Editing Helios (section)

==== Solar eclipses ====
[[File:Meyers b5 s0687 b1.png|thumb|right|270px|Helios and Eos, carried by the morning dew, above them the god of heaven. Relief from the armor of the statue of Augustus in the Vatican, circa 1885.]]

[[Solar eclipse]]s were phaenomena of fear as well as wonder in Ancient Greece, and were seen as the Sun abandoning humanity.<ref>Glover, Eric. "The eclipse of Xerxes in Herodotus 7.37: Lux a non obscurando." ''The Classical Quarterly'', vol. 64, no. 2, 2014, pp. [https://jstor.org/stable/43905590 471–492]. New Series. Accessed 12 Sept. 2021.</ref> According to a fragment of [[Archilochus]], it is Zeus who blocks Helios and makes him disappear from the sky.<ref>[[Archilochus]] frag [https://sententiaeantiquae.com/2015/09/26/now-nothing-is-unexpected-archilochus-on-an-eclipse-fr-122/ 122]; Rutherford, p. [https://books.google.com/books?id=gPjZOB1YNqAC&pg=193 193]</ref> In one of his [[paean]]s, 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:<ref>Ian Rutherford, ''Pindar's Paeans: A reading of the fragments with a survey of the genre''.</ref>

{{Blockquote|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 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 the land and create a new race of men from the beginning?|title=[[Pindar]], ''[[Paean]]'' IX<ref>Rutherford, p. [https://books.google.com/books?id=gPjZOB1YNqAC&pg=191 191]</ref>}}