Leo: The Nemean Lion among the Stars (Catasterism)

Catalogue ID: 05-local-and-lesser/108-leo-nemean-lion-catasterism

Cycle: Local and lesser — astral aetiology / Heracles’s First Labor

Version line: Catasterismic handbook — Nemean lion as Leo

Sources: Eratosthenes, *Catasterismi* 12; Hyginus, *Astronomica* 2.24; Apollodorus, *Library* 2.5.1 (lion labor)

Source file: /workspace/greek-myth-catalogue/05-local-and-lesser/108-leo-nemean-lion-catasterism.md

Characters

Ajax — slayer; wearer of the skin
Nemean Lion — slain monster; constellation
Philotes — agent of catasterism (handbook variants)
Selene — occasional parent of the lion in mythographic notes

Places

Path of the sun — Leo’s place
Thebes — hunting ground

Themes

None detected.

Narrative

Star-handbooks identify the constellation Leo with the Nemean lion Heracles strangled as his first labor—invulnerable to bronze, skin taken as his cloak. Zeus (or Hera in some notices) placed the beast in the heavens as a memorial of the labor and of the lion’s former terror in Nemea. Catalogue Leo as the astral afterlife of the Nemean lion, distinct from the Apollodorean labor narrative of the pithos, Molorchus, and the club.