Myths about Helios: this is the god of the sun and the prototype of the Colossus of Rhodes

2024 Author: Henry Conors | [email protected]. Last modified: 2024-02-12 02:40

Ancient Greece created many beautiful myths, among them the legend of Helios, the god of the sun. In ancient mythology, the children of the titans Hyperion and Theia were responsible for the heavenly bodies: Helios, Selene and Eos. More about Helios - below.

Helios is the Sun

During the day, the children of Hyperion succeeded each other in the firmament. Eos appeared first - the dawn, then Helios traveled across the sky - this is the sun, and Selena is the moon, which came into its own when Helios was hiding behind the horizon. Each of these three has a wayward and passionate nature.

Young and golden-haired god

Helios largely correlates with Apollo - both of these solar deities are all-seeing and all-knowing patrons of the bright side of human nature. Helios is also responsible for the passage of time, keeps many secrets - nothing will hide from his eyes when he passes through the sky.

Helios lives in a luxurious palace in the east beyond the Ocean. Every morning he leaves his palaceon a chariot drawn by four fiery horses, and then Eos hands over the reins to him. In a day, he travels to the other side of the world, where, having descended from heaven, he sits down in a golden bowl and returns home to the east along the ocean.

Beloved and offspring

The solar god is distinguished by an ardent disposition - both his beloved and his offspring are numerous. Quite sad legends are associated with many, because, in addition to passion and dazzle, the essence of Helios is an exorbitant ego. In order to achieve the favor of the object of adoration, he could take on someone else's appearance (because of which the victim of his passion later suffered). Another legend says that he turned his beloved into a dog because she exclaimed during a deer hunt that she could catch up with the beast, even if it runs faster than the sun.

Helios is the father of the infamous Phaethon. According to legend, the young man either begged a powerful father to ride a chariot, or took it without asking. Carried away by the trip, Phaeton did not notice how the horses deviated from the course and approached the ground. The flames engulfed everything around, and Gaia, the goddess of the earth, appealed to Zeus with a request to pacify the villain. Zeus, without much ceremony, threw lightning at Phaethon, ending his life.

Colossus of Rhodes: backstory

One of the seven wonders of the world, the famous statue of the Colossus on the island of Rhodes is the god Helios, which many do not really know. According to legend, the solar god personally carried this island straight from the depths of the sea, since nowhere on Earth has there been a place where it would be revered. Indeed, nowhere inwithin ancient Greece, the cult of Helios was not as widespread as in Rhodes.

The following events preceded the installation of the statue. In 305-304, the island was under siege for a whole year: the ruler of Macedonia, Demetrius Poliorket, with many siege weapons and an army of 40 thousand people, tried to capture Rhodes, but still failed. Demetrius of Macedon lost faith in victory so much that he even abandoned all siege weapons and sailed from the island. The inhabitants of Rhodes, delighted that fate was favorable to them, decided to make an unprecedented offering to the gods. Having sold the tools left by Demetrius, the Rhodians used the proceeds to order a huge statue of Helios from the sculptor Chares - it was a kind of gratitude to the most revered god for the victory.

The Seventh Wonder of the World

Initially, the statue was planned to be 10 times taller than a human, but then the people of Rhodes wanted the sculpture to be even twice as large, and paid the sculptor twice as much as expected. This turned out to be a fatal mistake for the sculptor himself - after all, an increase in height led to an increase in volume, but not twice, but eight times. Hares completed the statue at his own expense, got into a huge amount of debt and went bankrupt when he finished the project, and then committed suicide.

The work on the statue took 12 years. The main material was clay with a metal frame at the base, and sheets of bronze covered the top of the sculpture. The appearance itself corresponded to the typical image of the god Helios - it wasa stately young man in a crown resembling the sun's rays. Regarding the location of the statue, there are still discussions among historians. In most images, the Colossus of Rhodes is placed right at the entrance of the ships to the harbor. But modern research shows that there was simply no room for such a huge statue near the coast. Most likely, the statue was located somewhere in the depths of the city.

The Colossus suffered a sad fate: it stood for only 50 years and was destroyed by an earthquake. The inhabitants of the island were going to restore the property of the city, but the Delphic oracle predicted that by doing so they would anger their beloved god Helios. This frightened the Rhodians, it was decided to abandon the restoration. The statue lay on the ground for almost a whole millennium, surprising generation after generation with its size. But in the end, the Arabs captured the island and sold off what was left of the once majestic creation of human hands.