Helios the Sun God

#Helios #sungod #greekmythology

People tend to think of Apollo as the Sun god but he actual Charioteer of the Solar Chariot was Helios son of Hyperion. Apollo seems to have taken over his role or been (con)fused with him in the Hellenistic era as people shared stories and encountered other solar cults and tried to make some sense of whether there was one sun god or several, Apollo, Helios, Shams, Horus, Ra, Mithras and others like Lugh of the Gauls and Sol Invictus.

If you see an image in Greek or Roman art wearing the radiate crown without a bow and with or without a chariot it may well be Helios rather than Apollo.

I have picked images from 4 different media ceramics, relief sculpture, mosaic , and a bronze to show its a consistent motif and theme.

To finish a coin of Emperor Probus who supported solar cults.

Note also the four horse RACING chariot !

Next time since its Summer for some of you Apollo.

Solar Crowns

Last week and the week before  I showed you a variety of headgear worn by monarchs on coins and other art and showed you how UNLIKE modern crowns they were.

So why did later European monarchs start wearing spiked crowns rather than jewelled headbands?

One reason might have been the radiate solar crown used by some Hellenistic monarchs and LATE Empire Caesars.

The god Helios was traditionally shown wearing a crown of rays.

Hellenistic and Roman SYNCRETISM lead to people identifying Apollo or Helios with various Near Eastern and Egyptian Solar Deities. 

I suspect an attempt to identify with Horus lead to the Ptolemies using a radiate crown.

The First Caesars however did not wear crowns but the revival and spread of various Solar deities from Syria and Persia, the cults of Sol Invictus, Mithras, and Shams, and others lead to a brief revival of the radiate crown started by Aurelianus who had coins issued showing Helios on one side and his image with a radiate crown on the other.

I'm thinking also that perhaps some later jewellers were given Roman coins to melt down and remove the "pagan" imagery and were asked to recycle the coins into crowns but seing the coins and perhaps survivng mosaics or statutes of Helios got ideas.

I have more Helios art I'll share soon.