In ancient Greek religion and mythology, Helios is the god who personifies the Sun. His name is also Latinized as Helius, and he is often given the epithets Hyperion and Phaethon. 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.
Helios in his chariot, early 4th century BC, Athena's temple, Ilion
Helios (far right) in a Phaethon sarcophagus, detail, marble, third century AD, Verona, Italy.
Helios relief (1830), Stuttgart, Rosenstein Castle.
Bust of the sun-god Helios, second century AD; the holes were used for the attachment of a sun ray crown, Ancient Agora Museum, Athens, Greece.
Religious practices in ancient Greece encompassed a collection of beliefs, rituals, and mythology, in the form of both popular public religion and cult practices. The application of the modern concept of "religion" to ancient cultures has been questioned as anachronistic. The ancient Greeks did not have a word for 'religion' in the modern sense. Likewise, no Greek writer known to us classifies either the gods or the cult practices into separate 'religions'. Instead, for example, Herodotus speaks of the Hellenes as having "common shrines of the gods and sacrifices, and the same kinds of customs."
Aegeus at right consults the Pythia or oracle of Delphi. Vase, 440–430 BCE. He was told "Do not loosen the bulging mouth of the wineskin until you have reached the height of Athens, lest you die of grief", which at first he did not understand.
Aphrodite riding a swan: Attic white-ground red-figured kylix, c. 460, found at Kameiros (Rhodes)
Asclepios, god of medicine. Marble Roman copy (2nd century CE) of a Greek original of the early 4th century BCE. Asclepios was not one of the Twelve Olympians, but popular with doctors like Pausanias, and their patients.
The Judgment of Paris by Peter Paul Rubens (c. 1636), depicting the goddesses Hera, Aphrodite and Athena, in a competition that causes the Trojan War. This Baroque painting shows the continuing fascination with Greek mythology
