Helios

In Greek mythology the sun was personified as Helius (Greek: Ήλιος). Homer often calls him Titan and Hyperion.

He was a son of the Titans Hyperion and Theia and brother of the goddesses Selene, the moon, and Eos, the dawn. The names of these three were also the common Greek words for sun, moon and dawn.

Helios was imagined as a handsome god crowned with the shining aureole of the sun, who drove a chariot across the sky each day and night. Homer described it as drawn by solar bulls (Iliad xvi.779); later Pindar saw it as drawn by "fire-darting steeds" (Olympian Ode 7.71). Still later, the horses were given fiery names: Pyrios, Aeos, Aethon and Phlegon.

As time passed, Helios was increasingly identified with the god of light, Apollo. The equivalent of Helios in Roman mythology was Sol, Latin for Sun.