(Φαέθων, the shining), was, according to the most common account, the son of Helios and Clymene, one of the Oceanides, and wife of Merops. Fired by vanity and ambition, the youth had the presumption one day to request his father to allow him to drive the chariot of the sun across the heavens. Helios, after much solicitation from Clymene in her son's behalf, at last yielded; but the audacious lad not having strength sufficient to control the fiery coursers, slackened the reins, upon which Zeus, to prevent his consuming the heavens and the earth, smote him with a thunderbolt, and hurled him from his seat into the River Eridanus or Po. His sisters, called by some Phaethontiades, and by others Heliades, who had yoked the horses to the chariot, and who now lamented his loss on the banks of the fatal river, were metamorphosed into poplars, and their tears converted into amber.