Helios

Helios is the sun in the sky and the sun as a person, both at once. He drives his light across the world every day and he owns the cattle that graze on the island of Thrinacia. They are immortal. They do not breed and they do not die and their numbers never change, and any mortal who lays a hand on them will pay for it. Tiresias says so. Circe says so. Odysseus says so. He is also Circe’s father, the god who let his daughter be sent away and did not come looking for her, which tells you something about the kind of father he is. [SPOILER: When the men, starving and pinned to Thrinacia by the wind, finally break the oath and slaughter the cattle, Helios goes to Zeus and threatens to take his light down into the underworld and shine for the dead instead of the living. Zeus answers with a thunderbolt that splinters the ship. Every man drowns except Odysseus. Helios does not raise the storm himself. He doesn’t have to. He is owed, and the gods pay each other in full.]