Phaeton driving the Chariot of the Sun

Phaethon, also spelled as Phaëthon, was the son of the Oceanid Clymene and the sun god Helios in Greek mythology. His name was also used by the Ancient Greeks as an alternative name for the planet Jupiter, the motions and cycles of which were personified in poetry and myth.

Phaethon was said to be the son of the Oceanid Clymene and the sun god Helios. Alternatively, less common genealogies make him a son of Clymenus by Oceanid Merope, of Helios and Rhodos (thus a full brother of the Heliadae) or of Helios and Prote.

Phaethon, challenged by Epaphus and his playmates, sought assurance from his mother that his father was the sun god Helios. She gave him the requested assurance and told him to turn to his father for confirmation. He asked his father for some proof that would demonstrate his relationship with the sun. When the god promised to grant him whatever he wanted, he insisted on being allowed to drive the sun chariot for a day. According to some accounts Helios tried to dissuade Phaethon, telling him that even Zeus was not strong enough to steer these horses, but reluctantly kept his promise.

Placed in charge of the chariot, Phaethon was unable to control the horses. In some versions, the Earth first froze when the horses climbed too high, but when the chariot then scorched the Earth by swinging too near, Zeus decided to prevent disaster by striking it down with a thunderbolt. Phaethon fell to earth and was killed in the process.

Phaethon was the good friend or lover of Cycnus of Liguria, who profoundly mourned his death and was turned into a swan. Phaethon's seven sisters, the Heliades, also mourned his loss, keeping vigil where Phaethon fell to Earth until the gods turned the sisters into poplar trees, and their tears into amber.