one of the city gates (the Electran gates) after her. The story of Electra and her sisters being transformed into stars may also have been told somewhere in the Epic Cycle. A scholion to the Iliad mentions the Pleiades escape from Orion by catasterism and says the following about Electra: They say that Electra, being unwilling to watch the sack of Ilion [i.e. Troy] because it was a foundation of her descendants, left the place where she had been set as a star, so that whereas they had previously been seven, they became six. The story is found in the Cyclic poets. Late De Astronomica is a Latin astronomical guide, attributed to Hyginus (died AD 17), containing the most complete surviving ancient compendium of astral mythology. It gives the following account of why only six of the seven Pleiades can be seen: The Pleiades are said to be seven in number, but no one can see more than six of them. It has been suggested by way of explanation that, of the seven, six went to bed with immortals—while the other is indicated to have been the wife of Sisyphos. ... She [Merope] was placed among the stars thanks to her other sisters, but because she married a mortal, her star is faint. According to other accounts, it is Electra who cannot be seen, for the following reason. The Pleiades led the chorus of the stars, so it is thought, but after the fall of Troy and the destruction of all who ere descended from her through Dardanos, Electra was overcome by grief and abandoned the company of her sisters to establish herself on the circle known as the arctic, and at long intervals she can be seen in mourning with her hair unloosed; for that reason she has come to be called a comet (long-haired star). The Latin poet Ovid, in his poem the Fasti (c. AD 8), gives a similar account, but with a different explanation regarding Electra: Seven are they [the Pleiades] usually called, but six they usually are; whether it be that six of the sisters were embraced by gods (for they say that Sterope lay with Mars, Alcyone and fair Celaeno with Neptune, and Maia, Electra, and Taygete with Jupiter); the seventh, Merope, was married to a mortal man, to Sisyphus, and she repents of it, and from shame at the deed she alone of