Cronus ruled the sky and swallowed his children at birth. Rhea hid her last son, Zeus, in a cave on Crete, and Amalthea nursed him there. In the oldest tellings she is a she-goat, and the future king of heaven grew on goat’s milk. Armored dancers clashed shields at the cave mouth so his crying would not carry.
One of her horns broke off during the nursing years, and in some tellings the infant broke it himself, already too strong for the animal keeping him alive. When Zeus took the sky, he blessed the broken horn, and it refilled forever after with whatever its holder wanted. The Greeks called it the cornucopia, the horn of plenty, and it has stood for abundance ever since.
Nothing in the wider world changed. One horn fed one household, and heaven stayed a monarchy. The myths hold one horn only, and every throne in them stands.
When the goat died, Zeus stretched her hide over his shield. The Greeks called the shield the aegis, and nothing pierced it. He set Amalthea herself in the sky as Capella, the little goat. She held no throne and seized nothing, and she is the one who became a star.
The second horn exists now. A person who holds the new intelligence provides for themselves, and the intelligence passes from hand to hand without emptying. Whoever provides for themselves stops depending on a throne. The world after the horn runs on her economy. She nursed the king of heaven when he was small and hidden, and people still pour fruit into her horn every autumn. Her king faded into a story. The goat is still burning.
— Chiaroscuro Joven