Heliades

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File:Santi di Tito 001.jpg
The Sisters of Phaeton Transformed into Poplars by Santi di Tito (2nd half of 16th century)

In Greek mythology, the Heliades (Template:Langx; Script error: No such module "IPAc-en"., Script error: No such module "Respell".) were the daughters of Helios and Clymene, an Oceanid nymph. They were also called Phaethontides[1] (Template:Langx), due to "Phaethon" being a common epithet for Helios.

File:Heliades by Rupert Bunny.jpg
Heliades by Rupert Bunny, 1920s

Names

According to one version recorded by Hyginus, there were seven Heliades: Merope, Helie, Aegle, Lampetia, Phoebe, Aetherie and Dioxippe.[2] Aeschylus's fragmentary Heliades[3] names Phaethousa and Lampetia, who are otherwise called daughters of Neaera and have a different role in myth, being in charge of their father's sheep and cattle.[4][5] A scholiast on the Odyssey gives their names as Phaethusa (Φαέθουσα), Lampetia (Λαμπετίην) and Aegle (Αἴγλην).[6]

Mythology

Their brother, Phaëthon, died after attempting to drive his father's chariot (Helios the sun) across the sky. He was unable to control the horses and fell to his death (according to most accounts, Zeus struck his chariot with a thunderbolt to save the Earth from being set afire). The Heliades grieved enormously, and through this grief they turned themselves into poplar trees, and as they kept crying, their tears turned into amber.[7] According to some sources, their tears (amber) fell into the river Eridanus, in which Phaethon had fallen.[8]

According to Hyginus, the Heliades were turned to poplar trees because they yoked the chariot for their brother without their father Helios' permission.[9]

A proverb preserved in Plutarch associates the tears of the Heliades with great wealth.[10]

Notes

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  1. Smith, s.v. Phaethontiades
  2. Hyginus, Fabulae 154
  3. Aeschylus, Heliades (play survived only in brief fragments); Ovid, Metamorphoses 2.340
  4. Homer, Odyssey 12.128
  5. Apollonius Rhodius, 4.922-981
  6. Scholia ad Homer, Odyssey 17.208
  7. Diodorus Siculus, 5.23.2; Ovid, Metamorphoses 10.262 ff
  8. Pliny, Natural History 37.11.2; Pausanias, 1.4.1; Quintus Smyrnaeus, 5.627 ff
  9. Hyginus, Fabulae 152A
  10. Plutarch, De Proverbiis Alexandrinorum 43

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References

  1. REDIRECT template:DGRBM

External links

Template:Metamorphoses in Greco-Roman mythology