According to one version recorded byHyginus, there were seven Heliades:Merope, Helie,Aegle,Lampetia,Phoebe, Aetherie andDioxippe.[2] Aeschylus's fragmentaryHeliades[3] namesPhaethousa and Lampetia, who are otherwise called daughters ofNeaera and have a different role in myth, being in charge of their father's sheep and cattle.[4][5] A scholiast on theOdyssey gives their names asPhaethusa (Φαέθουσα), Lampetia (Λαμπετίην) andAegle (Αἴγλην).[6]
Their brother,Phaëthon, died after attempting to drive his father's chariot (Helios the sun) across the sky. He was unable to control the horses and fell to his death (according to most accounts,Zeus struck his chariot with a thunderbolt to save the Earth from being set afire). The Heliades grieved for four months and the gods turned them intopoplar trees and their tears intoamber.[7] According to some sources, their tears (amber) fell into the riverEridanus, in which Phaethon had fallen.[8]
According to Hyginus, the Heliades were turned to poplar trees because they yoked the chariot for their brother without their father Helios' permission.[9]
A proverb preserved in Plutarch associates the tears of the Heliades with great wealth.[10]
Pausanias,Description of Greece with an English Translation by W.H.S. Jones, Litt.D., and H.A. Ormerod, M.A., in 4 Volumes. Cambridge, MA, Harvard University Press; London, William Heinemann Ltd. 1918.Online version at the Perseus Digital Library
This article incorporates text from a publication now in thepublic domain: Smith, William, ed. (1870).Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology.
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