Helios
2 of the 6 encyclopedias on this shelf carry an entry for Helios. Both are reproduced below, so you can see where they agree and where they differ.
Aiton's Encyclopedia (1910)
he'll-os, in Greek mythology, the god of the sun. He was the son of Hyperion and Thea and brother of Eos (Aurora) and Selene. Sometimes he is called by his father's name. Homer's account of this god is very simple. Helios arises in the east, traverses the heavens, and descends into darkness and Oceanus in the west. The later poets have woven many fanciful ideas into their stories of Helios. According to these writers he dwells in a palace behind Colchis with his sister Eos. Each day he issues from the portals of the dawn and drives his splendid steeds across the sky. Having passed through the gates of evening, he cools his horses in the ocean and drives them into a marvelous golden bowl built by Hephaestus, which bears them along the northern shore of ocean back to Colchis. Helios sees all things, and occasionally has great influence upon mortals by telling of some event which he has beheld. Helios came to be confounded with Apollo, but there was a marked difference in the original character of the two gods. Helios represents the physical phenomena of light, while Apollo stands for mental illumination. The Romans called the sun god Sol. The famous statue called the Colossus of Rhodes is supposed to have been erected in honor of Helios. White rams, goats, bulls, lambs, and especially white horses, were sacrificed to Helios. The cock that crows in the dawn was sacred to him.
1000 Classical Characters (1900)
Called Sol by the Romans, the god of the sun. He was the son of Hyperion and Thea; and a brother of Selene and Eos. From his father he is frequently called Hyperionides, or Hyperion, the latter of which is an abridged form of the patronymic,
What Has Changed in the Last Century
Aiton's 1910 summary of Helios "the god of the sun," son of Hyperion and Thea, driving his horses across the sky and sailing home in Hephaestus's golden bowl, is still how the myth is taught; the sources are Homer, Mimnermus and the later poets, and no new text has overturned them. The one point that has moved is chronology: scholars now stress that Aiton's "confounding" of Helios with Apollo is a datable development, visible from the fifth century BC onward in writers such as Euripides, rather than a vague later confusion. On Rhodes, where the accounts place the Colossus, the popular image of the statue straddling the harbour mouth is now generally rejected by archaeologists as a medieval invention; the figure most likely stood on land near the harbour or by the god's sanctuary. The earthquake that felled it is conventionally dated to about 226 BC, and no trace of it has ever been excavated.
Written for this edition, 2026.