Cassiopeia

Casiopea. Illustration for the Uranometria by Johann Bayer. 1661.

The king of Ethiopia Cepheus and Casiopea give thanks to Perseus for freeing his daughter Andromeda, La Délivrance d'Andromède (1679) Pierre Mignard, Louvre

In Greek mythology, Cassiopeia, Cassiopeia or Cassiope (in ancient Greek Κασσιέπεια or Κασσιόπεια) was a queen belonging to the lineage of the Agenorids. There are different traditions about her, which place her in distant kingdoms of Hellas, as a queen of Ethiopia, Phoenicia or Egypt.

Cassiopeia from Ethiopia

The most common version considers her the wife of King Cepheus of Ethiopia and mother with him of Andromeda, whose beauty she exalted above that of the Nereids or, according to another version, it was Cassiopeia herself who boasted of being superior in beauty to the Nereids. This pride was the cause of their misfortune, by provoking the wrath of Poseidon, who sent the sea monster Ceto to devastate the kingdom. Trying to save Ethiopia, Cepheus and Cassiopeia consulted an oracle, which told them that the only way to appease the sea god was to offer his daughter as a sacrifice. Andromeda was stripped of her clothes and chained to a rock at the edge of the sea, waiting to die at the hands of Ceto. However, the hero Perseus, who was returning from killing and beheading Medusa, fell in love with the young captive and used the monster's head to defeat Ceto by turning him into a coral, thereby saving Andromeda's life and eventually marrying her. with her.

Not wanting to leave Cassiopeia unpunished, Poseidon placed her in the heavens tied to a chair in such a position that, when the celestial vault rotates, she remains upside down half the time. The Cassiopeia constellation resembles this throne, which originally represented an instrument of torture. Cassiopeia is not always represented tied to the chair as a torment; in some later images she holds a mirror, a symbol of her vanity, while in others she holds a palm leaf, a symbolism that is not clear. At least one source of hers calls her Yope, her eponymous name, and she imagines her a daughter of Aeolus.

Cassiopeia of Phoenicia

Another tradition, which seems older, considers her the wife of Phoenix, the eponym of Phoenicia. She is the daughter of another eponymous hero, Árabo. He says the Catalog of Women of the sons of Fenix and Casiepea were Cilix, Phineus, Doriclus and, nominally, Atymnus; but Attymnus was actually the son of Zeus. Minos, Radamantis, and Sarpedon fought over this beautiful boy. This Cassiopeia is also associated with the motherhood of Carme, although this girl is usually cited as the daughter of Cretan Eubuleo. Anquino was also a boy, son of Cassiopeia and Zeus, who seduced his own mother by posing as Phoenix.

Cassiopeia from Egypt

Finally, there is a third version, where Cassiopeia was the wife of Epaphos, king of Egypt. Zeus ordered Epaphos, whom he had fathered from Io, to build cities in Egypt and reign there. He first founded Memphis and then many others. From his wife Cassiopeia he begat his daughter Libya, after whom that land was named.