[121] Orion , the giant and hunter ( Hom. Od.11. 572), appears even in Homer as a constellation. Apollodorus quotes this account of his death—“Ὠρίωνα δὲ Ἄρτεμις ἀπέκτεινεν ἐν Δήλῳ”—and later mythology makes his offence to have been an attempt to violate Opis, as she was bringing ears of corn to Delos (Pausan. 1. 4. 5). Opis or Upis is, according to some, a surname of Artemis herself, which would explain another form of the story, as given in Horace, Hom. Od.3. 4. 64‘Notus et integrae
tentator DianaeOrion virginea domitus sagitta.’ It is when at the end of July Orion rises in all his splendour with the dawn in the eastern sky, and then pales before the morning light, that he appears as the lover of Eos.
