Mnemosyne — Classical Greek Myth Library

On Thrinacia, Helios Hyperion keeps seven herds of cattle and seven flocks of sheep, fifty beasts in each—immortal, never bearing young or dying. Two nymphs tend them: Lampetie and Phaethusa, daughters of Helios by Neaera. Circe warns Odysseus that harming the cattle brings doom; when his starving crew nevertheless slaughter the best, Lampetie swiftly tells Helios. The Sun-god threatens Zeus that he will shine among the dead in Hades unless the crew is punished; Zeus promises the lightning that later wrecks Odysseus’s ship. The sisters are not actors in combat but sacred witnesses and reporters: their vigilance makes the cattle taboo enforceable. Catalogue them apart from the crew’s feast and the storm itself.