The less luminous constellation of the Zodiaco, marked the beginning
of the solstice of summer. Cancer in Latin means both crab and crayfish.
Igino tell that can be the crab that it tried to bite Ercole
during its combat against the Idra di Lerna, but that it came
poorly crushed from the annoyed hero. Giunone (enemy
of Ercole in how much fruit of the love of her husband with Jupiter) wanted
to recompense the crustacean immortaled in the sky.
According to the Greeks, instead, the crustacean would have held firm one nymph
to caming of Zeus (for imaginable attempts).
The two main stars of the Cancer are the Asellus Borealis (boreal ass)
and Asellus australis (austral ass) that, second a myth, had to be
the two asses that had lead Dioniso, rendered crazy from Giunone in how much
son adultery of Jupiter, in the temple of Zeus Dodoneo.
Jupiter wanted pay them putting in the sky.
The two stars are separated from one cloudy (called, for the presence of
the two asses, Presepio, or Mangiatoia).
An other myth instead narrated that the two asses ride from the Sileni
had scared and put in escape the Giants with their terrible and acute braying,
they unknown, than it had made to believe the presence of invincible
monstrous beings engages from goods for win the war against of
them. Dioniso accomodated the two heroic animals in the sky.
Also in Mesopotamia the constellation of the Cancer (AL.LUL. in sumeric)
it was seen like a crab or one a turtle. In Egypt it could be a
beetle, considered in the Book of the dead men the aspect early riser of the Sun.