(), that is,
1. This name occurs in Homer (ll. 11.735, Acn. 5.105); but it
is more commonly known as the name of son of Helios by the Oceanid Clymene, the wife of
Merops. The genealogy of Phaethon, however, is not the same in all writers, for some call him
a son of Clymenus, the son of Helios, by Merope (Chil. 4.127). or,
lastly, a son of Helios by the nymph Rhode or Rhodos. (Schol. ad Pind.
Ol. 6.131.) He received the signifieant name Phaethon from his father, and was
afterwards also presmnptouus and ambitious enoug to request his father one day to allow him to
drive the chariot of the sum across the heavens. Helios was induced by the entreaties of his
son and of Clymene to yield, but the youth being too weak to cheek the horses, came down with
his chariot, and so near to the earth, that he almost set it on fire. Zeus, therefore, killed
him with a flash of lightning, so that he fell down into the river Eridanus or the Po. His
isters, who had yoked teh horses to the chariot, were metamorphosed into poplars, and their
tears into amber. (Eurip. Ilippol. 737, &c.; Apoolon. Rhod. 4.598, &c.; Lueian, Dial. Dcor. 25 ; Hygin, Fab. 152, 154; Aen 10.190;