Editing Helios (section)

=== Zeus ===
[[File:Serapis.JPG|thumb|250px|left|Serapis with Moon and Sun, oil lamp, Roman [[terracotta]], [[British Museum]].]]

Helios is also sometimes conflated in classical literature with the highest Olympian god, Zeus. An attested cult epithet of Zeus is ''Aleios Zeus'', or "Zeus the Sun," from the Doric form of Helios' name.<ref>[https://www.cs.uky.edu/~raphael/sol/sol-entries/alpha/1155 "Aleion."] [[Suda]] On Line. Trans. Jennifer Benedict on 17 April 2000.</ref> The inscribed base of Mammia's dedication to Helios and Zeus Meilichios, dating from the fourth or third century BC, is a fairly and unusually early evidence of the conjoint worship of Helios and Zeus.<ref>Lalonde, p. [https://books.google.com/books?id=EodSEAAAQBAJ&pg=PA8 82]</ref> According to [[Plutarch]], Helios is Zeus in his material form that one can interact with, and that's why Zeus owns the year,<ref>[[Plutarch]], ''[[Moralia|Quaestiones Romanae]]'' [https://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/Roman/Texts/Plutarch/Moralia/Roman_Questions*/D.html#77 Why do they believe that the year belongs to Jupiter, but the months to Juno?]</ref> while the [[Greek chorus|chorus]] in Euripides' ''Medea'' also link him to Zeus when they refer to Helios as "light born from Zeus".<ref>[[Euripides]], ''[[Medea (play)|Medea]]'' [http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text.jsp?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.01.0114%3Acard%3D1251 1258]; ''The Play of Texts and Fragments: Essays in Honour of Martin Cropp'' by J. Robert C. Cousland, James, 2009, p. [https://books.google.com/books?id=hcW-i_nrpWEC&pg=PA161 161]</ref> In his ''Orphic Hymn'', Helios is addressed as "immortal Zeus".<ref name=":oh8"/> In [[Crete]], the cult of Zeus [[Talos|Tallaios]] had incorporated several solar elements into his worship; "Talos" was the local equivalent of Helios.<ref name=":kk">Karl Kerenyi, The Gods of the Greeks 1951:110.</ref> Helios is referred either directly as Zeus' eye,<ref>Sick, David H. (2004) "Mit(h)ra(s) and the myths of the Sun", ''Numen'', 51 (4): 432–467, {{JSTOR|3270454}}</ref> or clearly implied to be. For instance, Hesiod effectively describes Zeus's eye as the Sun.<ref>Bortolani, Ljuba Merlina (2016-10-13) ''Magical Hymns from Roman Egypt: A study of Greek and Egyptian traditions of divinity'', Cambridge University Press.</ref> This perception is possibly derived from earlier [[Proto-Indo-European religion]], in which the Sun is believed to have been envisioned as the eye of [[Dyeus|*''Dyḗus Pḥ<sub>a</sub>tḗr'']] (see [[Hvare-khshaeta]]). An [[Orphic]] saying, supposedly given by an oracle of Apollo, goes:

: "Zeus, Hades, Helios-Dionysus, three gods in one godhead!"

The Hellenistic period gave birth to Serapis, a Greco-Egyptian deity conceived by the Greeks as a chthonic aspect of Zeus, whose solar nature is indicated by the Sun crown and rays the Greeks depicted him with.<ref name=":co188">Cook, pp [https://archive.org/details/zeusstudyinancie01cookuoft/page/188/mode/2up?view=theater 188–189]</ref> Frequent joint dedications to "Zeus-Serapis-Helios" have been found all over the Mediterranean.<ref name=":co188" /><ref>Cook, p. [https://archive.org/details/zeusstudyinancie01cookuoft/page/190/mode/2up?view=theater 190]</ref><ref>Cook, p. [https://archive.org/details/zeusstudyinancie01cookuoft/page/192/mode/2up?view=theater 193]</ref><ref>Manoledakis, Manolis. "A Proposal Relating to a Votive Inscription to Zeus Helios from Pontus." Zeitschrift Für Papyrologie Und Epigraphik 173 (2010): [http://www.jstor.org/stable/20756841. 116–18.]</ref><ref>Elmaghrabi, Mohamed G. "A Dedication to Zeus Helios Megas Sarapis on a 'Gazophylakion' from Alexandria." Zeitschrift Für Papyrologie Und Epigraphik 200 (2016):  [http://www.jstor.org/stable/26603880. 219–28.]</ref>  There is evidence of Zeus being worshipped as a solar god in the Aegean island of [[Amorgos]] which, if correct, could mean that Sun elements in Zeus' worship could be as early as the fifth century BC.<ref>Cook, p. [https://archive.org/details/zeusstudyinancie01cookuoft/page/194/mode/2up?view=theater 194]</ref>

[[File:INC-3011-r Ауреус. Адриан. Ок. 117 г. (реверс).png|thumb|220px|Helios on a golden coin from 117 AD.]]