a mirror while she laments that she is not a cow and killing of her rivals. She curses ev'ry beauteous cow she sees; Cult of Pasiphaë On divination In mainland Greece, Pasiphaë was worshipped as an oracular goddess at Thalamae, one of the original koine of Sparta. The geographer Pausanias describes the shrine as small, situated near a clear stream, and flanked by bronze statues of Helios and Pasiphaë. His account also equates Pasiphaë with Ino and the lunar goddess Selene. Cicero writes in De Divinatione 1.96 that the Spartan ephors would sleep at the shrine of Pasiphaë, seeking prophetic dreams to aid them in governance. According to Plutarch, Spartan society twice underwent major upheavals sparked by ephors' dreams at the shrine during the Hellenistic era. In one case, an ephor dreamed that some of his colleagues' chairs were removed from the agora, and that a voice called out "this is better for Sparta"; inspired by this, King Cleomenes acted to consolidate royal power. Again during the reign of King Agis, several ephors brought the people into revolt with oracles from Pasiphaë's shrine promising remission of debts and redistribution of land. Celestial deity In Description of Greece, Pausanias equates Pasiphaë with Selene, implying that the figure was worshipped as a lunar deity. However, further studies on Minoan religion indicate that the sun was a female figure, suggesting instead that Pasiphaë was originally a solar goddess, an interpretation consistent with her depiction as Helios' daughter. Poseidon's bull may in turn be vestigial of the lunar bull prevalent in Ancient Mesopotamian religion. Nowadays, Pasiphaë's and her son the Minotaur are associated with the astrological sign of Taurus. Other representations In art The myth of Pasiphaë and the Cretan Bull became widely depicted in art throughout history. Pasiphaë was most often depicted with a bull near her, signifying the connection to the myth. Scientific representation One of Jupiter's 79 moons, discovered in 1908, is named after Pasiphaë, the woman of the myth of the Minotaur. Literary representation Pasiphaé is mentioned in Canto 12 of Dante Alighieri's Inferno. When Dante encounters the Minotaur he describes the unnatural and deceptive manner of the beast's conception. Fiona Benson's third collection of poem, Ephemeron, contains a long section entitled Translations from the Pasiphaë in which she retells the Minotaur myth from the point of view of the bull-child's mother. In popular culture Pasiphaë appears in the BBC