![]() In Plato's Timaeus, Critias tells the story of Solon's visit to Egypt shortly after Solon was elected archon in 594 BCE. This story has given rise to two latter-day meanings of "phaeton": one who drives a chariot or coach, especially at a reckless or dangerous speed, and one that would or may set the world on fire. Greatly he failed, but greatly he dared." "Here Phaëthon lies who drove the Sun-god's chariot. The epitaph on his tomb was quite to the point: Helios blamed Zeus for killing his son, but Zeus told him there was no other way. Finally the other Greek gods persuaded him not to leave the world in darkness. Helios, stricken with grief, refused to drive his chariot for days. Rivers and lakes began to dry up, Poseidon rose out of the sea and waved his trident in anger at the sun, but soon the heat became even too great for him and he dove to the bottom of the sea.Įventually, Zeus was forced to intervene by striking the runaway chariot with a lightning bolt to stop it, and Phaëthon plunged into the river Eridanos. ![]() "The running conflagration spreads below.īut these are trivial ills: whole cities burn,Īnd peopled kingdoms into ashes turn." He accidentally turned most of Africa into desert bringing the blood of the Ethiopians to the surface of their skin, turning it black. Then it dipped too close, and the vegetation dried and burned. In adverse whirls, and stem the rapid pole?" įirst it veered too high, so that the earth grew chill. Turns stars and planets in a diff'rent course.īorn back by all the current of the skye.īut how cou'd you resist the orbs that roul Phaeton was unable to control the fierce horses that drew the chariot as they sensed a weaker hand. When the day came, Helios anointed Phaeton's head with magic oil to keep the chariot from burning him. ![]() Helios tried to talk him out of it by telling him that not even Zeus (the king of gods) would dare to drive it, as the chariot was fiery hot and the horses breathed out flames. Phaeton wanted to drive his chariot of the sun for a day. However, in Roman mythology the sun-god Helios is adopted again only by his Latin name, which is Sol." Phaeton went to his father who swore by the river Styx to give Phaeton anything he should ask for in order to prove his divine paternity. Helios was especially worshipped in Rhodes, however by the 5th Century BCE the Greeks had primarily replaced him with Apollo Phoebus. His mother Clymene had boasted that his father was the sun-god Helios. In the version of the myth told by Ovid in the Metamorphoses, Phaeton ascends into heaven, the home of his suspected father.
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