—Manilius.
Yet, on the star-maps, the Charioteer is pictured with a goat on his shoulders, instead of driving a chariot, although sometimes a chariot has also been represented. Allen says that modern research gives us reason to believe that the constellation was delineated by the early star-gazers of the Euphrates valley millenniums ago and perhaps the Greeks merely impressed their legends on another figure as it is possible they also did in the case of Hercules. The goat which the Charioteer holds, according to one tradition, was the goat on whose milk the infant Jupiter was fed after he had been carried to the island of Crete to escape being devoured by his father Saturn, the God of Time.
"The sacred goat upon his shoulder rests,
To infant Jove she gave a mother's breast."
and then
"Grateful he placed her there,
And bade her kids their mother's honour share."
It is further related that one day while playing with the goat, Jupiter accidentally broke off one of its horns. In atonement, he filled the horn with fruits and flowers—the horn of plenty—and consoled the goat by giving it a constellation. The brilliant star, Capella, lies on the heart of this goat, the name signifying "the little She-goat," and not only the Greeks and Romans, but the ancient Peruvians, far across the ocean, connected this star with the affairs of shepherds. English poets refer to Capella as the "Shepherd's Star."
In the hand of this "mighty man seated on the Milky Way," who is sometimes called the Charioteer or the Wagoner, are the two kids which were raised with their mother to the stars.
These kids may be recognized by a small triangle of stars not far from Capella. They were often called the "frightened kids" by the ancients. No wonder they looked frightened—the long horns of the red-eyed Taurus are lowered in the sky below them, the gleaming blade of the hero Perseus is brandished among the stars not far to the side of them and the huge bulk of the Great Bear is shadowed in the darkness just beyond them. The ancient people also called them the "horrid, mad stars" and feared their influence on the weather, for it so happened that these timid little creatures were either near the eastern or the western horizon during the storm weather. Since this coincidence happened year after year without fail, it was felt that the Kids were in some way responsible for it.
"Tempt not the winds forewarned of dangers nigh,
When the Kids glitter in the western sky."