This is the most unremarkable figure in the zodiac, and mythology seems to apologize for the fact that it exists, justifying this by saying that Hercules crushed the Crab, who dug into his leg during the battle with the hydra in the Lernean swamp, and Juno carried the Crab to heaven. Therefore, Columella named him Lernaus. There are, however, few constellations that have attracted so much attention in antiquity and have been better defined than Cancer, for the Platonists and Chaldean philosophers called it the Gate of Men, through which souls descended from heaven and inhabited human bodies.
In astrology, together with Scorpio and Pisces, he constituted the Water Trine (Triangle), which was one of the Houses of the Moon. There was an ancient belief that this luminary was located here during the Creation of the world and was the Horoscope of the World, since of all the signs of the zodiac, Cancer was closest to the zenith.
