Editing Helios (section)

=== Apollo ===
[[File:Mengs, Helios als Personifikation des Mittages.jpg|thumb|upright=1.25|''Helios as the personification of midday'', [[rococo]] painting by [[Anton Raphael Mengs]] ({{circa|1765}}) showing [[apollo]]nian traits, such as the lack of a chariot, that were absent in mythology and Hellenic art.]]

Helios is sometimes identified with [[Apollo]]: "Different names may refer to the same being," Walter Burkert argues, "or else they may be consciously equated, as in the case of Apollo and Helios."<ref>Walter Burkert, ''Greek Religion'', p.&nbsp;120.</ref> Apollo was associated with the Sun as early as the fifth century BC, though widespread conflation between him and the Sun god was a later phaenomenon.<ref name=":lar07">Larson 2007, p. [https://books.google.com/books?id=A01-AgAAQBAJ&pg=PA158 158]</ref> 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.<ref name=":frag">[[Euripides]], ''[[Phaethon (play)|Phaethon]]'' [https://www.loebclassics.com/view/euripides-dramatic_fragments/2008/pb_LCL506.353.xml fr. 781 Collard and Cropp] = fr. 781&nbsp;N<sup>2</sup>.</ref>

By [[Hellenistic]] times Apollo had become closely connected with the Sun in [[Cult (religion)|cult]] and [[Phoebus]] (Greek Φοῖβος, "bright"), the epithet most commonly given to Apollo, was later applied by [[Latin]] poets to the Sun-god Sol.

The identification became a commonplace in philosophic and some Orphic texts. [[Pseudo-Eratosthenes]] writes about [[Orpheus]] in ''[[Catasterismi|Placings Among the Stars]]'', section&nbsp;24:

:But having gone down into Hades because of his wife and seeing what sort of things were there, he did not continue to worship Dionysus, because of whom he was famous, but he thought Helios to be the greatest of the gods, Helios whom he also addressed as Apollo. Rousing himself each night toward dawn and climbing the mountain called Pangaion, he would await the Sun's rising, so that he might see it first. Therefore, Dionysus, being angry with him, sent the [[Bassarids|Bassarides]], as [[Aeschylus]] the tragedian says; they tore him apart and scattered the limbs.<ref>{{cite book | title=The Iliad of Homer | url=https://books.google.com/books?id=BT0uAQAAIAAJ | publisher=Ashmead | author=Homer, William Cullen Bryant | year=1809 }}</ref>

Dionysus and Asclepius are sometimes also identified with this Apollo Helios.<ref>[https://books.google.com/books?id=oE8vW4BX9kwC G. Lancellotti, ''Attis, Between Myth and History: King, Priest, and God'', BRILL, 2002]</ref><ref>Guthrie, p. [https://books.google.com/books?id=-C6wNyrxUO8C&pg=PA43 43], says "The Orphics never had the power to bring it about, but it was their purpose to foster it, and in their syncretistic literature they identified the two gods [i.e. Apollo and Dionysus] by giving out that both alike were Helios, the Sun. Helios = supreme god = Dionysus = Apollo (cp. Kern, ''Orpheus'', 7). So at least the later writers say. [[Olympiodorus the Younger|Olympiodoros]] (''O.F''. 212) speaks of 'Helios, who according to Orpheus has much in common with Dionysos through the medium of Apollo', and according to [[Proclus|Proklos]] (''O.F''. 172) 'Orpheus makes Helios very much the same as Apollo, and worship the fellowship of these gods'. Helios and Dionysos are identified in Orphic lines (''O.F''. 236, 239)."</ref>

[[File:Wall painting - Dionysos with Helios and Aphrodite - Pompeii (VII 2 16) - Napoli MAN 9449 - 02.jpg|thumb|left|upright=1.1|A wall painting in [[Pompeii]] depicting Apollo. Before 79 AD]]

[[Strabo]] wrote that [[Artemis]] and Apollo were associated with Selene and Helios respectively due to the changes those two celestial bodies caused in the temperature of the air, as the twins were gods of pestilential diseases and sudden deaths.<ref>[[Strabo]], ''[[Geographica]]'' [https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Strab.+14.1.6&fromdoc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.01.0239 14.1.6]</ref> [[Pausanias (geographer)|Pausanias]] also linked Apollo's association with Helios as a result of his profession as a healing god.<ref>[[Pausanias (geographer)|Pausanias]], ''Description of Greece'' [https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Paus.+7.23.8&fromdoc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.01.0160 7.23.8]</ref> In the ''[[Orphic Hymns]]'', Helios is addressed as [[Paean]] ("healer") and holding a golden lyre,<ref name=":oh8">''[[Orphic Hymn]] 8 to the Sun'' [https://books.google.com/books?id=iaEIvzlc41QC&pg=PA8 9–15] (Athanassakis and Wolkow, p. 11).</ref><ref name=":barry"/> both common descriptions for Apollo; similarly Apollo in his own hymn is described as Titan and shedding light to the mortals, both common epithets of Helios.<ref>''[[Orphic Hymn]] 34 to [[Apollo]]'' [https://books.google.com/books?id=TTo3r8IHy0wC&pg=PA30 3 and 8] (Athanassakis and Wolkow, pp 30–31).</ref>

According to Athenaeus, [[Telesilla]] wrote that the song sung in honour of Apollo is called the "Sun-loving song" ({{lang|grc|{{math|φιληλιάς}} }}, ''philhēliás''),<ref>[[Athenaeus]], ''[[Deipnosophistae|Scholars at Dinner]]'' [http://www.attalus.org/old/athenaeus14a.html#619 14.10]</ref> that is, a song meant to make the Sun come forth from the clouds, sung by children in bad weather; but [[Julius Pollux]] describing a ''philhelias'' in greater detail makes no mention of Apollo, only Helios.<ref name=":farn137">Farnell, p. [https://books.google.com/books?id=2NQF-MSICWEC&pg=PA137 137], vol. IV</ref> [[Scythinus of Teos]] wrote that Apollo uses the bright light of the Sun (''{{lang|grc|λαμπρὸν πλῆκτρον ἡλίου φάος}}'') as his harp-quill<ref>[[:el:Σκυθίνος|Scythinus]] fragment [https://www.loebclassics.com/view/scythinus-fragment/1999/pb_LCL259.523.xml here] in [[Plutarch]]'s ''[[Moralia|De Pythiae Oraculis]]'' [http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A2008.01.0248%3Asection%3D16 16.402a]</ref> and in a fragment of [[Timotheus of Miletus|Timotheus]]' lyric, Helios is invoked as an archer with the invocation ''{{lang|grc|{{math|Ἰὲ Παιάν}} }}'' (a common way of addressing the two medicine gods), though it most likely was part of esoteric doctrine, rather than a popular and widespread belief.<ref name=":farn137"/>

[[File:Karl Bryullov - Phoebus Driving his chariot.jpg|thumb|right|240px|''Phoebus Driving his Chariot'' by [[Karl Bryullov]], [[oil on canvas]], 19th century.]]

Classical Latin poets also used Phoebus as a byname for the Sun-god, whence come common references in later European poetry to Phoebus and his chariot as a metaphor for the Sun.<ref>{{cite book | title=Petrarch's genius: pentimento and prophecy | publisher=University of California press | author=O'Rourke Boyle Marjorie | year=1991 | isbn=978-0-520-07293-0}}</ref> Ancient Roman authors who used "Phoebus" for Sol as well as Apollo include Ovid,<ref>[[Ovid]], ''[[Metamorphoses]]'' [https://topostext.org/work/141#7.357 7.367]</ref> [[Virgil]],<ref>[[Virgil]], ''[[Aeneid]]'' [https://topostext.org/work/245#4.1 4.6]</ref> [[Statius]],<ref>[[Statius]], ''[[Thebaid (Latin poem)|Thebaid]]'' [https://www.poetryintranslation.com/PITBR/Latin/StatiusThebaidVIII.php#anchor_Toc342643147 8.271]</ref> and [[Seneca the Younger|Seneca]].<ref>[[Seneca the Younger|Seneca]], ''[[Hercules (Seneca)|Hercules Furens]]'' [https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Page%3ATragedies_of_Seneca_(1907)_Miller.djvu/137 25]</ref> Representations of Apollo with solar rays around his head in art also belong to the time of the [[Roman Empire]], particularly under Emperor [[Elagabalus]] in 218-222 AD.<ref name=":mayr">Mayerson, p. [https://archive.org/details/classicalmytholo0000maye_g5u7/page/146/mode/2up?view=theater 146]</ref>