We as sunlight overspread the earth.
and more in the following (O. iv. 400):—
So often as the sun in his course has reached the
mid-heaven,—and its power (O. ii. log):—
Of Helios, who overseeth all and ordereth all things.
Finally that it has a soul, and in its movement is guided by choice in certain menaces it makes (O. xii. 383):—
I will go down to Hades and shine among the dead.
And on this thus Zeus exhorts him:—
Helios, see that thou shine on amidst the deathless gods amid
mortal men upon the earth, the grain giver.
From which it is plain that the sun is not a fire, but some more potent being, as Aristotle conjectured. Assuredly, fire is borne aloft, is without a soul, is easily quenchable and corruptible; but the sun is orbicular and animate, eternal and imperishable.
And as to the other planets scattered through the heavens, that Homer is not ignorant is evident in his poems (I. xviii. 480):—
Pleiads and Hyads and Orions might.