Cassiopeia

Queen of Ethiopia, wife of Cepheus, mother of Andromeda. Her boast — that she was more beautiful than the Nereids, or that her daughter was — was the hubris that brought down Poseidon's sea-monster on the kingdom and forced the chaining of Andromeda at the rock (Apollodorus *Bibliotheca* 2.4.3; Hyginus *Fabulae* 64 and *Astronomica* 2.10). She was catasterised with her husband and daughter after the events at Joppa, placed as the queen in her throne among the circumpolar stars — but tilted, in the myth's final ironic stroke, so that for half of each night she is upside down (Aratus *Phaenomena* 188–196; Eratosthenes *Catasterisms* 16). The tilt is the Nereids' last punishment.

Associated Places