the "Lay of Demodocos" that was incorporated into the eighth book of Homer’s Odyssey. One of her children by Ares was Harmonia. Aphrodite also bore sons to Poseidon, bore Priapus to Dionysos, and later stories say that she bore Hermaphroditos to Hermes and Eros to either Hermes, Ares, or Zeus, as well as the deities known as Phobos and Deimos, their most likely father also being the god of war, Ares.

She loved the mortal Adonis, their love being the subject of Shakespeare’s play Venus and Adonis. She was heartbroken when he was killed, so Zeus decreed that he should be allowed to spend part of each year with Aphrodite on earth, the remainder being spent in the Underworld with Persephone. She also loved, according to one of the Homeric hymns, Anchises, and bore him Aeneas. Aphrodite also helped young lovers and punished those who refused love. She helped Milanion (or Hippomenes) to win the hand of Atalanta by giving him three of the golden apples of the

Hesperides to drop in a footrace against Atalanta. By dropping he caused Atalanta to stop to pick them up, and so won the race. She also endowed life upon a statue made and then loved by Pygmalion after he had prayed to Aphrodite for a wife in its image, the statue being referred to by some as Galatea.

Aphrodite possessed a magic girdle that made the wearer irresistible and desirable, but she was usually depicted nude or partially naked. She had many attributes; among them the swan, the pomegranate, the dove, myrtle, and sparrows were sacred to her. She would periodically renew her virginity in the sea at Paphos, where her cult was at its most intense.

When her daughter by Ares, Harmonia, was given to Cadmos as his wife by Zeus, Aphrodite gave her a fabulous necklace that had been made by Hephaistos and that conferred irresistible loveliness on the wearer. Zeus had originally given this necklace to Europa. From Athene the bride received a magic robe that conferred divine dignity.

Aphrodite is to be considered the main cause of the Trojan War due to her temptation of Paris. The story goes that of all the gods, only Eris was not invited to the wedding of Peleus and Thetis, and in revenge she flung among the guests the golden Apple of Discord, inscribed with the words, "To the fairest." Immediately, Hera, Athene, and Aphrodite all claimed that the apple was rightfully theirs, and to solve the immense problem he faced, Zeus commanded Hermes to lead the three quarreling goddesses to Mount Ida so that Paris could judge the dispute.

Each goddess appeared naked before Paris, but that alone was not enough to satisfy them, for each made Paris a tempting offer. Hera promised him rule in Asia, Athene fame in war. However, Aphrodite promised him the most beautiful women in the world as his wife. Thus Paris judged in favor of Aphrodite, and under her protection he sailed to Sparta where he abducted Helen, the wife of Menelaus, thus starting the Trojan War—and leading to the ultimate destruction of Troy.

During the ten-year war Aphrodite frequently helped her son, Aeneas, who was fighting with the Trojans, and once carried him away when he had been wounded by Diomedes (who even managed to wound the goddess herself, thereby earning her undying hatred). She also carried Paris out of harm’s way when he was losing in single combat to Menelaus, precipitating the resumption of all-out fighting.

Her priestess at Sestos was the tragic Hero, who killed herself in grief when her lover, Leander, drowned while swimming across the Hellespont from Abydos on the opposite shore one stormy night to visit her.

Astronomical: The name Aphrodite Terra has been applied to an area of high ground revealed by radar mapping of the planet Venus, which, of course, is associated with her.

Apis

Greek The son of Phoroneus.

Apollo

Greco-Roman One of the 12 great Olympian deities whose worship was paramount in shaping the character of Greek civilization. Apollo was the most popular of all Greek gods and presided over many aspects of life. He was the god of prophecy and divine distance, of beneficent power and righteous punishment. He presided over law and made men aware of their guilt, also cleansing them of it. He was god of music, poetry, and dance, archery, pastoral life, and, as Nomios or "the Herdsman," of agriculture, presiding over crops and herbs and protecting flocks from wolves. He also protected animals from disease and was the patron of farmers, poets, and physicians. In later times he also became recognized as the god of light and the sun, as his forename, Phoebus, indicated.

His mythology suggests that he was a comparatively late addition to the Greek pantheon, at one time being regarded as borrowed from Near Eastern mythology. He has no obvious counterpart in the other Indo-European pantheons and apparently is not found in the Linear B texts of Mycenaean Greece. His worship probably derived from two sources: the Dorians, who entered Greece in about 1100 B.C. and reached as far south as Crete, and the

Ionians, who lived in the islands and mainland of Anatolia or Asia Minor and acquainted his worship with that of a Hittite divinity worshipped in Lycia and hence called him Lycius (though this name may be connected with the word lycos or "wolf"). His name may be cognate with the Hittite god Apulunas or possibly with the Spartan apella, "to drive away." It may even be derived, at least in part, as suggested by other titles of the god, from polios or "gleaming." Both Lycius and Phoebus seem to be connected with the idea of light and his identity as a sun god.

His Dorian shrine was at Delphi at the southern foot of Mount Parnassus, near the Castalian spring, both mountain and spring being sacred to him. Here he was called the Pythian or Loxias, the Ambiguous. His Ionian shrine was at Delos in the Cyclades, where he was called Lycius and Phoebus, or "Shining," and was more closely associated with his twin sister, Artemis. It was thought he traveled from the shrine at Delphi to spend each winter feasting with the Hyperboreans, with Dionysos reigning in his stead.

The Delian Homeric Hymn of c. 700 B.C. says that Apollo and Artemis were twin offspring of Zeus and Leto. However, prior to their birth the jealous Hera made Leto wander from place to place until she gave birth to Artemis under a palm tree at Ortygia and to Apollo under a palm tree on the island of Delos, which until that time had been a floating island but was anchored to the seabed by Poseidon to steady it for Apollo’s birth (though some say Zeus accomplished this by thinking of his son). To this day Delos is still considered as being so sacred that no one may be born or allowed to die there, no one may stay there at night, and the sick and parturient are ferried to Ortygia (modern Magali Dili).

When he grew up Apollo left Delos for the Greek mainland to seek a place to establish a sanctuary. He first came to Telphusa in Boeotia, but the nymph who resided there (also called Telphusa) did not want to be bothered with hordes of pilgrims and so sent him off to Crisa, that name as yet unused. There he came to the sanctuary of Mother Earth where he killed the serpent Python, a clear sign of the new Olympian regime replacing that of the old earth-matriarch religion. After this hard struggle he realized that Telphusa had been playing a trick on him, so he returned and threw her over a cliff before establishing a sanctuary there as well. Then he set off and waylaid some sailors by rushing their ship in the form of a dolphin, making them take him back to Crisa, renaming it on his return. The name used before Crisa (named after the dolphin) remains unknown. The first temple to Apollo here was built by the heroes Trophonius and Agamedes.

The Delphic Hymn, however, tells a different story. Four days after his birth Apollo called out for a bow and arrows and went in search of his mother’s enemy. He sought out the she-dragon Python on Mount Parnassus, traveling from Delos to Delphi on a dolphin, as in the other version of this story, and killed her, taking over the Oracle of Earth at Delphi. Here his priestess, the Pythoness, became the mouthpiece of his oracles, which were imparted in hexameter verse. To purify Apollo Zeus commanded him to visit the Vale of Tempe and to preside over the Pythian Games that were to be held in honor of Python. Another legend makes the dispossessed creature a she-dragon by the name of Delphyne, the "Womblike"— hence Delphi.

Hera, still implacable with her jealousy of Zeus’s philandering with Leto, sent the giant Tityus to violate Leto as she came from Delos with Artemis, though some say that it was Artemis who was attacked. This attempt failed when Tityus was killed by the twins’ arrows.

When Ge created Typhon to avenge the death of the giants, and Typhon attacked Olympus, Apollo fled to Egypt in the form of a crow, accompanied by the other Olympian deities, who took other animal forms.

Not always subservient to Zeus, Apollo once joined in a conspiracy led by Hera, and in the company of Poseidon he put Zeus in chains, only to see him be freed by Thetis and Briareus. As punishment he was sent with Poseidon as a bondsman to King Laomedon; by playing his lyre and tending the flocks he helped the sea god build the unassailable walls of Troy. On another occasion Apollo, furious that Zeus had killed his son, Asclepios, retaliated by killing the Cyclopes. As punishment Zeus sent Apollo to serve King Admetus of Pherae in Thessaly, where, once again, he tended the flocks. While there he helped Admetus to win the hand of Alcestis and exacted the promise from the Fates that Admetus would be restored to life provided one of his family died in his stead.

Though Apollo remained unmarried, he loved many mortal women, among them Cyrene, the mother of Aristaeus, Coronis, the mother of Asclepios (her infidelity brought her death from Artemis’s arrows), Manto, the mother of the seer Mopsus, and Aria, the mother of Miletus. He also seduced the nymph Dryope, and his love for the nymph Marpessa went unrequited, for she preferred his rival, Idas. When he pursued the nymph Daphne she cried out for help and was turned into a laurel bush, which henceforth became sacred to the god. Thereafter Apollo wore a laurel branch or wreath on his head as a symbol of his love and grief. Both he and Posedion sought the love of Hestia, though she swore by Zeus to always remain a virgin.

Apollo may have been the father of Troilus by Hecuba and also loved her daughter by Priam, Cassandra. He bestowed on her the gift of prophecy on the condition that she become his lover. However, when she disappointed him he decreed that she should never be believed. He also displayed a homosexual inclination, as did many gods, with his love for Hyacinthos, a Spartan prince who was in origin an earth deity. When this beautiful youth was killed by the god’s jealous rival, Zephyrus, Apollo caused the Hyacinth flower to spring up from his blood. Some versions, however, attribute Hyacinthos’s death to a quoit (used in a throwing game) thrown by Apollo himself. He was also said to have loved the boy Kyparissos (cypress), a kind of double of Apollo himself.

Apollo had many and varied characteristics. He was a destroyer, as his arrows indicated, and sudden deaths were attributed to his will. As Apollo Smintheus (mouse god), his archery represents the sending out of his arrows of disease. It was in this guise that he sent plagues among the Greek hordes that were besieging Troy in revenge for the abduction and imprisonment of Chryseis, the daughter of his priest at Troy, Chryses. He also guided the fatal arrow shot by Paris that struck Achilles in his heel, his only vulnerable spot.

In conjunction with his sister, he killed the Niobids, the children of Niobe, in revenge for her having boasted that as she had seven sons and seven daughters (some say six of each) she was superior to Leto, who only had two. Apollo killed the boys (some say he killed only five of the six) and Artemis the girls. Niobe was turned by Zeus or Apollo into a stone on Mount Sipylus from which her tears trickled as a stream. Apollo was also said to have killed Amphion, though some say he took his own life.

Laocoon, a priest of both Apollo and Poseidon at Troy, supported the declaration by Cassandra that the Trojan Horse held warriors, and even went so far as to throw a spear at it, causing a clatter of arms from within. However, due to Laocoon having previously offended Apollo by marrying despite of his vow of celibacy, the warning went unheeded, for Apollo now sent two enormous serpents that crushed both the priest and his two sons to death. This was wrongly interpreted as a punishment for smiting the horse, the gift of the gods, and it was welcomed within the city amid great feasting and revelry.

In direct contrast to his aspect as the destroyer he was also the protector, warding off evil, as his fatherhood of Asclepios affirmed, in which aspect he was given the title Paian or Paieon (healer). He also defended Orestes against the Erinnyes at the Areopagus on the grounds that motherhood is less important than fatherhood, although another tradition said that rather than saving him from his madness in this manner, Apollo advised Orestes that he would be freed from madness if he fetched the statue of Artemis from the Tauric Chersonese. Apollo also protected cattle and flocks, as his compulsory service to both Admetus and Laomedon indicated, an aspect that later writers particularly emphasized. As Apollo Aguieus he was also the god of roads.

As the god of prophecy Apollo could confer that gift to gods and mortals alike, and of all the centers of his worship, Delphi was the most famous. The shrine was possibly established by a pre-Hellenic people who worshipped Mother Earth. This was seized by the invading Hellenes, who killed the oracular serpent, Python, and took over the oracle in the name of their own god, Apollo. However, to placate the original inhabitants they held funeral games in honor of Python, these being the Pythian Games that Zeus commanded Apollo to preside over. The Delphic shrine was supposed to contain the Omphalos, or "navel stone of the world," which fell to this spot when Cronos regurgitated the stone Ge had given him to swallow instead of the baby Zeus. Over this Pythia, Apollo’s priestess and regarded as his mystical bride, sat on a tripod, uttering his oracle after becoming intoxicated through chewing laurel leaves. These oracles were then interpreted by his priests.

The remains at Delphi are extensive, and they include the ruins of Apollo’s temple (built during the fourth century B.C. to replace one destroyed by an earthquake) and a series of treasuries that contained the gifts of thanks received from city states that consulted the oracle; of these the Athenian treasury is now the best preserved. Also at Delphi is the stadium that would have been the focus of the Pythian Games.

As wounds and diseases were often treated with incantation Apollo also became the god of song and music and was said to have received the lyre from Hermes, its seven strings being associated with the seven Greek vowels. Hermes, when only a few hours old, had gone to Pieria and stolen some of Apollo’s oxen, which he drove to Pylos; returning to Cyllene he invented the lyre by stringing a tortoise shell with cowgut. Apollo denounced the thief to Zeus when he discovered who it was, and Zeus ordered the return of the beasts. However, when Apollo heard the lyre he was so delighted that he accepted it in exchange for the oxen, after which he became the firm friend of Hermes, restoring him in the eyes of Zeus. None surpassed him in music, not even Pan or the satyr Marsyas, who found the magical, self-playing flute that Athene had thrown away. Marysas once challenged Apollo to a musical contest judged by Midas. When Midas ruled in favor of Marysas, Apollo flayed Marysas alive and turned Midas’s ears into those of an ass. A variant on this story has Midas judging Pan to be the better musician, leading Apollo to curse the king with ass ears. He also gave a lyre to Orpheus, which the latter used to charm Hades into releasing Eurydice.

Apollo was the leader of the Muses, often relocated from Mount Helicon to Mount Parnassus due to this association. In this position he was known as Musagetes. He valued order and moderation in all things and delighted in the foundation of new towns, his oracle always being consulted before any new town was founded. Legend also says that Apollo sent a crow to fetch water in his cup, but the crow dallied, and when questioned by Apollo the crow lied to him. In his anger Apollo decreed that from that time forward crows should be black in color. He then placed the deceitful crow in the sky as the constellation Corvus and, next to him, placed the cup as the constellation Crater, from which the crow is forever forbidden to drink. He is also said to have placed the arrow with which he slew the Cyclopes in revenge for Zeus killing his son, Asclepios, in the heavens as the constellation Sagitta, though some say that this was the arrow Apollo used to shoot the vulture that daily prayed on the liver of Prometheus.

In later writers Apollo was identified with the sun god, the result of Egyptian influences, at which time his sister, Artemis, was identified with the moon. Homer, however, writing in an earlier period, makes Helios the god of the sun a completely distinct god to Apollo; just like Selene, the moon goddess was distinct from Artemis.

Apollo also had a priest named Abaris who lived without food and to whom he had given a golden arrow on which the priest rode.

The worship of Apollo, typical of all that was most radiant in the Greek mind, has no direct counterpart in Roman religion, and it was not until the end of the third century B.C. that the Romans adopted his worship from the Greeks, the date given in the Sibylline Books as 431 B.C., although this was not to Rome itself but rather to Cumae. During a famine Rome imported grain from Cumae, and the cult was adopted. This first Cumaean Apollo was more prophetic than the later Roman god and was associated with healing. The later god differed little from his earlier Greek counterpart and was greatly revered by Emperor Augustus. Apollo has the distinction of being the only member of the Greek pantheon to be absorbed into Roman tradition without a name change.

Astronomical: A group of small asteroids with orbits crossing that of earth are named after the first of their kind, which was discovered in 1932, named Apollo, and then lost until 1973. The Apollo asteroids are so small and faint that they are difficult to locate, except when close to earth. Apollo itself is only about 2 kilometers across.

Apollo asteroids can, from time to time, collide with earth. In 1937 the Apollo asteroid Hermes passed 800,000 kilometers (500,000 miles) from earth, the closest observed approach of an asteroid, and it is thought by some that a member of the Apollo group of asteroids collided with earth about 65 million years ago, leading to the extinction of the dinosaurs. For details on the constellations Corvus, Crater, and Sagitta see the relevant entries.

Muses, the; Niobe; Pan; Python

Apollo Aguieus

Greek

An aspect of the god Apollo in which he was considered the god of the roads.

Apollodorus

Greek

An Athenian scholar (fl. c. 140 B.C.), he was the author of a work on mythology and one on etymology; best known for his Chronicle of Greek history from the time of the fall of Troy.

Apollonius of Rhodes or Apollonius Rhodius

Greek

Greek poet (c. 220-180 B.C.) born in Alexandria; longtime resident of Rhodes, he wrote many works on grammar and the epic Argonautica, which tells the story of Jason and the Argonauts, noted more for its learning than its poetic genius.

Apostrophia

Greek

Literally "she who turns herself away," a name given to Aphrodite and recalling the older aspects of her cult.

Apple of Discord

Greek

A golden apple inscribed with the words, "To the fairest" or "For the fairest." It was thrown into the congregation at the marriage of Peleus and Thetis by Eris, who was the only deity not to have been invited to the celebration. Immediately Hera, Athene, and Aphrodite claimed the apple was rightfully theirs, and Zeus, faced with an almost impossible dilemma, commanded Hermes to lead the goddesses to Mount Ida for Paris to judge the dispute. Even though Hera and Athene offered Paris bribes, he decided on Aphrodite, as her bribe was, in his eyes, the best (the most beautiful women in the world as his wife). This decision ultimately led to the Trojan War, his own death, and the destruction of Troy.

Aquarius

Greek

When Ganymede, cupbearer to the gods, died he was transferred to the heavens as the constellation Aquarius.

Astronomical: Literally "the Water Carrier." Recognized from ancient times, Aquarius is part of the zodiac, the sun being within its boundaries between 17 February and 13 March. The constellation is usually seen as a man pouring water from a jar and is located in the watery part of the sky, known to the ancient Babylonians as "the sea."

Straddling both the ecliptic and celestial equators, this constellation lies mostly in the southern celestial hemisphere between approximate right ascensions 23h55m and 21h25m, declination +3° to -26°.

This zodiacal sign has achieved special significance in the mythology of the twentieth century because of the pronouncements of astrologers that the world is shifting out of the 2,000-year-old cycle of the Age of Pisces, the fish, into Aquarius. The exact date of the transition is a matter of great astrological controversy, but the consensus is that it began in 1960 and will be completed sometime in the twenty-fourth century. The Age of Aquarius is predicted to be one of peace and harmony, replacing the era of strife, which, ironically, has marked the dominance of the Christian symbol of the fish.

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