Orion and the Scorpion

As Aratus told it

In Aratus's version, Orion offends Artemis on Chios and she sends the scorpion.

The poet Aratus, writing in the third century BC, tells the story in his Phaenomena (opens in a new tab). On the island of Chios, while Orion was clubbing wild beasts as a gift for King Oenopion, he laid hands on the robe of Artemis. The goddess split the island's hills and sent up a scorpion, which stung and killed him.

Aratus ends with the sky: men say that “at the rising of the Scorpion in the East Orion flees at the Western verge (opens in a new tab)” (G. R. Mair's 1921 translation).

Sources for this section Aratus, Phaenomena 634–646, tr. G. R. Mair (Loeb, 1921), Theoi Classical Texts Library (opens in a new tab)

Other tellings

Eratosthenes and Hyginus give different reasons and a different island.

The versions disagree, as Ian Ridpath sets out (opens in a new tab). Eratosthenes gives two: in one, Orion attacked Artemis and she sent the scorpion; in the other, the Earth sent it after Orion boasted he could kill any wild beast. Hyginus repeats both.

Aratus sets the death on Chios; Eratosthenes and Hyginus (opens in a new tab) put it on Crete. What the versions share is the shape of a warning: Orion is punished for overreaching.

Keep in mind These are tellings by named authors, not one Greek belief, and the authors disagreed. This page compares them rather than blending them.

Sources for this section Ian Ridpath, Star Tales: Scorpius (opens in a new tab)

The sky behind the story

The two constellations really are on opposite sides of the sky.

Ridpath suggests (opens in a new tab) the myth may have grown out of the sky itself, because the two constellations sit opposite each other. By this site's calculation (opens in a new tab), Betelgeuse and Antares are about 152° apart, so when Scorpius is climbing in the east, Orion is sinking in the west, just as Aratus says.

The scorpion is older than the Greek story: the Sumerians (opens in a new tab) called these stars GIR-TAB, the scorpion, more than 5,000 years ago.

Sources for this section Ian Ridpath, Star Tales: Scorpius (opens in a new tab) · ; Bright Star Catalogue, 5th Revised Ed. (Hoffleit & Warren 1991), as computed by this site's star engine (opens in a new tab)

In the sky today

Find each figure separately: Orion by his belt, Scorpius by red Antares.

Orion is easiest to find by the three stars of his belt (opens in a new tab); Scorpius by red Antares (opens in a new tab) at its heart.

Because they are opposite, you will not see both high at once. By this site's calculation (opens in a new tab), Orion is highest at about 9 p.m. in mid-January and Scorpius in mid-July.

Sources for this section NASA Science, Discovering the Universe Through the Constellation Orion (opens in a new tab) · ; ESO, Best Ever Image of a Star's Surface and Atmosphere (eso1726, 2017) (opens in a new tab) · ; Bright Star Catalogue, 5th Revised Ed. (Hoffleit & Warren 1991), as computed by this site's star engine (opens in a new tab)