The One Being Tested
The Peloponnese lies in southern Greece. Up in the northeast, the Nemea region is cradled by mountains and basins. The days are sunny, the nights cool off with mountain winds. The wide day-night temperature swing allows local grapes, varying with altitude, to develop layered acidity.
But back then, life there wasn’t exactly chill. Fear hung over the valley. In Greek legend, an enormous lion lived here, its roar echoing through the mountains and sending nearby villagers into trembling dread. Soldiers kept getting sent in, and none of them ever came back.
In myth, the threat was ultimately placed in the hands of Hercules.
After the goddess Hera’s curse drove Hercules into madness and led to the death of his own children, Hercules believed that redemption was only possible through a brutal set of labors. He went to Eurystheus, the king of Mycenae, and received his first assignment: kill the Nemean Lion and bring back its head as proof.
Hercules, and illegitimate son of Zeus, possessed strength from birth. He even strangled two venomous snakes Hera sent to kill him with bare hands as a baby. As an adult he became a formidable warrior, so beating a lion sounded easy.
Except this lion wasn’t normal beast. It was said to be descended from the Titan Typhon, and was set there by Hera to eliminate Hercules.
When Hercules went into its territory alone, the trails were stained with blood and deep claw marks. Eventually he ran into the lion at the entrance of a cave.
The creature was massive, nearly three times the size of a regular lion. Its body seemed wrapped in an impenetrable barrier, spears and blades could not pierce it, and arrows bounced off.
Matched by its defense, its claws were sharper than the best weapons of the time, and every swipe could tear through flesh and bone.
After every weapon failed, Hercules went all in and fought it bare-handed. He jumped onto its back, locked it in a crushing hold and kept squeezing until the lion finally suffocated.
With the lion dead, a new problem emerged: how to take its head. Suddenly, Hercules noticed the lion’s own claws, which were sharper than any tool. Using those claws, Hercules slit the pelt. He turned the head into a helm and wore the hide as a cloak, later becoming Hercules’ iconic look.
With the first labor completed, the life of the Nemean Lion ended. Its image was placed among the stars, becomeing the constellation Leo.
Even today, lots of local wineries use the Nemean Lion as a name of symbol. The beast that once terrified the valley has been transformed into a cultural symbol of the land.
Observation Guide
A lion’s most distinctive feature is the mane around its neck, and when trying to find Leo in the sky, it helps to start with that mane. By looking south from the Big Dipper, an inverted question mark can be spotted, or a shape that resembles a sickle, which is the Lion’s head. At the base of the sickle’s handle is Leo’s brightest star Regulus, known as the Lion’s heart. From the sickle, farther west is a rectangle that forms the lion’s body, connecting to Denebola at the tip of the tail.
Leonids
The best-known phenomenon associated with Leo is the Leonids. Unlike most meteor showers that appear with relatively steady activity each year, the Leonids produce a particularly dramatic meteor storm roughly once every 33 years.
Meteor showers occur when Earth passes through streams of cosmic debris, causing large numbers of particles to enter the atmosphere in a short time. The Leonids originate from a comet called Tempel–Tuttle. The comet’s orbital period is about 33 years, and when Earth crosses a denser region of dust along the comet’s trail, the number of meteors can increase sharply. In 1966, an extraordinary event was recorded in which 40 to 50 meteors per second were seen. Based on this cycle, the next meteor storm is expected around 2033.
Even in ordinary years, however, the Leonids can still be observed reliably in mid-November each year.
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Easter Egg
Suddenly, the sun was blocked.
Two sandy-gold feline forepaws landed on either side of him,
and the creature lowered its head to drink
as if stepping over a rock, never sparing him a glance.
The Nemean Lion is way too huge!
Croquado held his breath and mimic himself as a helpless rock.
