It is said that when they were attacked by the monster, Typhon, the goddess Aphrodite (Venus), and her son Eros (Cupid) transformed themselves into fish, and joined by a cord tied to their tails so they wouldn't become separated, they escaped into the river Euphrates, their daring adventure recorded forever in the stars, as depicted below by Alexander Jamieson, 1822.

As ancient as it is, Pisces is a faint constellation. The alpha star is Al Rischa, Arabic for "the cord". The only Messier object in Pisces is M74, a large but faint spiral galaxy.

Pisces is one of the constellations of the Zodiac, and has the distinction of containing the point of vernal equinox. Known to the ancients as the first point in Aries, it is the point in the sky where the Sun crosses the celestial equator at the moment of the vernal equinox. Due to the slight wobble of Earth's axis called precession, this point has moved from Aries into Pisces over the last 2,000 years.

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