Ajax, 847, &c.) This idea of Helios knowing every thing, which also contains the elements of his ethical and prophetic nature, seems to have been the cause of Helios being confounded and identified with Apollo, though they were originally quite distinct and the identification was, in fact, never carried out completely, for no Greek poet ever made Apollo ride in the chariot of Helios through the heavens, and among the Romans we find this idea only after the time of Virgil.

375.) But, owing to his omniscience, he was able to betray to Hephaestus the faithlessness of Aphrodite, and to reveal to Demeter the carrying off of her daughter. Helios is described even in the Homeric poems as the god who sees and hears every thing, but, notwithstanding this, he is unaware of the fact that the companions of Odysseus robbed his oxen, until he was informed of it by Lampetia. 88), and both are described minutely by later poets. 470.) The horses and chariot with which Helios makes his daily career are not mentioned in the Iliad and Odyssey, but first occur in the Homeric hymn on Helios (9, 15 comp. 1632.) Others represent him as making his nightly voyage while slumbering in a golden bed. This golden boat is the work of Hephaestus. et Dies, 449, 525.) The manner in which Helios during the night passes front the western into the eastern ocean is not mentioned either by Homer or Hesiod, but later poets make him sail in a golden boat round one-half of the earth, and thus arrive in the east at the point from which he has to rise again. 407.) The points at which Helios rises and descends into the ocean are of course different at the different seasons of the year and the extreme points in the north and south, between which the rising and setting take place, are the tropai êelioio. 1, &c.) and while Homer speaks only of the gates of Helios in the west, later writers assign to him a second palace in the west, and describe his horses as feeding upon herbs growing in the islands of the blessed. 380.) Later poets have marvellously embellished this simple notion: they tell of a most magnificent palace of Helios in the east, containing a throne occupied by the god, and surrounded by personifications of the different divisions of time (Ov. Homer describes Helios as giving light both to gods and men: he rises in the east from Oceanus, though not from the river, but from some lake or bog (limnê) formed by Oceanus, rises up into heaven, where he reaches the highest point at noon time, and then he descends, arriving in the evening in the darkness of the west, and in Oceanus. 191.) In the Homeric hymn on Helios, he is called a son of Hyperion and Euryphaëssa. 371, &c.) From his father, he is frequently called Hyperionides, or Hyperion, the latter of which is an abridged form of the patronymic, Hyperionion. He is described as the son of Hyperion and Theia, and as a brother of Selene and Eos. HE′LIOS (Hêlios or Êelios), that is, the sun, or the god of the sun. HYPERION (Homer Odyssey 12.168, Homeric Hymn to Demeter 19, Homeric Hymn to Athena 12, Mimnermus Frag 12, Pindar Olympian 7 str3, Ovid Metamorphoses 4.170) OFFSPRING HYPERION & EURYPHAESSA (Homeric Hymn 31) HYPERION & THEIA (Hesiod Theogony 371, Apollodorus 1.8) Helios was identified with several other gods of fire and light such as Hephaistos (Hephaestus) and light-bringing Phoibos Apollon (Phoebus Apollo). His sun-chariot was drawn by four, sometimes winged, steeds.

Helios was depicted as a handsome, usually beardless, man clothed in purple robes and crowned with the shining aureole of the sun.

Zeus struck the boy down with a thunderbolt. Once his son Phaethon tried to drive the chariot of the sun, but he lost control and set the earth ablaze. When he reached the the land of the Hesperides in the far West he descended into a golden cup which bore him through the northern streams of Okeanos back to his rising place in the East. He dwelt in a golden palace in the River Okeanos (Oceanus) at the far ends of the earth from which he emerged each dawn, crowned with the aureole of the sun, driving a chariot drawn by four winged steeds. HELIOS (Helius) was the Titan god of the sun, a guardian of oaths, and the god of sight. Sun ( hêlios) Helius god of the sun, Athenian red-figure krater C5th B.C., British Museum

Helios god of the sun