#Selene driving her moon chariot, here shown as a team of four horses. She has a shining aureola around her head and the reins and her riding crop in hand. She is followed by her brother #Helios, the fish around them suggesting that one is descending and the other rising.
🏛️ Canosa, Italy, ca. 330 – 310 BCE; now at Munich, Antikensammlung
Engraved Stone Ball (Magic Sphere?) with #Helios and magical symbols. Discovered in 1866 at the foot of the Acropolis in Athens, near the remains of the Theatre of Dionysos.
🎨 Marble sphere, dated 2nd-3rd centuries CE. Today in the #Athens Acropolis Museum.
@AimeeMaroux@antiquidons@mythology votive element (stone appears having being shaped naturall, river found maybe, and surely resembles the sun shapel) most likely, magical spheres of that type would be sth new from this region & period (especially as a solid).
For scrying, bowls of (herbal infused) water or smoke was the more common thing.
Mosaic of #Helios, #Selene and the 12 labours of the months. The Sun and the Moon are in the centre with the 12 labours arranged around them. Each of the labourers is labelled at the feet with the number of days as well as the Latin name of the month in Greek letters.
🏛️ Roman era #mosaic dated 6th century CE, Beit She'an, Israel
"Phaethon [#Helios] laughed, because #Ares in the seafight of [#Dionysos against the Indians] had fled again before the fire of #Hephaistos, as once before he fled from his chains."
Nonnus, Dionysiaca 39.403
🎨 Helios (possibly Alexander of Macedon) bronze bust, 1st century CE.
"Helios, the myth tells us [...] caused the water which had overflowed it [the island of Rhodes] to disappear. But the true explanation is that [...] the island was still like mud and soft, Helios dried up the larger part of its wetness and filled the land with living creatures."
🎨 Red-figure vase painting of #Helios in a chariot drawn by two #Erotes.
🪷 28 July is Pythia day, honoring the Oracle of #Delphi which #Antinous saw in 128 AD. He probably looked similar to this #Apollo-#Helios figure by #FredericLeighton. Today is a good day to try scrying and light incense in memory of the women who were #Delphic priestesses. 🪷
In #Greek#mythology, Clytie¹ was an Oceanid nymph, lover of #Helios.
Since he cheated her with another woman, Leucothoe, Clytie revealed the affair to the other girl's father, who… buried her alive (that escalated quickly!).
Since Clytie intended to win Helios back, but he avoided her after what had happened, she fell in despair. She sat naked, accepting no food or drinks, for nine days.
Eventually, she turned into a purple flower, the heliotrope, "which turns its head always to look longingly at Helios the Sun as he passes through the sky in his solar chariot, even though he no longer cares for her, her form much changed, her love for him unchanged."
That was the story by Ovid; the heliotrope then became the sunflower.
On holiday, in Puymartin Castle² in #France, I found this paining based on a drawing by Pierre Brebiette.
You can see that later, in the 19th century, clothes were added to cover her body – and ruin the piece of art.
Also, Helios's chariot was covered by the #sun.
"We came soon enough to the lovely island of #Helios. Here were the fine broad-browed herds, here were the plentiful fat flocks of Hyperion [Helios]."
Homer, Odyssey 12. 261
🎨 Helios and #Odysseus depicted on an oil lamp, Antikensammlung #Munich
"She [Gaia] prayed to the Titan #Helios with submissive voice: she begged of him one red hot ray, that with its heating fire she might melt the petrified water of Zeus, by pouring his kindred radiance over frozen Typhon."
Nonnus, Dionysiaca 2. 543
🎨 Roman silver relief of Sol from Pessinus in Anatolia, dated 3rd century CE. Today in the British Museum.
"Helios (the Sun), who is watchman of both gods and men [...] You [Helios] with your beams look down from the bright upper air (aitheros) over all the earth and sea."
Homeric Hymn 2 to Demeter