Myth
It was a nice, beautiful day. So beautiful of a day it was that Mikkos, son of Hermes, decided to challenge Phaethon, son of Helios, to a race. For whom better to race against the son of the god of travelling than the son of the sun god? Naturally, Phaethon accepted the challenge to gain fame and be regarded as a great hero. Deciding to race with his father’s car, Phaethon wanted to make some changes to it before the race. With his dislike for the golden decals and trims of the car, he asked Hephaestus to repaint it as well as permanently overclock the engine and lighten the chassis for extra speed. Naturally, Hephaestus did his part but warned that the car had one caveat. In exchange for extra speed, it overheats much easier than before. When the race began, the car’s improved speed worked wonders. Although a little unstable due to poor handling and inexperience, Phaethon was comfortably in the lead with the car sporting a new coat of paint. Wanting to speed up even further, Phaethon pushed the pedal to the metal and accelerated as fast as he could, ignoring the warning. Now with the car producing heat equivalent to the sun and plenty of carbon dioxide, the engine gave out and Phaethon spun out and crashed to the side. With blistering speeds and smelting fire, debris from the crash flew away and broke the ozone layer, and quickly began soaring into outer space. With the ozone layer now damaged and plenty of carbon dioxide gases coming from the car, nothing was protecting the Earth from the car’s new engine from scorching it. Of course, the now parched, searing Earth did not go unnoticed. Zeus quickly threw lightning bolts at the debris, knocking them back down to Earth. By combining their efforts, Zeus and Poseidon were able to calm the raging fires, caused by the heating engine, by increasing rainfall and raising the ocean’s water levels. With the ozone layer gone, it should come as no surprise that the Earth has been gradually heating up each day as Helios continued to make his daily journey in his car. Helios was reluctant to continue his duty to drive across the heavens due to him feeling guilty about the fires and worried that the car would overheat again but changed his mind when Zeus and Poseidon decided to cover up for him by continuing to use more storms, rainfall, and the oceans to cool down the Earth. However, who knows how long this can last? Ever since that day, the Earth shows no signs of returning to its old climate despite the increasing efforts of the Olympians. So let it be known, for when you are blessed with water, and plentiful rainfall or cursed with drought; when you feel the heat upon your skin or when your houses get washed away in the floods; it all began with a boy and a race on that nice, beautiful day.
Analysis
My myth incorporates elements from the story of Phaethon and the sun chariot to explain global warming. One element from the myths that I kept was the original look of the chariot. In the myths, the chariot is described with golden axles, shafts, and tyres (Ovid, Metamorphoses 2. 104 ff). Here, since the chariot is a car, I opted to have the car have golden trims and decals like you would get when one customizes a new car. I then added a plot detail where Phaethon wanted to get some speed enhancements from the god of smithing to give Phaethon more incentive to use the car and win with speed. This gives Phaethon a bit more character and gives leeway into how he lost control of the car.
To further give a bit more to Phaethon’s character, I decided to have him accept the challenge to gain fame and be regarded as a hero. We know that heroes like Odysseus are held in high regard by gods like Zeus and this comes with the concept of kleos (Homer, Odyssey 1.2). The concept of kleos, having great fame, is an important thing to have to be a Greek hero and so I had Phaethon want to gain kleos to tie into more themes of Greek mythology and flesh out his character a bit more.
In the original myth, Phaethon lost control of the chariot, leading to the horses going off course (Diodorus Siculus, Library of History 5. 23. 2). This was kept in my myth. I changed the chariot leaving the course to an actual race course to make it easier to understand how Phaethon could lose control of the horses and why he wanted to ride on the chariot. A car traveling at high speeds on a race track is hard to control after all. Since he wanted to win a race and wanted more speed, it makes more sense as to why he lost control of the car. To explain why Phaethon lost control of the car, I modified an element of the myth. Near the ending of the original myth, Helios savagely whips his horses out of anger and guilt because he blamed them for Phaethon's death (Ovid, Metamorphoses 1. 750 ff). Here, Phaethon is the one who whipped the horses, or in this case over-accelerated, since it makes more sense for the inexperienced driver to poorly handle the car, stall out and then have the car overheat and combust.
One thing I changed is that the chariot started moving towards the heavens which resulted in the creation of the Milky Way in the original myth (Diodorus Siculus, Library of History 5. 23. 2). In my myth, instead of creating something, I opted for the destruction of the ozone layer. This works in two parts. The first is to explain the ozone hole and why the climate changed. While not exactly scientifically accurate, as the ozone hole isn’t directly related to global warming (Miller), I chose to simplify all UV light blocked by the ozone as heat since, this way, I can say that the extra heat is directly generated by a lack of protection from the personification of the Sun, Helios and his car. The second is that I made the ozone and the ozone hole a physical thing that was broken. This is to keep the mythical and divine aspects of the myth as these gods and titans are powerful in the fact that their power, and by association their vehicles, can break things that mortals can’t normally break. This, in a way, limits the anthropomorphism in my depiction of the gods and titans and explains global warming.
In the original myth, Phaethon and the chariot burn the Earth and get hit by a thunderbolt from Zeus as it's going to space (Pseudo-Hyginus, Astronomica 2. 42). While Phaethon and the car did burn the Earth, here, I had the debris fly into the sky instead of the car itself. Since I have chosen to replace the chariot with a modern grounded vehicle, it couldn’t fly into the sky on its own since it is not sentient unlike the horses pulling the chariot. So, the debris was used as a substitution instead. There is, of course, a minor difference as to why the Earth is burning in the first place. Here the Earth is burning because of the car’s overblown engine as well as the natural heat of the car as the personification of the sun due to the hole in the ozone layer.
Zeus quenches the fires with rainfall like in the myth (Nonnus, Dionysiaca 38. 90 ff) just like in my myth but I also added in Poseidon raising the ocean water levels to help with the fire as well since he is the ruler of the seas. This was used to explain the side effects of global warming. Since global warming causes floods, rises in sea levels, as well as increased storm activity (Miller), this directly relates to Zeus and Poseidon and their respective domains. With the ozone layer broken and Helios continuing to do his duty to trek across the heavens in his car like in the myths (Ovid, Metamorphoses 1. 750 ff), I used this plot element to explain why global warming and its side effects are still happening. Since the gods and titans are immortal, of course, this effect has remained since ancient times. Helios unintentionally continuing to cause global warming and Zeus and Poseidon cooling down the Earth is used to explain the continuing effects of global warming like droughts (Miller) and the increased rain frequency (Pendergrass).
Another element that I adapted was Helios’ feelings towards the end of the myth. In the original myth, Helios felt guilty and angered by the death of his son and, like stated before, he harshly treated his horses and blamed them for it (Ovid, Metamorphoses 1. 750 ff). This anthropomorphises Helios. In my myth, since it was Phaethon who harshly treated the car and got punished for it, Helios isn’t as mad as he was in the original. Phaethon took a gamble by asking Hephaestus to mod the car and paid dearly for it. Helios, in my myth, understands that. To keep the anthropomorphism, I had Helios hesitate to drive in care for the planet instead.
To further emphasise the theme of anthropomorphism of the gods, I had Hephaestus’ adjustments have caveats and faults. In myths, Hephaestus is famed for his skill in smithing (Suidas s.v. Aithaloeis theos) and that the skills he teaches, and by proxy his skills, can produce beautiful work and art (Homer, Odyssey 6. 233 & 23. 160 ff). If Hephaestus is that good at smithing then normally he wouldn’t have any problems making improvements to the chariot. However, I decided to assume that the original chariot was already perfect and that tinkering with it would prove to have side effects even for a god-like Hephaestus. This preserves Hephaestus’ divine skill in smithing, by improving something that one normally can’t, but also anthropomorphises him since it shows that even gods can’t improve something powerful like the sun chariot.
The last element I modified was, of course, the chariot itself. Since this is a modern myth, a car would be the best interpretation of the chariot since they are both land vehicles, and cars account for 30% of greenhouse gas emissions in the US (Holmén and Sentoff) which is a big contributor to global warming.
In terms of the characters and setting, I mostly kept it consistent with ancient myths. The setting is in the modern-day and so modern vehicles are used. Concepts like ozone layers and greenhouse gases are known and used in the myth. The gods and Helios are mostly true to themselves with the minor change in Helios caring a bit more for the planet than Phaethon. In terms of the mortals, I had Phaethon be a bit more rash and reckless than the original to make it more believable as to why he lost control of the car and also to give him a bit more personality. As for Mikkos, he is a character that I made up to set up Phaethon driving the car. I had him be a child of Hermes as it would be fitting if the child of the god who is known for travelling and athletic contests be challenging others to races and other sports. This goes doubly true for someone who is a child of the titan who owns the famous sun chariot, or car in this case.
Works Cited
Diodorus Siculus, Library of History 5. 23. 2 (trans. Oldfather) (Greek historian C1st B.C.)
Holmén, Britt A., and Karen M. Sentoff. “Hybrid-Electric Passenger Car Carbon Dioxide and Fuel Consumption Benefits Based on Real-World Driving.” Environmental Science & Technology, vol. 49, no. 16, 2015, pp. 10199–208, doi:10.1021/acs.est.5b01203.
Homer, Odyssey 1.2
Homer, Odyssey 6. 233 & 23. 160 ff
Miller, Roxanne Greitz. “Inside Global Warming.” Science Scope, vol. 30, no. 2, 2006, pp. 56–60. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/43181019. Accessed 7 Mar. 2021.
Nonnus, Dionysiaca 38. 90 ff
Ovid, Metamorphoses 1. 750 ff
Ovid, Metamorphoses 2. 104 ff (trans. Melville) (Roman epic C1st B.C. to C1st A.D.)
Pendergrass, Angeline G., and Dennis L. Hartmann. “Changes in the Distribution of Rain Frequency and Intensity in Response to Global Warming.” Journal of Climate, vol. 27, no. 22, 2014, pp. 8372–8383. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/26194172. Accessed 7 Mar. 2021.
Pseudo-Hyginus, Astronomica 2. 42
Suidas s.v. Aithaloeis theos
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