- Hercules (constellation) (Wikipedia)
Hercules is a constellation named after Hercules, the Roman mythological hero adapted from the Greek hero Heracles. Hercules was one of the 48 constellations listed by the second-century astronomer Ptolemy, and it remains one of the 88 modern constellations today. It is the fifth-largest of the modern constellations and is the largest of the 50 which have no stars brighter than apparent magnitude +2.5.
- Star Tales - Hercules (ianridpath.com)
The origin of this constellation is so ancient that its true identity was lost even to the Greeks, who knew the figure as Ἐνγόνασι (Engonasi) or Ἐνγόνασιν (Engonasin), literally meaning ‘the kneeling one’. The Greek poet Aratus described him as being worn out with toil, his hands upraised, with one knee bent and a foot on the head of Draco, the dragon. ‘No one knows his name, nor what he labours at’, said Aratus. But Eratosthenes, a century after Aratus, identified the figure as Heracles (the Greek name for Hercules) triumphing over the dragon that guarded the golden apples of the Hesperides. The Greek playwright Aeschylus, quoted by Hyginus, offered a different explanation. He said that Heracles was kneeling, wounded and exhausted, during his battle with the Ligurians.
