Helios
Helios is sometimes identified with Apollo: "Different names may refer to the same being," Walter Burkert observes, "or else they may be consciously equated, as in the case of Apollo and Helios."
In Homeric literature, Apollo was clearly identified as a different god, a plague-dealer with a silver (not golden) bow and no solar features. The earliest certain reference to Apollo being identified with Helios appears in the surviving fragments of Euripides' play Phaethon in a speech near the end – Clymene, Phaethon's mother, laments that Helios has destroyed her child, that Helios whom men rightly call Apollo (the name Apollo is here understood to mean Apollon "Destroyer").
By Hellenistic times Apollo had become closely connected with the Sun in cult and Phoebus , the epithet most commonly given to Apollo, was later applied by Latin poets to the sun-god Sol.
Helios Stamp Collection
---->
Greece 1991 Helios and his chariot
EUROPA/CEPT Europe and Space
The picture was taken from a red-figured calyx-krater.
Made in Attica (Greece) Excavated: Puglia, Italy.
430 BC British Museum
Helios is usually depicted as a handsome young man crowned with the shining aureole of the Sun who drove the chariot of the Sun across the sky each day to Earth-circling Oceanus and through the world-ocean returned to the East at night. In the Homeric Hymn to Helios, Helios is said to drive a golden chariot drawn by steeds ; and Pindar speaks of Helios's "fire-darting steeds". Still later, the horses were given fire related names: Pyrois ("The Firey One"), Aeos ("He who turns the sky"), Aethon ("Blazing"), and Phlegon ("Burning").
France 1946 Helios and his chariot
Greece 1935 Helios and his chariot
Grenada 1973 Helios and his chariot
To the 100 anniversary of world meteorological organization
------------>
Libanon 1948 Helios and his chariot
for the UNESCO Conference at Beirut
Israel 1957 Helios and his chariot and 12 zodiac signs on a mosaic in a synagogue from the sixth-century CE of Beit-alpha in Israel. In the center, Helios appears with his signature Greco-Roman iconographic elements such as the fiery crown of rays adorning his head and the highly stylized quadriga or four-horse-drawn chariot
The full fresco represents Aurora, goddess of the dawn, bringing forth a new day as she leads the way for Apollo , god of light, who follows behind in his golden quadriga (a four-horse chariot). That Aurora is bringing the dawn is evident through the change in the sky we see between the two gods: a darkish silvery gray before Aurora that turns into a bright, golden light filled sky before Apollo.Apollo, clothed only in a light purple wrap, is enveloped in a warm, golden halo of light. Hovering between Aurora and Apollo is a torch bearing putto (a winged child similar in appearance to Cupid, but not Cupid), identified as Phosphorus, an ancient personification of the Morning Star. Elegant female figures, known as Hours, dance alongside the chariot, representing the passage of time, with their diaphanous draperies blown gently by the wind.
<---------
Italy 1975 Aurora the goddess of dawn in Roman mythology painted in 1614 for the Roman Cardinal Scipione Borghese for the ceiling of his small summer house known as the Casino dell’Aurora by Guido Reni (detail)
The full painting
<------------------------
Liberia 2000 The sun-god Helios/Apollo
whith Aurora by Gérard de Lairesse
Agaian islands 1912 The sun-god Helios/Apollo
Greece 2011 A mascot of Apollo for the special olympics in Athens in 2011
Greece 1947 The sun-god Helios/Apollo
For Dodecanese Union with Greece
Greece 2008 The sun-god Helios/Apollo
(The symbol) 50 years to the National Hellenic Research Foundation
The story of Phaethon - the son of Helius
Phaethon was said to be the son of the Oceanid Clymene and the solar deity Helios. Alternatively, less common genealogies make him a son of Clymenus by Oceanid Merope, of Helios and Rhodos (thus a full brother of the Heliadae) or of Helios and Prote.
Phaethon, challenged by Epaphus and his playmates, sought assurance from his mother that his father was the sun god Helios. She gave him the requested assurance and told him to turn to his father for confirmation. He asked his father for some proof that would demonstrate his relationship with the sun. When the god promised to grant him whatever he wanted, he insisted on being allowed to drive the sun chariot for a day.According to some accounts Helios tried to dissuade Phaethon, telling him that even Zeus was not strong enough to steer these horses, but reluctantly kept his promise. Placed in charge of the chariot, Phaethon was unable to control the horses. In some versions, the Earth first froze when the horses climbed too high, but when the chariot then scorched the Earth by swinging too near, Zeus decided to prevent disaster by striking it down with a thunderbolt. Phaethon fell to earth and was killed in the process.
Bhutan 1991 The fall of Phaethon
Sol is the personification of the Sun and a god in ancient Roman religion. It was long thought that Rome actually had two different, consecutive sun gods: The first, Sol Indiges, was thought to have been unimportant, disappearing altogether at an early period. Only in the late Roman Empire, scholars argued, did solar cult re-appear with the arrival in Rome of the Syrian Sol Invictus, perhaps under the influence of the Mithraic mysteries. Recent publications have challenged the notion of two different sun gods in Rome, pointing to the abundant evidence for the continuity of the cult of Sol, and the lack of any clear differentiation – either in name or depiction – between the "early" and "late" Roman sun god.
Niue 1986 The fall of Phaethon
Burundi 1973 Pluton and Soleil for The 500th Anniversary of the Birth of Copernicus
Selene is the goddess of the Moon. She is the daughter of the Titans Hyperion and Theia and sister of the sun god Helios and Eos, goddess of the dawn. She drives her moon chariot across the heavens. Several lovers are attributed to her in various myths, including Zeus, Pan, and the mortal Endymion. In classical times, Selene was often identified with Artemis, much as her brother, Helios, was identified with Apollo. Selene and Artemis were also associated with Hecate and all three were regarded as moon and lunar goddesses, but only Selene was regarded as the personification of the Moon itself. Her Roman equivalent is Luna.
Grenada 1973 Centenary of the world meteorological organization. Selena drives her moon chariot and world rain maps
%2C%20sister%20.jpg)
Greece 1984 A horse from the chariot of Selene the goddess of the moon ,The Parthenon sculptures, from the east pediment of the Parthenon, Acropolis, Athens, 438-432 BC, British Museum
Greece 1994 Hermes leads the chariot of Selene the goddess of the moon , for the 2nd Paneuropean Transport Conference
Like her brother Helios, the Sun god, who drives his sun chariot across the sky each day, Selene is also said to drive a chariot across the heavens.