Post by bluefedish on Jun 14, 2007 19:51:00 GMT -5
He was a son of the Titans Hyperion and Theia and brother of the goddesses Selene, the moon, and Eos, the dawn. The names of these three were also the common Greek words for sun, moon and dawn.
Helios was imagined as a handsome god crowned with the shining aureole of the sun, who drove a chariot across the sky each day and night. Homer described it as drawn by solar bulls, later Pindar saw it as drawn by "fire-darting steeds". Still later, the horses were given fiery names: Pyrois, Aeos, Aethon and Phlegon.
As time passed, Helios was increasingly identified with the god of light, Apollo. The equivalent of Helios in Roman mythology was Sol, Latin for Sun.
Greek mythology
The best known story involving Helios is that of his son Phaeton, who attempted to drive his father's chariot but lost control and set the earth on fire.
Helios was sometimes referred to with the epithet Helios Panoptes "the all-seeing". In the story told in the hall of Alcinous in the Odyssey, Aphrodite, the consort of Hephaestus secretly bedded Ares. All-seeing Helios, lord of the sun, spied on them and told Hephaestus who ensnared the two lovers in nets invisibly fine, to punish them.
The rooster and white horse were sacred to the god. In the Odyssey, Odysseus and his surviving crew landed on Thrinacia, an island sacred to the sun god, whom Circe names Hyperion rather than Helios:
You will now come to the Thrinacian island, and here you will see many herds of cattle and flocks of sheep belonging to the sun-god. There will be seven herds of cattle and seven flocks of sheep, with fifty head in each flock. They do not breed, nor do they become fewer in number, and they are tended by the goddesses Phaethusa and Lampetia, who are children of the sun-god Hyperion by Neaera. Their mother when she had borne them and had done suckling them sent them to the Thrinacian island, which was a long way off, to live there and look after their father's flocks and herds."
There were kept the sacred red Cattle of the Sun. Though Odysseus warned his men not to, they impiously killed and ate some of the cattle. The guardians of the island, Helios' daughters, told their father. Helios, however, had to appeal to Zeus, who destroyed the ship and killed all the men except for Odysseus.
In one Greek vase painting Helios appears riding across the sea in the cup of the Delphic tripod, which appears to be a solar reference. Athenaeus in Deipnosophistae related that at the hour of sunset Helios climbed into a great golden cup, in which he passes from the Hesperides in the farthest west to the land of the Ethiops, with whom he passes the dark hours. While Heracles traveled to Erytheia to retrieve the cattle of Geryon, he crossed the Libyan desert and was so frustrated at the heat that he shot an arrow at Helios, the sun. Helios begged him to stop and Heracles demanded the golden cup which Helios used to sail across the sea every night, from the west to the east. Heracles used this golden cup to reach Erytheia.
By the Oceanid Perse Helios became the father of Aeëtes, Circe, and Pasiphaë. His other children are Phaethusa "radiant", Lampetia "shining" and Phaeton.
Selected Source:
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Helios
www.mlahanas.de
thanasis.com/helios.htm
Helios was imagined as a handsome god crowned with the shining aureole of the sun, who drove a chariot across the sky each day and night. Homer described it as drawn by solar bulls, later Pindar saw it as drawn by "fire-darting steeds". Still later, the horses were given fiery names: Pyrois, Aeos, Aethon and Phlegon.
As time passed, Helios was increasingly identified with the god of light, Apollo. The equivalent of Helios in Roman mythology was Sol, Latin for Sun.
Greek mythology
The best known story involving Helios is that of his son Phaeton, who attempted to drive his father's chariot but lost control and set the earth on fire.
Helios was sometimes referred to with the epithet Helios Panoptes "the all-seeing". In the story told in the hall of Alcinous in the Odyssey, Aphrodite, the consort of Hephaestus secretly bedded Ares. All-seeing Helios, lord of the sun, spied on them and told Hephaestus who ensnared the two lovers in nets invisibly fine, to punish them.
The rooster and white horse were sacred to the god. In the Odyssey, Odysseus and his surviving crew landed on Thrinacia, an island sacred to the sun god, whom Circe names Hyperion rather than Helios:
You will now come to the Thrinacian island, and here you will see many herds of cattle and flocks of sheep belonging to the sun-god. There will be seven herds of cattle and seven flocks of sheep, with fifty head in each flock. They do not breed, nor do they become fewer in number, and they are tended by the goddesses Phaethusa and Lampetia, who are children of the sun-god Hyperion by Neaera. Their mother when she had borne them and had done suckling them sent them to the Thrinacian island, which was a long way off, to live there and look after their father's flocks and herds."
There were kept the sacred red Cattle of the Sun. Though Odysseus warned his men not to, they impiously killed and ate some of the cattle. The guardians of the island, Helios' daughters, told their father. Helios, however, had to appeal to Zeus, who destroyed the ship and killed all the men except for Odysseus.
In one Greek vase painting Helios appears riding across the sea in the cup of the Delphic tripod, which appears to be a solar reference. Athenaeus in Deipnosophistae related that at the hour of sunset Helios climbed into a great golden cup, in which he passes from the Hesperides in the farthest west to the land of the Ethiops, with whom he passes the dark hours. While Heracles traveled to Erytheia to retrieve the cattle of Geryon, he crossed the Libyan desert and was so frustrated at the heat that he shot an arrow at Helios, the sun. Helios begged him to stop and Heracles demanded the golden cup which Helios used to sail across the sea every night, from the west to the east. Heracles used this golden cup to reach Erytheia.
By the Oceanid Perse Helios became the father of Aeëtes, Circe, and Pasiphaë. His other children are Phaethusa "radiant", Lampetia "shining" and Phaeton.
Selected Source:
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Helios
www.mlahanas.de
thanasis.com/helios.htm
