Yelm , Apollo, etc.

From: Thomas McVey <tmcvey_at_sric.sri.com>
Date: Wed, 11 Oct 2000 17:22:52 -0800

>
>
> Date: Tue, 10 Oct 2000 13:41:20 -0700
> From: David Dunham <dunham_at_pensee.com>
> Subject: Re: Yelm Debate, The Rreason Why, etc.
>
> Roderick Robertson wrote
>
> >What is the Sun on Earth? Apollo? A big ball of flaming gas? Ra? Mithras? El
> >Gabel? Sol Invictus?
>
> A better way to phrase this: is he Apollo or Helios?

Which Apollo are we talking about, here, Delian or Pythian Apollo, anyway?

> (A couple of
> quotes from <http://www.thanasis.com/helios.htm>: "Helios is the
> young Greek god of the sun, often confused with Apollo."

Well, strictly speaking Helios was the Titan of the Sun, the son of Hyperion and Theia,
according to http://www.encyclopedia.com/articles/12905.html Phoebus ("bright, pure") Apollo and he got kinda scrunched together after the 5th Cent BC.

Echoes of Graves' myth-as-history here, i.e. were the Titans the Gods of a indigenous pre-Peloponnesian people?

> Clearly the two are different to the Greeks. Does anyone know if they
> had big debates in the symposia about the two?

Probably. But Anaxagoras probably spoiled it by saying it was a big fiery stone in 434 BC, and Hipparchus in 130 BC stopped all the fun by measuring the distance to the sun.

Bloody Godlearners, the lot of them.

Tom

>
> David Dunham <mailto:dunham_at_pensee.com>

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