Weir Smyth (L.C.L.) summarises evidence of the plot : " The Daughters of Helios dealt with the legend of Phaëthon, whose rashness in diving the chariot of the Sun, his father, caused the parching of the earth, and thereby his punishment at the hands of Zeus, whose thunderbolt hurled him into the river Eridanus. Source: Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology.Īeschylus, Heliades (lost play) (Greek tragedy C5th B.C.) :Īeschylus' lost play The Heliades or Daughters of Helius described the story of Phaethon. His sisters, who had yoked the horses to the chariot, were metamorphosed into poplars, and their tears into amber. Zeus, therefore, killed him with a flash of lightning, so that he fell down into the river Eridanus or the Po. Helios was induced by the entreaties of his son and of Clymene to yield, but the youth being too weak to cheek the horses, came down with his chariot, and so near to the earth, that he almost set it on fire. 131.) He received the significant name Phaethon from his father, and was afterwards also presumptuos and ambitious enough to request his father one day to allow him to drive the chariot of the sun across the heavens. or, lastly, a son of Helios by the nymph Rhode or Rhodos. 154), or a son of Helios by Prote (Tzetz. The genealogy of Phaethon, however, is not the same in all writers, for some call him a son of Clymenus, the son of Helios, by Merope (Hygin. 105) but it is more commonly known as the name of son of Helios by the Oceanid Clymene, the wife of Merops.
479) as an epithet or surname of Helios, and is used by later writers as a real proper name for Helios (Apollon, Rhod. PHAETHON (Phaethôn), that is, "the shining," occurs in Homer ( ll. HELIOS & KLYMENE (Hyginus Fabulae 153, Ovid Metamorphoses 1.751, Nonnus Dionysiaca 27.189) HELIOS (Aeschylus Heliades, Philoxenus of Cythera Frag 834, Pausanias 2.3.2, Apollonius Rhodius 4.598, Quintus Smyraneus 5.300, Diodorus Siculus 5.23.2, Philostratus the Elder 1.11, Seneca Medea 597) The name Phaethon means "the shining" or "radiant one" from the Greek verb phaethô "to shine." Phaethon's sisters, the Heliades, gathered on the banks and in their mourning were transformed into amber-teared poplar trees.Īfter his death Phaethon was placed amongst the stars as the constellation Auriga ("the Charioteer"), or else transformed into the god of the star which the Greeks named Phaethon-the planet Jupiter or Saturn. Zeus, appalled by the destruction, smote the boy with a thunderbolt, hurling his flaming body into the waters of the River Eridanos. The plains of Africa were scorched to desert and men charred black. But his inexperience proved fatal, for Phaethon quickly lost control of the immortal steeds and the sun-chariot veered out of control setting the earth ablaze. The god reluctantly conceded to the boy's wishes and handed him the reigns.
PHAETHON was a youthful son of Helios who begged his father let him drive the chariot of the sun.
Shining ( phaethô) Chariot of the sun-god, Athenian red-figure krater C5th B.C., British Museum
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