- Corvus (constellation) (Wikipedia)
Corvus is a small constellation in the Southern Celestial Hemisphere. Its name means “crow” in Latin. One of the 48 constellations listed by the 2nd-century astronomer Ptolemy, it depicts a raven, a bird associated with stories about the god Apollo, perched on the back of Hydra the water snake. The four brightest stars, Gamma, Delta, Epsilon, and Beta Corvi, form a distinctive quadrilateral in the night sky.
- Corvus and Crater also featured in the iconography of Mithraism, which is thought to have been of middle-eastern origin before spreading into Ancient Greece and Rome.
- Star Tales - Corvus and Crater (ianridpath.com)
These two adjacent constellations are linked in a moral tale that goes back at least to the time of Eratosthenes in the third century BC. As told by Ovid in his Fasti, Apollo was about to make a sacrifice to Zeus and sent the crow to fetch water from a running spring. The crow flew off with a bowl in its claws until it came to a fig tree laden with unripe fruit. Ignoring its orders, the crow waited several days for the fruit to ripen, by which time Apollo had been forced to find a source of water for himself.
