In ancient Greek religion and mythology, Helios (; ; Homeric Greek: ) is the god who personifies the Sun. His name is also Latinized as Helius, and he is often given the epithets Hyperion ("the one above") and Phaethon ("the shining"). Helios is often depicted in art with a radiant crown and driving a horse-drawn chariot through the sky. He was a guardian of oaths and also the god of sight. Though Helios was a relatively minor deity in Classical Greece, his worship grew more prominent in late antiquity thanks to his identification with several major solar divinities of the Roman period, particularly Apollo and Sol. The Roman Emperor Julian made Helios the central divinity of his short-lived revival of traditional Roman religious practices in the 4th century AD.
Helios figures prominently in several works of Greek mythology, poetry, and literature, in which he is often described as the son of the Titans Hyperion and Theia and brother of the goddesses Selene (the Moon) and Eos (the Dawn). Helios's most notable role in Greek mythology is the story of his mortal son Phaethon.March, s.v. Helios In the Homeric epics, his most notable role is the one he plays in the Odyssey, where Odysseus's men despite his warnings impiously kill and eat Helios's sacred cattle that the god kept at Thrinacia, his sacred island. Once informed of their misdeed, Helios, in wrath, asks Zeus to punish those who wronged him, and Zeus, agreeing, strikes their ship with a thunderbolt, killing everyone except Odysseus himself, the only one who had not harmed the cattle and was allowed to live.Homer, Odyssey, XII.262, 348, 363.
Due to his position as the Sun, he was believed to be an all-seeing witness and thus was often invoked in oaths. He also played a significant part in ancient magic and spells. In art he is usually depicted as a beardless youth in a chiton holding a whip and driving his quadriga, accompanied by various other celestial gods such as Selene, Eos, or the stars. In ancient times he was worshipped in several places of ancient Greece, though his major cult centres were the island of Rhodes, of which he was the patron god, Corinth, and the greater Corinthia region. The Colossus of Rhodes, a gigantic statue of the god, adorned the port of Rhodes until it was destroyed in an earthquake.
Name
The Greek noun ( , , , ) (from earlier ) is the inherited word for the Sun from Proto-Indo-European R.S.P. Beekes, Etymological Dictionary of Greek, Brill, 2009, p. 516. which is cognate with Latin , Sanskrit , Old English , Old Norse , Welsh , Avestan , etc.helios. Online Etymology Dictionary.Toorn et al, s.v. Helios pp 394–395 The Doric and Aeolic form of the name is , Hálios. In Homeric Greek his name is spelled , Ēélios, with the Doric spelling of that being , Aélios. In Cretan it was (Abélios) or (Awélios).ἥλιος in Liddell & Scott (1940), A Greek–English Lexicon, Oxford: Clarendon Press The Greek view of gender was also present in their language. Ancient Greek had three genders (masculine, feminine and neuter), so when an object or a concept was personified as a deity, it inherited the gender of the relevant noun; helios is a masculine noun, so the god embodying it is also by necessity male. The female offspring of Helios were called Heliades, the male Heliadae.
The author of the Suda lexicon tried to etymologically connect to the word , aollízesthai, "coming together" during the daytime, or perhaps from , aleaínein, "warming". Plato in his dialogue Cratylus suggested several etymologies for the word, proposing among others a connection, via the Doric form of the word halios, to the words , halízein, meaning collecting men when he rises, or from the phrase , aeí heileín, "ever turning" because he always turns the earth in his course.
Doric Greek retained Proto-Greek long *ā as α, while Attic changed it in most cases, including in this word, to η. Cratylus and the etymologies Plato gives are contradicted by modern scholarship. From helios comes the modern prefix helio- used in many european languages, meaning "pertaining to the Sun", used in compounds word such as heliocentrism, aphelion, heliotropium, heliophobia (fear of the sun) and heliolatry ("sun-worship").
Origins
Helios most likely is Proto-Indo-European in origin. Walter Burkert wrote that "... Helios, the sun god, and Eos-Aurora, the goddess of the dawn, are of impeccable Indo-European lineage both in etymology and in their status as gods" and might have played a role in Proto-Indo-European poetry. The imagery surrounding a chariot-driving solar deity is likely Indo-European in origin.Gelling, P. and Davidson, H.E. The Chariot of the Sun and Other Rites and Symbols of the Northern Bronze Age. London, 1969. Greek solar imagery begins with the gods Helios and Eos, who are brother and sister, and who become in the day-and-night-cycle the day (hemera) and the evening (hespera), as Eos accompanies Helios in his journey across the skies. At night, he pastures his steeds and travels east in a golden boat. In them evident is the Indo-European grouping of a sun god and his sister, as well as an association with horses.
Helen of Troy's name is thought to share the same etymology as Helios,Euripides, Robert E. Meagher, Helen, Univ of Massachusetts Press, 1986O'Brien, Steven. "Dioscuric Elements in Celtic and Germanic Mythology". Journal of Indo-European Studies 10:1 & 2 (Spring–Summer, 1982), 117–136.Skutsch, Otto. "Helen, her Name and Nature". Journal of Hellenic Studies 107 (1987), 188–193. and she may express an early alternate personification of the sun among Hellenic peoples. Helen might have originally been considered to be a daughter of the Sun, as she hatched from an egg and was given tree worship, features associated with the Proto-Indo-European Sun Maiden; in surviving Greek tradition however Helen is never said to be Helios's daughter, instead being the daughter of Zeus.
It has been suggested that the Phoenicians brought over the cult of their patron god Baal among others (such as Astarte) to Corinth, who was then continued to be worshipped under the native name/god Helios, similarly to how Astarte was worshipped as Aphrodite, and the Phoenician Melqart was adopted as the sea-god Melicertes/Palaemon, who also had a significant cult in the isthmus of Corinth.
Helios's journey on a chariot during the day and travel with a boat in the ocean at night possibly reflects the Egyptian sun god Ra sailing across the skies in a barque to be reborn at dawn each morning anew; additionally, both gods, being associated with the sun, were seen as the "Eye of Heaven".
Description
Helios is the son of Hyperion and Theia, or Euryphaessa, or Basileia, and the only brother of the goddesses Eos and Selene. If the order of mention of the three siblings is meant to be taken as their birth order, then out of the four authors that give him and his sisters a birth order, two make him the oldest child, one the middle, and the other the youngest. Helios was not among the regular and more prominent deities, rather he was a more shadowy member of the Olympian circle, despite the fact that he was among the most ancient. From his lineage, Helios might be described as a second generation Titan. He is associated with harmony and order, both literally in the sense of the movement of celestial bodies and metaphorically in the sense of bringing order to society.
Helios is usually depicted as a handsome young man crowned with the shining aureole of the Sun, which traditionally had twelve rays, symbolising the twelve months of the year. Beyond his Homeric Hymn, not many texts describe his physical appearance; Euripides describes him as (khrysōpós) meaning "golden-eyed/faced" or "beaming like gold", Mesomedes of Crete writes that he has golden hair, and Apollonius Rhodius that he has light-emitting, golden eyes. According to Augustan poet Ovid, he dressed in tyrian purple robes and sat on a throne of bright emeralds. In ancient artefacts (such as coins, vases, or reliefs) he is presented as a beautiful, full-faced youth with wavy hair, wearing a crown adorned with the sun's rays.
Helios is said to drive a golden chariot drawn by four horses: Pyrois ("The Fiery One", not to be confused with Pyroeis, one of the five naked-eye planets known to ancient Greek and Roman astronomers), Aeos ("He of the Dawn"), Aethon ("Blazing"), and Phlegon ("Burning").Gordon MacDonald Kirkwood, A Short Guide to Classical Mythology, p. 88 In a Mithraic invocation, Helios's appearance is given as thus:
A god is then summoned. He is described as "a youth, fair to behold, with fiery hair, clothed in a white tunic and a scarlet cloak and wearing a fiery crown." He is named as "Helios, lord of heaven and earth, god of gods."
As mentioned above, the imagery surrounding a chariot-driving solar deity is likely Indo-European in origin and is common to both early Greek and Near Eastern religions.Burkert, W. Greek Religion: Archaic and Classical. Cambridge Mass., 1985, p. 175.
Helios is seen as both a personification of the Sun and the fundamental creative power behind it, and as a result is often worshiped as a god of life and creation. His literal "light" is often assorted with a metaphorical vitality, and other ancient texts give him the epithet "gracious" (). The comic playwright Aristophanes describes Helios as "the horse-guider, who fills the plain of the earth with exceeding bright beams, a mighty deity among gods and mortals." One passage recorded in the Greek Magical Papyri says of Helios, "the earth flourished when you shone forth and made the plants fruitful when you laughed and brought to life the living creatures when you permitted." He is said to have helped create animals out of primeval mud.
Mythology God of the Sun Rising and Setting
Helios was envisioned as a god driving his chariot from east to west each day, rising from the Oceanus River and setting in the west under the earth. It is unclear as to whether this journey means that he travels through Tartarus.
Athenaeus in his Deipnosophistae relates that, at the hour of sunset, Helios climbs into a great cup of solid gold in which he passes from the Hesperides in the farthest west to the land of the Ethiops, with whom he passes the dark hours. According to Athenaeus, Mimnermus said that in the night Helios travels eastwards with the use of a bed (also created by Hephaestus) in which he sleeps, rather than a cup,Athenaeus, Deipnosophistae 11.39 as attested in the Titanomachy in the 8th century BCE. Aeschylus describes the sunset as such:
Athenaeus adds that "Helios gained a portion of toil for all his days", as there is no rest for either him or his horses.: [F]or him does his lovely bed bear across the wave, [...] from the dwelling of the Hesperides to the land of the Aithiopes where his swift chariot and his horses stand till early-born Dawn shall come; there does the son of Hyperion mount his car."
Although the chariot is usually said to be the work of Hephaestus,Aeschylus in his lost play Heliades writes: "Where, in the west, is the bowl wrought by Hephaestus, the bowl of thy sire, speeding wherein he crosseth the mighty, swelling stream that girdleth earth, fleeing the gloom of holy night of sable steeds." Hyginus states that it was Helios himself who built it. His chariot is described as golden, or occasionally "rosy", and pulled by four white horses.Keightley, p. 56, 62 The Horae, goddesses of the seasons, are part of his retinue and help him yoke his chariot. His sister Eos is said to have not only opened the gates for Helios, but would often accompany him as well.Bell, s. v. Eos In the extreme east and west were said to be people who tended to his horses, for whom summer was perpetual and fruitful.
Disrupted schedule