Rhodos (Ancient Greek: Ῥόδος) or Rhode (Ῥόδη) is the goddess and personification of the island of Rhodes and consort of Helios the Sun. Parentage varies widely — Aphrodite, Poseidon with Amphitrite or Halia, Oceanus, or Asopus — and by Helios she is mother of the Heliadae, eponymous rulers who succeed the Telchines. Hellenistic Rhodes worshipped her as tutelary goddess; the rose (rhodon) became the island's badge.
Adapted from Wikipedia, "Rhodos" · CC BY-SA 4.0
I.Parentage
Pindar makes her daughter of Aphrodite (scholia add Poseidon as father); Herodorus of Heraclea names Aphrodite and Poseidon; Diodorus Siculus has Poseidon and the Telchine Halia; Apollodorus calls her Rhode, daughter of Poseidon and Amphitrite and sister of Triton. Epimenides makes Oceanus her father; a scholion on Odyssey 17.208 names the river Asopus. Asclepiades, perhaps misreading Pindar, even gives Helios as her father. The atlas node keeps the oceanid class while recording these competing houses.
II.Helios and the Heliadae
Pindar tells that when the gods drew lots for the earth, Helios was absent and received nothing. Seeing an island about to rise from the sea, he claimed Rhodes with Zeus's consent, lay with Rhodos, and fathered seven sons. Another tradition has Helios dry the overflowing waters and name the island for her.
Diodorus lists the Heliadae as Ochimus, Cercaphus, Actis, Macar, Candalus, Triopas, and Tenages, plus a daughter Electryone. A Pindar scholion equates the last with a younger Phaethon; other notes make Rhodos mother of the famous Phaethon and of Lampetie, Aigle, and Phaethousa. Ovid has Helios forget Rhodos among other loves when Aphrodite curses him for Leucothoe.
III.Cult and image
Rhodian coins famously show Helios, but some also bear Rhodos's head; the rose became the island's symbol. In the Hellenistic period she was worshipped as Rhodes's protecting goddess.