Alectryon (fromAncient Greek:Ἀλεκτρυών,Alektruṓnpronounced[alektryɔ̌ːn], literally meaning "rooster") inGreek mythology, was a young soldier who was assigned byAres, the god of war, to guard the outside of his bedroom door while the god took part in a love affair with the love goddessAphrodite. Alectryon however failed at his job when he fell asleep, allowingHelios, thegod of the Sun, to see the two lovers and alertHephaestus, the husband of Aphrodite, who then caught the two lovers in the act. Enraged with Alectryon's incompetence, Ares changed him into a rooster in anger. In his effort to reconcile, Alectryon never skipped on alarming people of Helios's arrival thereafter.
The story is anaetiological myth that attempts to explain both the origin of the roosters and the reason why they crow each morning at dawn, warning of theSun approaching. The myth is not mentioned byHomer, who first related the story of Ares and Aphrodite's infidelity in hisOdyssey, but rather it was interpolated later by various authors.
And in memory of why he suffered this, before the Sun god yokes his chariot he drives away men's sleep through song.
— Libanius,Progymnasmata 2.26[1]
According toLucian, Alectryon was said to have been 'an adolescent boy, beloved of Ares, who kept the god company at drinking parties, overindulged with him, and was his companion in lovemaking'.Ares, fearing that his affair withAphrodite would be found out and then he would be told on by Helios, the sun god, especially because of his suspicions that he would tellHephaestus, the god of forgery and the husband of Aphrodite, commanded Alectryon to stand outside his door and watch forHelios, the god of the sun who saw everything, or anyone else, to bear witness to his affair.[2][3][4]
Alectryon thus stood guard outside of his room as the two made love. But one day, he fell asleep during his watch, and Helios discovered the lovers the next morning. The sun-god then informed Hephaestus, to the choices of the two, who then created a net to ensnare and then shame them. Furious, Ares punished Alectryon by transforming him into arooster which never forgets to announce the rising of the sun in the morning by its crowing, as his way of apologizing to Ares for falling asleep on the job, but this failed to make amends.[5][1][6]
According toPausanias, the rooster is Helios' sacred animal, always crowing when he is about to rise.[7]
Both the words Alectryon and Halcyon might have been corrupted fromHalaka, one of the old Persian appellations of the sun. In the 'Vendidad' it is said that the sacred bird Parodars, called by menkahrkatak, raises its voice at the dawn; and in theBundahishn, the sun is spoken of as Halaka, thecock, the enemy of darkness and evil, which flee before his crowing.[8]
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