In ancient Greek religion and mythology , Helios ( / ˈ h iː l i ə s , - ɒ s / ; Ancient Greek : Ἥλιος pronounced [hɛ̌ːlios] , lit. 'Sun'; Homeric Greek : Ἠέλιος ) is the god who personifies the Sun . His name is also Latinized as Helius , and he is often given the epithets Hyperion ("the one above") and Phaethon ("the shining"). Helios is often depicted in art with a radiant crown and driving a horse-drawn chariot through the sky. He was a guardian of oaths and also the god of sight. Though Helios was a relatively minor deity in Classical Greece, his worship grew more prominent in late antiquity thanks to his identification with several major solar divinities of the Roman period, particularly Apollo and Sol . The Roman Emperor Julian made Helios the central divinity of his short-lived revival of traditional Roman religious practices in the 4th century AD.
136-679: Rhodes ( / r oʊ d z / ; Greek : Ρόδος , romanized : Ródos [ˈroðos] ) is the largest of the Dodecanese islands of Greece and is their historical capital; it is the ninth largest island in the Mediterranean Sea . Administratively, the island forms a separate municipality within the Rhodes regional unit , which is part of the South Aegean administrative region . The principal town of
272-477: A siege tower called Helepolis that weighed 360,000 lb (163,293 kg). Despite this engagement, in 304 BC after only one year, he relented and signed a peace agreement, leaving behind a huge store of military equipment. The Rhodians sold the equipment and used the money to erect a statue of their sun god, Helios , the statue since called the Colossus of Rhodes . The Rhodians celebrated in honour of Helios
408-577: A basis for coinages: anthropology , photography , telephony , isomer , biomechanics , cinematography , etc. Together with Latin words , they form the foundation of international scientific and technical vocabulary ; for example, all words ending in -logy ('discourse'). There are many English words of Greek origin . Greek is an independent branch of the Indo-European language family. The ancient language most closely related to it may be ancient Macedonian , which, by most accounts,
544-558: A fairly stable set of consonantal contrasts . The main phonological changes occurred during the Hellenistic and Roman period (see Koine Greek phonology for details): In all its stages, the morphology of Greek shows an extensive set of productive derivational affixes , a limited but productive system of compounding and a rich inflectional system. Although its morphological categories have been fairly stable over time, morphological changes are present throughout, particularly in
680-560: A faster, more convenient cursive writing style with the use of ink and quill . The Greek alphabet consists of 24 letters, each with an uppercase ( majuscule ) and lowercase ( minuscule ) form. The letter sigma has an additional lowercase form (ς) used in the final position of a word: In addition to the letters, the Greek alphabet features a number of diacritical signs : three different accent marks ( acute , grave , and circumflex ), originally denoting different shapes of pitch accent on
816-540: A foreign language. It is also often stated that the historical changes have been relatively slight compared with some other languages. According to one estimation, " Homeric Greek is probably closer to Demotic than 12-century Middle English is to modern spoken English ". Greek is spoken today by at least 13 million people, principally in Greece and Cyprus along with a sizable Greek-speaking minority in Albania near
952-529: A god driving his chariot from east to west each day, rising from the Oceanus River and setting in the west under the earth. It is unclear as to whether this journey means that he travels through Tartarus . Athenaeus in his Deipnosophistae relates that, at the hour of sunset, Helios climbs into a great cup of solid gold in which he passes from the Hesperides in the farthest west to the land of
1088-751: A grand festival, the Halieia . Throughout the 3rd century BC, Rhodes attempted to secure its independence and commerce, particularly its virtual control over the grain trade in the eastern Mediterranean. Both of these goals depended on none of the three great Hellenistic states achieving dominance. Consequently, the Rhodians pursued a policy of maintaining a balance of power among the Antigonids, Seleucids, and Ptolemies, even if that meant going to war with its traditional ally, Egypt. To this end, they employed their economy and their excellent navy as leverage, which
1224-517: A great number of details that vary by version, including the identity of Phaethon's mother, the location the story takes place, the role Phaethon's sisters the Heliades play, the motivation behind Phaethon's decision to ask his father for such thing, and even the exact relation between god and mortal. Traditionally, Phaethon was Helios' son by the Oceanid nymph Clymene , or alternatively Rhode or
1360-723: A military protectorate. At the Paris Peace Treaties , Rhodes, together with the other islands of the Dodecanese , was united with Greece in February 1947. 6,000 Italian colonists were forced to abandon the island and returned to Italy. In 1949, Rhodes was the venue for negotiations between Israel and Egypt , Jordan , Lebanon , and Syria , concluding with the 1949 Armistice Agreements . Greek language Greek ( Modern Greek : Ελληνικά , romanized : Elliniká , [eliniˈka] ; Ancient Greek : Ἑλληνική , romanized : Hellēnikḗ )
1496-506: A modern society. The island suffered through many "governors" appointed by the Italian government. As such, in 1938, the "Leggi razziali" (Racial Laws) were passed, mimicking the footsteps of the antisemitic policies promoted in other European countries. All Jews who served in the government, including the military, were forced to resign, school children were forced to abandon their studies, and all commerce that included any dealings with Jews
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#17327651813601632-422: A single day. Helios does his best to dissuade him, arguing that sons are not necessarily fit to step into their fathers' shoes. But under pressure of Phaethon and Clymene's begging both, he eventually gives in. As per all other versions of the myth, Phaethon's ride is catastrophic and ends in his death. Hyginus wrote that Phaethon secretly mounted his father's car without said father's knowledge and leave, but with
1768-425: A throne of bright emeralds . In ancient artefacts (such as coins, vases, or reliefs) he is presented as a beautiful, full-faced youth with wavy hair, wearing a crown adorned with the sun's rays. Helios is said to drive a golden chariot drawn by four horses: Pyrois ("The Fiery One", not to be confused with Pyroeis , one of the five naked-eye planets known to ancient Greek and Roman astronomers ), Aeos ("He of
1904-465: Is Rhodes, jump here!" (as translated from Ancient Greek "Αὐτοῦ γὰρ καὶ Ῥόδος καὶ πήδημα"), an admonition to prove one's idle boasts by deed, rather than boastful talk. It comes from an Aesop's fable called " The Boasting Traveller " and was cited by Hegel , Marx , and Kierkegaard . In 395 with the division of the Roman Empire , the long Byzantine period began for Rhodes. In Late Antiquity ,
2040-804: Is also found in Bulgaria near the Greek-Bulgarian border. Greek is also spoken worldwide by the sizable Greek diaspora which has notable communities in the United States , Australia , Canada , South Africa , Chile , Brazil , Argentina , Russia , Ukraine , the United Kingdom , and throughout the European Union , especially in Germany . Historically, significant Greek-speaking communities and regions were found throughout
2176-773: Is an Indo-European language, constituting an independent Hellenic branch within the Indo-European language family. It is native to Greece , Cyprus , Italy (in Calabria and Salento ), southern Albania , and other regions of the Balkans , Caucasus , the Black Sea coast, Asia Minor , and the Eastern Mediterranean . It has the longest documented history of any Indo-European language, spanning at least 3,400 years of written records. Its writing system
2312-479: Is an Indo-European language, but also includes a number of borrowings from the languages of the populations that inhabited Greece before the arrival of Proto-Greeks, some documented in Mycenaean texts ; they include a large number of Greek toponyms . The form and meaning of many words have changed. Loanwords (words of foreign origin) have entered the language, mainly from Latin, Venetian , and Turkish . During
2448-472: Is cognate with Latin sol , Sanskrit surya , Old English swegl , Old Norse sól , Welsh haul , Avestan hvar , etc. The Doric and Aeolic form of the name is Ἅλιος , Hálios . In Homeric Greek his name is spelled Ἠέλιος , Ēélios , with the Doric spelling of that being Ἀέλιος , Aélios . In Cretan it was Ἀβέλιος ( Abélios ) or Ἀϝέλιος ( Awélios ). The Greek view of gender
2584-543: Is likely Indo-European in origin and is common to both early Greek and Near Eastern religions. Helios is seen as both a personification of the Sun and the fundamental creative power behind it, and as a result is often worshiped as a god of life and creation. His literal "light" is often assorted with a metaphorical vitality, and other ancient texts give him the epithet "gracious" ( ἱλαρός ). The comic playwright Aristophanes describes Helios as "the horse-guider, who fills
2720-481: Is likely Indo-European in origin. Greek solar imagery begins with the gods Helios and Eos, who are brother and sister, and who become in the day-and-night-cycle the day ( hemera ) and the evening ( hespera ), as Eos accompanies Helios in his journey across the skies. At night, he pastures his steeds and travels east in a golden boat. In them evident is the Indo-European grouping of a sun god and his sister, as well as an association with horses. Helen of Troy's name
2856-685: Is often described as the son of the Titans Hyperion and Theia and brother of the goddesses Selene (the Moon) and Eos (the Dawn). Helios' most notable role in Greek mythology is the story of his mortal son Phaethon . In the Homeric epics , his most notable role is the one he plays in the Odyssey , where Odysseus ' men despite his warnings impiously kill and eat Helios's sacred cattle that
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#17327651813602992-519: Is protected and promoted officially as a regional and minority language in Armenia, Hungary , Romania, and Ukraine. It is recognized as a minority language and protected in Turkey by the 1923 Treaty of Lausanne . The phonology , morphology , syntax , and vocabulary of the language show both conservative and innovative tendencies across the entire attestation of the language from the ancient to
3128-413: Is said to have seen and stood witness to everything that happened where his light shone. When Hades abducts Persephone , Helios is the only one to witness it. In Ovid's Fasti , Demeter asks the stars first about Persephone's whereabouts, and it is Helice who advises her to go ask Helios. Demeter is not slow to approach him, and Helios then tells her not to waste time, and seek out for "the queen of
3264-906: Is sometimes called aljamiado , as when Romance languages are written in the Arabic alphabet. Article 1 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in Greek: Transcription of the example text into Latin alphabet : Article 1 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in English: Proto-Greek Mycenaean Ancient Koine Medieval Modern Helios Helios figures prominently in several works of Greek mythology, poetry, and literature, in which he
3400-526: Is spoken by at least 13.5 million people today in Greece, Cyprus, Italy, Albania, Turkey , and the many other countries of the Greek diaspora . Greek roots have been widely used for centuries and continue to be widely used to coin new words in other languages; Greek and Latin are the predominant sources of international scientific vocabulary . Greek has been spoken in the Balkan peninsula since around
3536-763: Is still used internationally for the writing of Ancient Greek . In Greek, the question mark is written as the English semicolon, while the functions of the colon and semicolon are performed by a raised point (•), known as the ano teleia ( άνω τελεία ). In Greek the comma also functions as a silent letter in a handful of Greek words, principally distinguishing ό,τι ( ó,ti , 'whatever') from ότι ( óti , 'that'). Ancient Greek texts often used scriptio continua ('continuous writing'), which means that ancient authors and scribes would write word after word with no spaces or punctuation between words to differentiate or mark boundaries. Boustrophedon , or bi-directional text,
3672-650: Is the Greek alphabet , which has been used for approximately 2,800 years; previously, Greek was recorded in writing systems such as Linear B and the Cypriot syllabary . The alphabet arose from the Phoenician script and was in turn the basis of the Latin , Cyrillic , Coptic , Gothic , and many other writing systems. The Greek language holds a very important place in the history of the Western world. Beginning with
3808-515: Is thought to share the same etymology as Helios, and she may express an early alternate personification of the sun among Hellenic peoples. Helen might have originally been considered to be a daughter of the Sun, as she hatched from an egg and was given tree worship, features associated with the Proto-Indo-European Sun Maiden; in surviving Greek tradition however Helen is never said to be Helios' daughter, instead being
3944-416: Is unclear, but it has been suggested she is saved by some deus ex machina . A number of deities have been proposed for the identity of this possible deus ex machina, with Helios among them. In Ovid's account, Zeus' son Epaphus mocks Phaethon's claim that he is the son of the sun god; his mother Clymene tells Phaethon to go to Helios himself, to ask for confirmation of his paternity. Helios promises him on
4080-620: The Angeloi emperors (1185–1204), in the first half of the 13th century, Rhodes became the centre of an independent domain under Leo Gabalas and his brother John , until it was occupied by the Genoese in 1248–1250. The Genoese were evicted by the Empire of Nicaea , after which the island became a regular province of the Nicaean state (and after 1261 of the restored Byzantine Empire). In 1305,
4216-495: The Eastern Mediterranean , in what are today Southern Italy , Turkey , Cyprus , Syria , Lebanon , Israel , Palestine , Egypt , and Libya ; in the area of the Black Sea , in what are today Turkey, Bulgaria , Romania , Ukraine , Russia , Georgia , Armenia , and Azerbaijan ; and, to a lesser extent, in the Western Mediterranean in and around colonies such as Massalia , Monoikos , and Mainake . It
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4352-516: The Indo-Iranian languages (see Graeco-Aryan ), but little definitive evidence has been found. In addition, Albanian has also been considered somewhat related to Greek and Armenian, and it has been proposed that they all form a higher-order subgroup along with other extinct languages of the ancient Balkans; this higher-order subgroup is usually termed Palaeo-Balkan , and Greek has a central position in it. Linear B , attested as early as
4488-642: The Minoans came to Rhodes. Later Greek mythology recalled a Rhodian race called the Telchines and associated the island of Rhodes with Danaus ; it was sometimes nicknamed Telchinis . In the 15th century BC, Mycenaean Greeks invaded. After the Bronze Age collapse , the first renewed outside contacts were with Cyprus . In Greek legend, Rhodes was claimed to have participated in the Trojan War under
4624-693: The Palace of the Grand Master , were built during this period. The walls had been strengthened by the Knights through hiring Italian engineers that used knowledge of ballistics to design defences against gunpowder attacks, and which withstood the attacks of the Sultan of Egypt in 1444, and a siege by the Ottomans under Mehmed II in 1480. Eventually, however, Rhodes fell to the large army of Suleiman
4760-646: The Turkish Consul Selahattin Ülkümen succeeded, at considerable risk to himself and his family, in saving 42 Jewish families, about 200 persons in total, who had Turkish citizenship or were members of Turkish citizens' families. On 8 May 1945, the Germans under Otto Wagener surrendered Rhodes as well as the Dodecanese as a whole to the British, who soon after then occupied the islands as
4896-473: The isthmus of Corinth . Helios' journey on a chariot during the day and travel with a boat in the ocean at night possibly reflects the Egyptian sun god Ra sailing across the skies in a barque to be reborn at dawn each morning anew; additionally, both gods, being associated with the sun, were seen as the "Eye of Heaven". Helios is the son of Hyperion and Theia , or Euryphaessa, or Basileia, and
5032-492: The nominal and verbal systems. The major change in the nominal morphology since the classical stage was the disuse of the dative case (its functions being largely taken over by the genitive ). The verbal system has lost the infinitive , the synthetically -formed future, and perfect tenses and the optative mood . Many have been replaced by periphrastic ( analytical ) forms. Pronouns show distinctions in person (1st, 2nd, and 3rd), number (singular, dual , and plural in
5168-470: The 3rd millennium BC, or possibly earlier. The earliest written evidence is a Linear B clay tablet found in Messenia that dates to between 1450 and 1350 BC, making Greek the world's oldest recorded living language . Among the Indo-European languages, its date of earliest written attestation is matched only by the now-extinct Anatolian languages . The Greek language is conventionally divided into
5304-588: The Aegean and western Anatolia and Antiochus' plan for Egypt. Heading a coalition of small states, the Rhodians checked Philip's navy , but not his superior army. Without a third power to which to turn, the Rhodians (along with ambassadors from Pergamum, Egypt, and Athens) appealed in 201 BC to the Roman Republic . Despite being exhausted by the Second Punic War against Hannibal (218–201 BC)
5440-551: The Aegean Sea, Rhodes was an important stopping point for Phoenician merchants, and prosperous trading colonies and Phoenician communities emerged there, some within the Greek cities. In 408 BC, the cities united to form one territory . They built the city of Rhodes , a new capital on the northern end of the island. Its regular plan was, according to Strabo , superintended by the Athenian architect Hippodamus . In 357 BC,
5576-651: The Aegean was cemented through the organization of the Cyclades into the Second Nesiotic League under Rhodian leadership. The Romans withdrew from Greece after the end of the conflict, but the resulting power vacuum quickly drew in Antiochus III and subsequently the Romans. The Roman–Seleucid War lasted from 192 to 188 BC with Rome, Rhodes, Pergamon, and other Roman-allied Greek states defeated
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5712-638: The Arabs in 673 as part of their first attack on Constantinople . When their fleet was destroyed by Greek fire before Constantinople and by storms on its return trip, however, the Umayyads evacuated their troops in 679/80 as part of the Byzantine–Umayyad peace treaty. In 715 the Byzantine fleet dispatched against the Arabs launched a rebellion at Rhodes, which led to the installation of Theodosios III on
5848-530: The Athenian rhetorician Aeschines , who formed a school at Rhodes; Apollonius of Rhodes , who wrote about Jason and Medea in the Argonautica ; the observations and works of the astronomers Hipparchus and Geminus ; and the rhetorician Dionysius Thrax . Its school of sculptors developed, under Pergamese influence, a rich, dramatic style that can be characterized as " Hellenistic Baroque ". Agesander of Rhodes , with two other Rhodian sculptors, carved
5984-826: The Byzantine throne. From the early 8th to the 12th centuries, Rhodes belonged to the Cibyrrhaeot Theme of the Byzantine Empire, and was a centre for shipbuilding and commerce. In c. 1090, it was occupied by the forces of the Seljuk Turks , after the long period of chaos resulting from the Battle of Manzikert . Rhodes was recaptured by the Emperor Alexios I Komnenos during the First Crusade . As Byzantine central power weakened under
6120-475: The Dawn"), Aethon ("Blazing"), and Phlegon ("Burning"). In a Mithraic invocation, Helios's appearance is given as thus: A god is then summoned. He is described as "a youth, fair to behold, with fiery hair, clothed in a white tunic and a scarlet cloak and wearing a fiery crown." He is named as "Helios, lord of heaven and earth, god of gods." As mentioned above, the imagery surrounding a chariot-driving solar deity
6256-588: The Ethiops, with whom he passes the dark hours. According to Athenaeus, Mimnermus said that in the night Helios travels eastwards with the use of a bed (also created by Hephaestus) in which he sleeps, rather than a cup, as attested in the Titanomachy in the 8th century BCE. Aeschylus describes the sunset as such: "There [is] the sacred wave, and the coralled bed of the Erythræan Sea , and [there]
6392-412: The Greek Orthodox community of ritually murdering a Christian boy. This became known as the Rhodes blood libel . Austria opened a post-office at RHODUS (Venetian name) before 1864, as witnessed by stamps with Franz Joseph 's head. In 1912, Italy seized Rhodes from the Ottomans during the Italo-Turkish War . Being under Italian administration, the island's population was thus spared the "exchange of
6528-486: The Greek alphabet since approximately the 9th century BC. It was created by modifying the Phoenician alphabet , with the innovation of adopting certain letters to represent the vowels. The variant of the alphabet in use today is essentially the late Ionic variant, introduced for writing classical Attic in 403 BC. In classical Greek, as in classical Latin, only upper-case letters existed. The lower-case Greek letters were developed much later by medieval scribes to permit
6664-425: The Greek language are often emphasized. Although Greek has undergone morphological and phonological changes comparable to those seen in other languages, never since classical antiquity has its cultural, literary, and orthographic tradition been interrupted to the extent that one can speak of a new language emerging. Greek speakers today still tend to regard literary works of ancient Greek as part of their own rather than
6800-442: The Greek language was the Cypriot syllabary (also a descendant of Linear A via the intermediate Cypro-Minoan syllabary ), which is closely related to Linear B but uses somewhat different syllabic conventions to represent phoneme sequences. The Cypriot syllabary is attested in Cyprus from the 11th century BC until its gradual abandonment in the late Classical period, in favor of the standard Greek alphabet. Greek has been written in
6936-629: The Greek verb have likewise remained largely the same over the course of the language's history but with significant changes in the number of distinctions within each category and their morphological expression. Greek verbs have synthetic inflectional forms for: Many aspects of the syntax of Greek have remained constant: verbs agree with their subject only, the use of the surviving cases is largely intact (nominative for subjects and predicates, accusative for objects of most verbs and many prepositions, genitive for possessors), articles precede nouns, adpositions are largely prepositional, relative clauses follow
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#17327651813607072-446: The Greek-Albanian border. A significant percentage of Albania's population has knowledge of the Greek language due in part to the Albanian wave of immigration to Greece in the 1980s and '90s and the Greek community in the country. Prior to the Greco-Turkish War and the resulting population exchange in 1923 a very large population of Greek-speakers also existed in Turkey , though very few remain today. A small Greek-speaking community
7208-407: The Magnificent in December 1522. The Sultan deployed 400 ships delivering 100,000 men to the island (200,000 in other sources). Against this force the Knights, under Grand Master Philippe Villiers de L'Isle-Adam , had about 7,000 men-at-arms, with an English, Spanish, French, and Italian contingent each defending separate areas and their fortifications. The siege lasted six months, at the end of which
7344-440: The Mediterranean and Rhodian autonomy was ultimately dependent upon good relations with them. Those good graces soon evaporated in the wake of the Third Macedonian War (171–168 BC). In 169 BC, during the war against Perseus , Rhodes sent Agepolis as ambassador to the consul Quintus Marcius Philippus , and then to Rome in the following year, hoping to turn the Senate against the war. Rhodes remained scrupulously neutral during
7480-412: The Mediterranean and in use throughout Byzantine times (and influencing the development of admiralty law up to the present). In 622/3, during the climactic Byzantine–Sasanian War of 602–628 , Rhodes was captured by the Sasanian navy . Rhodes was occupied by the Islamic Umayyad forces of Caliph Muawiyah I in 654, who carried off the remains of the Colossus of Rhodes. The island was again captured by
7616-433: The Near East and bronze objects from Syria. At Kameiros on the northwest coast, a former Bronze Age site, where the temple was founded in the 8th century BC, there is another notable contemporaneous sequence of carved ivory figurines. The cemeteries of Kameiros and Ialyssos yielded several exquisite exemplars of the Orientalizing Rhodian jewelry, dated in the 7th and early 6th centuries BC. The Persians invaded and overran
7752-539: The Rhodians because the islanders were the only people they had encountered who were more arrogant than themselves. After surrendering its independence, Rhodes became a cultural and educational center for Roman noble families. It was especially noted for its teachers of rhetoric, such as Hermagoras and the unknown author of Rhetorica ad Herennium . At first, the state was an important ally of Rome and enjoyed numerous privileges, but these were later lost in various machinations of Roman politics. Cassius eventually invaded
7888-432: The Romans agreed to intervene, still angry over the Macedonian alliance with Carthage that had led to the First Macedonian War from 214 to 205 BC. The Senate saw the appeal from Rhodes and her allies as the opportunity to pressure Philip. The result was the Second Macedonian War (200–196 BC), which Rome won and greatly reduced Macedon's power, prestige, and territory. Rhodian independence was preserved. Rhodian influence in
8024-408: The Seleucids and their allies, the last Mediterranean power that might even vaguely threaten Roman dominance. Having provided Rome with valuable naval help in her first foray into Asia, the Rhodians were rewarded with territory and enhanced status by the Treaty of Apamea (188 BC). The Romans once again evacuated the east – the Senate preferred clients to provinces – but it was clear that Rome now ruled
8160-473: The Sun abandoning humanity. According to a fragment of Archilochus , it is Zeus who blocks Helios and makes him disappear from the sky. In one of his paeans , the lyric poet Pindar describes a solar eclipse as the Sun's light being hidden from the world, a bad omen of destruction and doom: Beam of the sun! What have you contrived, observant one, mother of eyes, highest star, in concealing yourself in broad daylight? Why have you made helpless men's strength and
8296-404: The acute during the late 20th century, and it has only been retained in typography . After the writing reform of 1982, most diacritics are no longer used. Since then, Greek has been written mostly in the simplified monotonic orthography (or monotonic system), which employs only the acute accent and the diaeresis. The traditional system, now called the polytonic orthography (or polytonic system),
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#17327651813608432-441: The aid of his sisters the Heliades who yoked the horses. In all retellings, Helios recovers the reins in time, thus saving the earth. Another consistent detail across versions are that Phaethon's sisters the Heliades mourn him by the Eridanus and are turned into black poplar trees, who shed tears of amber . According to Quintus Smyrnaeus , it was Helios who turned them into trees, for their honour to Phaethon. In one version of
8568-402: The ancient language; singular and plural alone in later stages), and gender (masculine, feminine, and neuter), and decline for case (from six cases in the earliest forms attested to four in the modern language). Nouns, articles, and adjectives show all the distinctions except for a person. Both attributive and predicative adjectives agree with the noun. The inflectional categories of
8704-488: The appeal of the other gods, as well as Zeus' threats. He then takes his anger out on his four horses, whipping them in fury for causing his son's death. Nonnus of Panopolis presented a slightly different version of the myth, narrated by Hermes; according to him, Helios met and fell in love with Clymene, the daughter of the Ocean , and the two soon got married with her father's blessing. When he grows up, fascinated with his father's job, he asks him to drive his chariot for
8840-495: The cities Ialysos , Camiros and Lindos on the island, named after themselves; thus Rhodes came to belong to him and his line, with the autochthonous peoples of Rhodes claiming descend from the Heliadae. The most well known story about Helios is the one involving his son Phaethon , who asked him to drive his chariot for a single day. Although all versions agree that Phaethon convinced Helios to give him his chariot, and that he failed in his task with disastrous results, there are
8976-415: The daughter of Zeus . It has been suggested that the Phoenicians brought over the cult of their patron god Baal among others (such as Astarte ) to Corinth , who was then continued to be worshipped under the native name/god Helios, similarly to how Astarte was worshipped as Aphrodite , and the Phoenician Melqart was adopted as the sea-god Melicertes / Palaemon , who also had a significant cult in
9112-406: The division of portions again, but Helios refused the offer, for he had seen a new land emerging from the deep of the sea; a rich, productive land for humans and good for cattle too. Helios asked for this island to be given to him, and Zeus agreed to it, with Lachesis (one of the three Fates ) raising her hands to confirm the oath. Alternatively in another tradition, it was Helios himself who made
9248-404: The early 19th century that was used for literary and official purposes in the newly formed Greek state. In 1976, Dimotiki was declared the official language of Greece, after having incorporated features of Katharevousa and thus giving birth to Standard Modern Greek , used today for all official purposes and in education . The historical unity and continuing identity between the various stages of
9384-425: The earth in his course. Doric Greek retained Proto-Greek long *ā as α , while Attic changed it in most cases, including in this word, to η . Cratylus and the etymologies Plato gives are contradicted by modern scholarship. From helios comes the modern English prefix helio- , meaning "pertaining to the Sun", used in compounds word such as heliocentrism , aphelion , heliotropium , heliophobia (fear of
9520-448: The epics of Homer , ancient Greek literature includes many works of lasting importance in the European canon . Greek is also the language in which many of the foundational texts in science and philosophy were originally composed. The New Testament of the Christian Bible was also originally written in Greek. Together with the Latin texts and traditions of the Roman world , the Greek texts and Greek societies of antiquity constitute
9656-437: The fact that he was among the most ancient. From his lineage, Helios might be described as a second generation Titan. He is associated with harmony and order, both literally in the sense of the movement of celestial bodies and metaphorically in the sense of bringing order to society. Helios is usually depicted as a handsome young man crowned with the shining aureole of the Sun, which traditionally had twelve rays, symbolising
9792-463: The famous Laocoön group , now in the Vatican Museums , and the large sculptures rediscovered at Sperlonga in the villa of Tiberius , probably in the early Imperial period . In 305 BC, Antigonus directed his son, Demetrius , to besiege Rhodes in an attempt to break its alliance with Egypt. Demetrius created huge siege engines , including a 180 ft (55 m) battering ram and
9928-452: The following periods: In the modern era, the Greek language entered a state of diglossia : the coexistence of vernacular and archaizing written forms of the language. What came to be known as the Greek language question was a polarization between two competing varieties of Modern Greek: Dimotiki , the vernacular form of Modern Greek proper, and Katharevousa , meaning 'purified', a compromise between Dimotiki and Ancient Greek developed in
10064-400: The god kept at Thrinacia , his sacred island. Once informed of their misdeed, Helios in wrath asks Zeus to punish those who wronged him, and Zeus agreeing strikes their ship with a thunderbolt, killing everyone, except for Odysseus himself, the only one who had not harmed the cattle, and was allowed to live. Due to his position as the sun, he was believed to be an all-seeing witness, and thus
10200-469: The golden cup which he used to sail across the sea every night, from the west to the east because he found Heracles' actions immensely bold. In the versions delivered by Apollodorus and Pherecydes, Heracles was only about to shoot Helios, but according to Panyassis , he did shoot and wounded the god. Solar eclipses were phaenomena of fear as well as wonder in Ancient Greece, and were seen as
10336-439: The infinitive entirely (employing a raft of new periphrastic constructions instead) and uses participles more restrictively. The loss of the dative led to a rise of prepositional indirect objects (and the use of the genitive to directly mark these as well). Ancient Greek tended to be verb-final, but neutral word order in the modern language is VSO or SVO. Modern Greek inherits most of its vocabulary from Ancient Greek, which in turn
10472-534: The island and sacked the city. In the early Imperial period Rhodes became a favorite place for political exiles. In the 1st century AD, the Emperor Tiberius spent a brief term of exile on Rhodes. By tradition, Paul the Apostle evangelized and helped establish an early Christian church on the island during the first century. In ancient times there was a Roman saying: " Hic Rhodus, hic salta !"—"Here
10608-483: The island and seat of the municipality is the city of Rhodes , which had 50,636 inhabitants in 2011. In 2022, the island had a population of 125,113 people. It is located northeast of Crete and southeast of Athens . Rhodes has several nicknames, such as "Island of the Sun" due to its patron sun god Helios, "The Pearl Island", and "The Island of the Knights", named after the Knights of Saint John of Jerusalem , who ruled
10744-664: The island from 1310 to 1522. Historically, Rhodes was famous for the Colossus of Rhodes , one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World . The Medieval Old Town of the City of Rhodes has been declared a World Heritage Site . Today, it is one of the most popular tourist destinations in Europe. The island has been known as Ρόδος (Ródos) in Greek throughout its history. Similar-sounding ῥόδον ( rhódon ) in ancient Greek
10880-533: The island rise from the sea when he caused the water which had overflowed it to disappear. He named it Rhodes, after his lover Rhode (the daughter of Poseidon and Aphrodite or Amphitrite ), and it became the god's sacred island, where he was honoured above all other gods. With Rhode Helios sired seven sons, known as the Heliadae ("sons of the Sun"), who became the first rulers of the island, as well as one daughter, Electryone . Three of their grandsons founded
11016-524: The island was conquered by the king Mausolus of Caria ; then it fell again to the Persians in 340 BC. Their rule was also short. Rhodes then became a part of the growing empire of Alexander the Great in 332 BC, after he defeated the Persians. Following the death of Alexander, his generals ( Diadochi ) vied for control of the kingdom. Three — Ptolemy , Seleucus , and Antigonus — succeeded in dividing
11152-535: The island was given as a fief to Andrea Morisco , a Genoese adventurer who had entered Byzantine service. In 1306–1310, the Byzantine era of the island's history came to an end when the island was occupied by the Knights Hospitaller . Under the rule of the newly named "Knights of Rhodes", the city was rebuilt into a model of the European medieval ideal. Many of the city's famous monuments, including
11288-711: The island was the capital of the Roman province of the Islands , headed by a praeses ( hegemon in Greek), and encompassing most of the Aegean islands , with twenty cities. Correspondingly, the island was also the metropolis of the ecclesiastical province of Cyclades, with eleven suffragan sees. Beginning from ca. 600 AD, its influence in maritime issues was manifested in the collection of maritime laws known as " Rhodian Sea Law " ( Nomos Rhodion Nautikos ), accepted throughout
11424-593: The island, but they were in turn defeated by forces from Athens in 478 BC. The Rhodian cities joined the Athenian League . When the Peloponnesian War broke out in 431 BC, Rhodes remained largely neutral, although it remained a member of the League. The war lasted until 404 BC, but by this time Rhodes had withdrawn entirely from the conflict and decided to go their own way. Being the eastern gate to
11560-441: The island, mainly in the capital "Rodi", while some of them founded farm villages (like "Peveragno Rodio" (1929), "Campochiaro" (1935), "San Marco" (1936) and "Savona" (1938): in 1940 the creation of the " Provincia italiana di Rodi " in the Dodecanese islands was officially proposed. In the late 1930s, Mussolini embarked on a program of Italianization , attempting to make the island of Rhodes a transportation hub that would facilitate
11696-704: The kingdom among themselves. Rhodes formed strong commercial and cultural ties with the Ptolemies in Alexandria , and together formed the Rhodo-Egyptian alliance that controlled trade throughout the Aegean in the 3rd century BC. The city developed into a maritime, commercial and cultural center; its coins circulated nearly everywhere in the Mediterranean. Its famous schools of philosophy, science, literature and rhetoric shared masters with Alexandria:
11832-576: The land and create a new race of men from the beginning? Some lists, cited by Hyginus, of the names of horses that pulled Helios' chariot, are as follows. Scholarship acknowledges that, despite differences between the lists, the names of the horses always seem to refer to fire, flame, light and other luminous qualities. Hyginus writes that according to Homer, the horses' names are Abraxas and Therbeeo; but Homer makes no mention of horses or chariot. Alexander of Aetolia , cited in Athenaeus, related that
11968-467: The late 15th century BC, was the first script used to write Greek. It is basically a syllabary , which was finally deciphered by Michael Ventris and John Chadwick in the 1950s (its precursor, Linear A , has not been deciphered and most likely encodes a non-Greek language). The language of the Linear B texts, Mycenaean Greek , is the earliest known form of Greek. Another similar system used to write
12104-455: The leadership of Tlepolemus . In the 8th century BC, the island's settlements started to form, with the coming of the Dorians , who built the three important cities of Lindus , Ialysus and Camirus , which together with Kos , Cnidus and Halicarnassus (on the mainland) made up the so-called Dorian Hexapolis (Greek for six cities). In Pindar 's ode, the island was said to be born of
12240-758: The light of the Sun, by ordering Helios not to rise for those three days. Satirical author Lucian of Samosata dramatized this myth in one of his Dialogues of the Gods . While Heracles was travelling to Erytheia to retrieve the cattle of Geryon for his tenth labour, he crossed the Libyan desert and was so frustrated at the heat that he shot an arrow at Helios, the Sun. Almost immediately, Heracles realized his mistake and apologized profusely ( Pherecydes wrote that Heracles stretched his arrow at him menacingly, but Helios ordered him to stop, and Heracles in fear desisted ); In turn and equally courteous, Helios granted Heracles
12376-493: The luxuriant marsh of the Ethiopians, situated near the ocean, glitters like polished brass; where daily in the soft and tepid stream, the all-seeing Sun bathes his undying self, and refreshes his weary steeds." Athenaeus adds that "Helios gained a portion of toil for all his days", as there is no rest for either him or his horses. Although the chariot is usually said to be the work of Hephaestus , Hyginus states that it
12512-426: The magical herb grew on the island Thrinacia , which was sacred to Helios, and served as a remedy against fatigue for the sun god's horses. Aeschrion of Samos informed that it was known as the "dog's-tooth" and was believed to have been sown by Cronus. According to Pindar, when the gods divided the earth among them, Helios was absent, and thus he got no lot of land. He complained to Zeus about it, who offered to do
12648-640: The membership of Greece and Cyprus in the European Union, Greek is one of the organization's 24 official languages . Greek is recognized as a minority language in Albania, and used co-officially in some of its municipalities, in the districts of Gjirokastër and Sarandë . It is also an official minority language in the regions of Apulia and Calabria in Italy. In the framework of the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages , Greek
12784-661: The minorities" between Greece and Turkey . Rhodes and the rest of the Dodecanese Islands were assigned to Italy in the Treaty of Ouchy. Although the treaty stipulated that the islands were to be returned to Turkey, the advent of World War I prevented this from happening. Turkey ceded them officially to Italy with the 1923 Treaty of Lausanne . It then became the core of their possession of the Isole Italiane dell'Egeo . Thousands of Italian colonists settled in
12920-441: The modern period. The division into conventional periods is, as with all such periodizations, relatively arbitrary, especially because, in all periods, Ancient Greek has enjoyed high prestige, and the literate borrowed heavily from it. Across its history, the syllabic structure of Greek has varied little: Greek shows a mixed syllable structure, permitting complex syllabic onsets but very restricted codas. It has only oral vowels and
13056-494: The myth, Helios conveyed his dead son to the stars, as a constellation (the Auriga ). But, Goddess, give up for good your great lamentation. You must not nurse in vain insatiable anger. Among the gods Aidoneus is not an unsuitable bridegroom, Commander-of-Many and Zeus's own brother of the same stock. As for honor, he got his third at the world's first division and dwells with those whose rule has fallen to his lot. Helios
13192-534: The newborn goddess' sight. In the Iliad Hera who supports the Greeks, makes him set earlier than usual against his will during battle, and later still during the same war, after his sister Eos's son Memnon was killed, she made him downcast, causing his light to fade, so she could be able to freely steal her son's body undetected by the armies, as he consoled his sister in her grief over Memnon's death. It
13328-399: The noun they modify and relative pronouns are clause-initial. However, the morphological changes also have their counterparts in the syntax, and there are also significant differences between the syntax of the ancient and that of the modern form of the language . Ancient Greek made great use of participial constructions and of constructions involving the infinitive, and the modern variety lacks
13464-536: The objects of study of the discipline of Classics . During antiquity , Greek was by far the most widely spoken lingua franca in the Mediterranean world . It eventually became the official language of the Byzantine Empire and developed into Medieval Greek . In its modern form , Greek is the official language of Greece and Cyprus and one of the 24 official languages of the European Union . It
13600-706: The older periods of Greek, loanwords into Greek acquired Greek inflections, thus leaving only a foreign root word. Modern borrowings (from the 20th century on), especially from French and English, are typically not inflected; other modern borrowings are derived from Albanian , South Slavic ( Macedonian / Bulgarian ) and Eastern Romance languages ( Aromanian and Megleno-Romanian ). Greek words have been widely borrowed into other languages, including English. Example words include: mathematics , physics , astronomy , democracy , philosophy , athletics , theatre, rhetoric , baptism , evangelist , etc. Moreover, Greek words and word elements continue to be productive as
13736-474: The only brother of the goddesses Eos and Selene. If the order of mention of the three siblings is meant to be taken as their birth order, then out of the four authors that give him and his sisters a birth order, two make him the oldest child, one the middle, and the other the youngest. Helios was not among the regular and more prominent deities, rather he was a more shadowy member of the Olympian circle, despite
13872-474: The otherwise unknown Prote. In one version of the story, Phaethon is Helios' grandson, rather than son, through the boy's father Clymenus . In this version, Phaethon's mother is an Oceanid nymph named Merope. In Euripides' lost play Phaethon , surviving only in twelve fragments, Phaethon is the product of an illicit liaison between his mother Clymene (who is now married to Merops , the king of Aethiopia ) and Helios, though she claimed that her lawful husband
14008-446: The path of wisdom, by rushing down a dark highway? Do you drive a stranger course than before? In the name of Zeus, swift driver of horses, I beg you, turn the universal omen, lady, into some painless prosperity for Thebes ... Do you bring a sign of some war or wasting of crops or a mass of snow beyond telling or ruinous strife or emptying of the sea on land or frost on the earth or a rainy summer flowing with raging water, or will you flood
14144-472: The plain of the earth with exceeding bright beams, a mighty deity among gods and mortals." One passage recorded in the Greek Magical Papyri says of Helios, "the earth flourished when you shone forth and made the plants fruitful when you laughed and brought to life the living creatures when you permitted." He is said to have helped create animals out of primeval mud. Helios was envisioned as
14280-559: The present-day Dalyan , Turkey. Rhodes successfully carried on this policy through the course of the third century BC, an impressive achievement for what was essentially a democratic state. By the end of that period, however, the balance of power was crumbling, as declining Ptolemaic power made Egypt an attractive target for Seleucid ambitions. In 203/2 BC the young and dynamic kings of Antigonid Macedon and Seleucid Asia, Philip V and Antiochus III , agreed to accept—at least temporarily—their respective military ambitions: Philip's campaign in
14416-538: The river Styx any gift that he might ask as a proof of paternity; Phaethon asks for the privilege to drive Helios' chariot for a single day. Although Helios warns his son of how dangerous and disastrous this would be, he is nevertheless unable to change Phaethon's mind or revoke his promise. Phaethon takes the reins, and the earth burns when he travels too low, and freezes when he takes the chariot too high. Zeus strikes Phaethon with lightning, killing him. Helios refuses to resume his job, but he returns to his task and duty at
14552-415: The seven Pleiades keep thy steadfast way." And then— "This said, his son undaunted snatched the reins, Then smote the winged coursers' sides: they bound Forth on the void and cavernous vault of air. His father mounts another steed, and rides With warning voice guiding his son. 'Drive there! Turn, turn thy car this way." If this messenger did witness the flight himself, it is possible there
14688-428: The skies, trying to give him instructions on how to drive the chariot while he rides on a spare horse named Sirius, as someone, perhaps a paedagogus informs Clymene of Phaethon's fate, who is probably accompanied by slave women: Take, for instance, that passage in which Helios, in handing the reins to his son, says— "Drive on, but shun the burning Libyan tract; The hot dry air will let thine axle down: Toward
14824-671: The spread of Italian culture in Greece and the Levant . The Fascist program coincided with improvements to infrastructure, building imposing buildings such as the Hotel Rodon, the Puccini Theater and many administrative buildings with master architects such as Armando Bernabiti and Florestano Di Fausto . While the government worked at modernization, they also obliterated many historical buildings that did not match their ideal of
14960-437: The stressed vowel; the so-called breathing marks ( rough and smooth breathing ), originally used to signal presence or absence of word-initial /h/; and the diaeresis , used to mark the full syllabic value of a vowel that would otherwise be read as part of a diphthong. These marks were introduced during the course of the Hellenistic period. Actual usage of the grave in handwriting saw a rapid decline in favor of uniform usage of
15096-472: The sun) and heliolatry ("sun-worship"). Helios most likely is Proto-Indo-European in origin. Walter Burkert wrote that "... Helios, the sun god, and Eos - Aurora , the goddess of the dawn , are of impeccable Indo-European lineage both in etymology and in their status as gods" and might have played a role in Proto-Indo-European poetry. The imagery surrounding a chariot-driving solar deity
15232-527: The surviving defeated Hospitallers were allowed to withdraw to the Kingdom of Sicily . Despite the defeat, both Christians and Muslims seem to have regarded the conduct of Villiers de L'Isle-Adam as extremely valiant, and the Grand Master was proclaimed a Defender of the Faith by Pope Adrian VI (see Knights of Cyprus and Rhodes ). The knights would later move their base of operations to Malta and Gozo . Rhodes
15368-533: The third world". In another myth, Aphrodite was married to Hephaestus, but she cheated on him with his brother Ares , god of war. In Book Eight of the Odyssey , the blind singer Demodocus describes how the illicit lovers committed adultery, until one day Helios caught them in the act, and immediately informed Aphrodite's husband Hephaestus. Upon learning that, Hephaestus forged a net so thin it could hardly be seen, in order to ensnare them. He then announced that he
15504-422: The twelve months of the year. Beyond his Homeric Hymn, not many texts describe his physical appearance; Euripides describes him as χρυσωπός (khrysо̄pós) meaning "golden-eyed/faced" or "beaming like gold", Mesomedes of Crete writes that he has golden hair, and Apollonius Rhodius that he has light-emitting, golden eyes. According to Augustan poet Ovid , he dressed in tyrian purple robes and sat on
15640-537: The union of Helios the sun god and the nymph Rhodos , and the cities were named for their three sons. The rhoda is a pink hibiscus , native to the island. Diodorus Siculus added that Actis , one of the sons of Helios and Rhode, travelled to Egypt . He built the city of Heliopolis and taught the Egyptians astrology . In the second half of the 8th century BC, the sanctuary of Athena received votive gifts that are markers for cultural contacts: small ivories from
15776-458: The war, but in the view of hostile elements in the Senate she had been a bit too friendly with the defeated King Perseus. Some actually proposed declaring war on the island republic, but this was averted. In 164 BC, Rhodes became a "permanent ally" of Rome, which was essentially a reduction to client state of nominal but meaningless independence. It was said that the Romans ultimately turned against
15912-459: The word ἀολλίζεσθαι , aollízesthai , "coming together" during the daytime, or perhaps from ἀλεαίνειν , aleaínein , "warming". Plato in his dialogue Cratylus suggested several etymologies for the word, proposing among others a connection, via the Doric form of the word halios , to the words ἁλίζειν , halízein , meaning collecting men when he rises, or from the phrase ἀεὶ εἱλεῖν , aeí heileín , "ever turning" because he always turns
16048-432: Was Helios himself who built it. His chariot is described as golden, or occasionally "rosy", and pulled by four white horses. The Horae , goddesses of the seasons, are part of his retinue and help him yoke his chariot. His sister Eos is said to have not only opened the gates for Helios, but would often accompany him as well. In the extreme east and west were said to be people who tended to his horses, for whom summer
16184-574: Was a distinct dialect of Greek itself. Aside from the Macedonian question, current consensus regards Phrygian as the closest relative of Greek, since they share a number of phonological, morphological and lexical isoglosses , with some being exclusive between them. Scholars have proposed a Graeco-Phrygian subgroup out of which Greek and Phrygian originated. Among living languages, some Indo-Europeanists suggest that Greek may be most closely related to Armenian (see Graeco-Armenian ) or
16320-516: Was also a passage where he described Helios taking control over the bolting horses in the same manner as Lucretius described. Phaethon inevitably dies; a fragment near the end of the play has Clymene order the slave girls hide Phaethon's still-smouldering body from Merops, and laments Helios' role in her son's death, saying he destroyed him and her both. Near the end of the play it seems that Merops, having found out about Clymene's affair and Phaethon's true parentage, tries to kill her; her eventual fate
16456-497: Was also present in their language. Ancient Greek had three genders (masculine, feminine and neuter), so when an object or a concept was personified as a deity, it inherited the gender of the relevant noun; helios is a masculine noun, so the god embodying it is also by necessity male. The female offspring of Helios were called Heliades , the male Heliadae . The author of the Suda lexicon tried to etymologically connect ἥλιος to
16592-568: Was also used as the official language of government and religion in the Christian Nubian kingdoms , for most of their history. Greek, in its modern form, is the official language of Greece, where it is spoken by almost the entire population. It is also the official language of Cyprus (nominally alongside Turkish ) and the British Overseas Territory of Akrotiri and Dhekelia (alongside English ). Because of
16728-557: Was also used in Ancient Greek. Greek has occasionally been written in the Latin script , especially in areas under Venetian rule or by Greek Catholics . The term Frankolevantinika / Φραγκολεβαντίνικα applies when the Latin script is used to write Greek in the cultural ambit of Catholicism (because Frankos / Φράγκος is an older Greek term for West-European dating to when most of (Roman Catholic Christian) West Europe
16864-674: Was forbidden. Following the Italian Armistice of 8 September 1943 , the British attempted to get the Italian garrison on Rhodes to change sides. This was anticipated by the German Army , which succeeded in occupying the island with the Battle of Rhodes . In great measure, the German occupation caused the British failure in the subsequent Dodecanese Campaign . After September 1943, the Jews were sent to concentration camps. However,
17000-516: Was formerly called "Collosus", through a conflation of the Colossus of Rhodes and Paul 's Epistle to the Colossians , which refers to Colossae . The island's name might be derived from erod , Phoenician for snake, since the island was home to many snakes in antiquity. The island was inhabited in the Neolithic period although little remains of this culture. In the 16th century BC,
17136-495: Was leaving for Lemnos . Upon hearing that, Ares went to Aphrodite and the two lovers coupled. Once again Helios informed Hephaestus, who came into the room and trapped them in the net. He then called the other gods to witness the humiliating sight. Much later versions add a young man to the story, a warrior named Alectryon , tasked by Ares to stand guard should anyone approach. But Alectryon fell asleep, allowing Helios to discover
17272-399: Was manned by proverbially the finest sailors in the Mediterranean world: “If we have ten Rhodians, we have ten ships.” The Rhodians also established their dominance on the shores of Caria across from their island, which became known as the " Rhodian Peraia ". It extended roughly from the modern city of Muğla (ancient Mobolla ) in the north and Kaunos bordering Lycia in the south, near
17408-424: Was often invoked in oaths. He also played a significant part in ancient magic and spells. In art he is usually depicted as a beardless youth in a chiton holding a whip and driving his quadriga , accompanied by various other celestial gods such as Selene , Eos , or the stars. In ancient times he was worshipped in several places of ancient Greece, though his major cult centers were the island of Rhodes , of which he
17544-488: Was patron god, Corinth and the greater Corinthia region. The Colossus of Rhodes , a gigantic statue of the god, adorned the port of Rhodes until it was destroyed in an earthquake, thereupon it was not built again. The Greek noun ἥλιος ( GEN ἡλίου , DAT ἡλίῳ , ACC ἥλιον , VOC ἥλιε ) (from earlier ἁϝέλιος /hāwelios/) is the inherited word for the Sun from Proto-Indo-European * seh₂u-el which
17680-408: Was perpetual and fruitful. On several instances in mythology the normal solar schedule is disrupted; he was ordered not to rise for three days during the conception of Heracles , and made the winter days longer in order to look upon Leucothoe . Athena 's birth was a sight so impressive that Helios halted his steeds and stayed still in the sky for a long while, as heaven and earth both trembling at
17816-400: Was said that summer days are longer due to Helios often stopping his chariot mid-air to watch from above nymphs dancing during the summer, and sometimes he is late to rise because he lingers with his consort. If the other gods wish so, Helios can be hastened on his daily course when they wish it to be night. When Zeus desired to sleep with Alcmene , he made one night last threefold, hiding
17952-425: Was the father of her all her children. Clymene reveals the truth to her son, and urges him to travel east to get confirmation from his father after she informs him that Helios promised to grant their child any wish when he slept with her. Although reluctant at first, Phaethon is convinced and sets on to find his birth father. In a surviving fragment from the play, Helios accompanies his son in his ill-fated journey in
18088-647: Was the word for the rose, whilst in modern Greek the also similar-sounding ρόδι ( ródi ) or ρόιδο ( róido ) refers to the pomegranate. It was also called Lindos ( Ancient Greek : Λίνδος ). In addition, the island has been called Rodi in Italian , Rodos in Turkish , and רודי (Rodi) or רודיס (Rodes) in Ladino . Other ancient names were Ρόδη (Rodē), Τελχινίς ( Telchinis ) and Ηλιάς (Helias). The Travels of Sir John Mandeville incorrectly reports that Rhodes
18224-478: Was thereafter a possession of the Ottoman Empire (see Sanjak of Rhodes ) for nearly four centuries. In the 19th century the island was populated by ethnic groups from the surrounding nations, including Jews, whose presence goes back 2,300 years. Under Ottoman rule, they generally did fairly well, but discrimination and bigotry occasionally arose. In February 1840, the Jews of Rhodes were falsely accused by
18360-580: Was under the control of the Frankish Empire ). Frankochiotika / Φραγκοχιώτικα (meaning 'Catholic Chiot') alludes to the significant presence of Catholic missionaries based on the island of Chios . Additionally, the term Greeklish is often used when the Greek language is written in a Latin script in online communications. The Latin script is nowadays used by the Greek-speaking communities of Southern Italy . The Yevanic dialect
18496-621: Was written by Romaniote and Constantinopolitan Karaite Jews using the Hebrew Alphabet . In a tradition, that in modern time, has come to be known as Greek Aljamiado , some Greek Muslims from Crete wrote their Cretan Greek in the Arabic alphabet . The same happened among Epirote Muslims in Ioannina . This also happened among Arabic-speaking Byzantine rite Christians in the Levant ( Lebanon , Palestine, and Syria ). This usage
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