Hera’s crab
Cancer is the crab that Hera sent against Heracles while he fought the Hydra. It was crushed underfoot, and Hera put it among the stars.
In the tradition
A crab bit Heracles on the foot as he fought the many-headed Hydra in the marsh of Lerna, his second labor, and he crushed it. Hera, who hated him, rewarded it with a place in the zodiac, as Hyginus tells it.
It is the faintest of the twelve constellations. In classical astrology the sign belongs to the Moon.
Sources
- Hyginus, De Astronomia (1st century BCE or later). The Latin handbook of constellation myths, often giving several versions side by side.
- Pseudo-Eratosthenes, Catasterismi (Hellenistic, surviving in an epitome). A collection of the myths told about how each constellation came to be in the sky.
Updated October 9, 2026.
See it in your own profile
Caelumia reads your whole birth chart and your numbers together, and shows where they agree. Your profile is free to start, and your first results appear while you answer.