, king of Athens, was the mother of Cephalus, who was carried
away by Aurora; which probably means that he left Greece for the
purpose of settling in the East. Cephalus had a son named Tithonus,
the father of Phaeton. Thus Phaeton was the fourth in lineal descent
from Cecrops, who reigned at Athens about 1580, B.C. The story is most
probably based upon the fact of some excessive heat that happened in
his time. Aristotle supposes that at that period flames fell from
heaven, which ravaged several countries. Possibly the burning of the
cities of the plain, or the stay of the sun in his course at the
command of Joshua, may have been the foundation of the story. St.
Chrysostom suggests that it is based upon an imperfect version of the
ascent of Elijah in a chariot of fire; that name, or rather 'Elias,'
the Greek form of it, bearing a strong resemblance to +Helios+, the
Greek name of the sun. Vossius suggests that this is an Egyptian
history, and considers the story of the grief of Phoebus for the loss
of his son to be another version of the sorrows of the Egyptians for
the death of Osiris. The tears of the Heliades, or sisters of Phaeton,
he conceives to be identical with the lamentations of the women who
wept for the death of Thammuz. The Poet, when he tells us that Phaeton
abandoned his chariot on seeing The Scorpion, probably intends to show
that the event of which he treats happened in the month in which the
sun enters that sign.

Plutarch and Tzetzes tell us that Phaeton was a king of the
Molossians, who drowned himself in the Po; that he was a student of
astronomy, and foretold an excessive heat which happened in his reign,
and laid waste his kingdom. Lucian, also, in his Discourse on
Astronomy, gives a similar explanation of the story, and says that
this prince dying very young, left his observations imperfect, which
gave rise to the fable that he did not know how to drive the chariot
of the sun to the end of its course.

FABLE II. [II.305-324]

Jupiter, to save the universe from being consumed, hurls his thunder
at Phaeton, on which he falls headlong into the river Eridanus.

But the omnipotent father, having called the Gods above to witness, and
him, too, who had given the chariot {to Phaeton}, that unless he gives
assistance, all things will perish in direful ruin, mounts aloft to the
highest eminence, from which he is wont to spread the clouds over