Heliades

In Greek mythology, the Heliades ("children of the sun") were the daughters of Helios and Clymene the Oceanid.
According to one source, there were three of them: Aegiale, Aegle, and Aetheria. According to another source, there were five: Helia, Merope, Phoebe, Aetheria, and Dioxippe.Gaius Julius Hyginus Fabulae 154 Yet other sourcesAeschylus, Heliades (play survived only in brief fragments)Ovid Metamorphoses 2.340 include on the list Phaethousa and Lampetia, who are otherwise called daughters of Neaera.Homer Odyssey 12.128
Their brother, Phaëton, died after attempting to drive his father's chariot (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 for four months and the gods turned them into poplar trees and their tears into amber.Diodorus Siculus, Library of History 5. 23. 2Ovid, Metamorphoses 10. 262 ff According to some sources, their tears (amber) fell into the river Eridanos, in which Phaethon had fallen.Philoxenus of Cythera, Fragment 834Pausanias, Description of Greece 1. 4. 1Quintus Smyrnaeus, Fall of Troy 5. 627 ff
According to Hyginus, the Heliades were turned to poplar trees because they yoked the chariot for their brother without their father Helios' permission.Gaius Julius Hyginus Fabulae 152A
==Notes==
==References==
* Ovid. Metamorphoses II, 340.
* Gaius Julius Hyginus. Fabulae CLIV & CLII A
* Smith, William; Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology, London (1873). "Heliadae and Heliads" 
* Theoi Project - Heliades
Category:Greek Mythology
Category:Deities