Helios

Helios, the Greek name of the sun (the Roman Sol), who was worshipped as a god. According to Homer, he was a son of the Titan Hyperion and of Theia, and a brother of Selene or Eos. He is described by the same poet as giving light both to gods and men. He rises in the east, from the marshy borders of Oceanus, into whose dark abysses he also sinks at evening. The later poets, however, gave him a splendid palace in the east, somewhere below Colchis, and describe him as being conveyed, after the termination of the burning labours of the day, in a winged boat of gold, along the northern coasts of the sea back to Colchis. After the time of Æschylus, he began to be identified with Apollo or Phœbus, but the identification was never complete. His worship was widely spread. He had temples in Corinth, Argos, Trœzene, Elis, and many other cities, but his principal seat was Rhodes, where a four-team was annually sacrificed to him. The island of Trinacria (Sicily) was also sacred to Helios, and here his daughters, Phœtusa and Lampetia, kept his flocks of sheep and oxen. It was customary to offer up white lambs or boars on his altars. The animals sacred to him were horses, wolves, cocks, and eagles.