The Greeks as well as the Carians and other peoples on the shores of the Aegean Sea told of a time when the sun was driven off its course and disappeared for an entire day, and the earth was
burned and drowned.
The Greek legend says that the young Phaethon, who claimed parentage of the sun, on that fatal day tried to drive the chariot of the sun. Phaethon was unable to make his way "against the
Many authors have dealt with the story of Phaethon; the best known version is a creation of the Latin poet Ovid. The chariot of the sun, driven by Phaethon, moved "no longer in the same
course as before." The horses "break loose from their course" and "rush aimlessly, knocking against the stars set deep in the sky and snatching the chariot along through uncharted ways."
The constellations of the cold Bears tried to plunge into the forbidden sea, and the sun's chariot roamed through unknown regions of the air. It was "borne along just as a ship driven before the headlong blast, whose pilot has let the useless rudder go and abandoned the ship to the gods and
prayers."
"The earth bursts into flame, the highest parts first, and splits into deep cracks, and its moisture is all dried up. The meadows are burned to white ashes; the trees are consumed, green leaves and
all, and the ripe grain furnishes fuel for its own destruction. . . . Great cities perish with their
walls, and the vast conflagration reduces whole nations to ashes."
"The woods are ablaze with the mountains. . . . Aetna is blazing
* Ovid, Metamorphoses (transl. F. J. Miller), Book II.
References:
* Ovid, Metamorphoses (transl. F. J. Miller), Book II.
Worlds in Collision by I. Velikovsky
Rubens painted one of the most famous depictions.
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