HELIADAE(Ἡλιάδαι), a people said to have succeeded the Telchines as inhabitants of the island of Rhodes, and to have been produced from the earth by the agency of the solar heat, whence their name, from Ἥλιος. (Strab. 14. p. 654.) They are further said to have been skilled in all the arts, especially in astronomy, to have advanced navigation, and to have divided the year into days and hours. (Diod. Sic. 5.57.) In consequence of the Heliadae, the whole island of Rhodes was sacred to the sun, who favoured it so much that not a day passed in the whole course of a year during which the island. was not warmed by his rays. (Plin. Nat. 2.62; comp. RHODUS)
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