Orion

Half-divine son of Poseidon by Euryale daughter of Minos (mortal — distinct from the Gorgon Euryale). Giant hunter of pre-Homeric tradition; companion of Artemis on Crete; killed by scorpion (Gaia-sent) or by Artemis-arrow (Apollo-tricked) across competing variant traditions; placed in the heavens as the great hunter-constellation visible across all seasons. Hesiod's Works and Days uses Orion's seasonal risings and settings as the agricultural-year markers — the constellation functioning as living calendar in the archaic Greek farming context. The variant Boeotian birth-tradition (born from a bull's hide buried after Zeus, Poseidon, and Hermes urinated on it for the childless Hyrieus) presents three divine "fathers" by ritual conception with no biological mother — a non-standard parentage pattern preserved in Hyginus Fab. 195 and Ovid Fasti 5.493-544 but treated as variant rather than primary.

Parentage

• paternal: Poseidon

Variant accounts

• birth-variant
• death-variant
• death-variant

Domains

• hunting
• walking on water
• catasterism

Powers

• Walk across the sea

Epithets

• Ὠρίων πελώριος greek · Ōríōn pelṓrios'Gigantic Orion' — Homer's epithet for the giant hunter in the underworldHomer, Odyssey 11.572 (primary)

Relations

• sibling: CycnusFull sibling; shares the same complete attested parentage.
• killed by: Artemis (or scorpion sent by Gaia) · GreekApollod. 1.4.5 (primary)

Sources

• existence: Homer Iliad 18.486-489, Odyssey 5.121-124, 5.272-274, 11.572-575; Hesiod Works and Days 598-619, Catalogue of Women fr. 148; Apollodorus 1.4.3-5; Pindar Isthmian 4.49-50; Eratosthenes Catasterismi 32; Hyginus Astronomica 2.34, Fabulae 195; Ovid Fasti 5.493-544; Pausanias 9.20.3-4 (primary)
• parentage: Apollod. 1.4.3 (primary)