Alectryon (mythology) Alectryon (mythology) Alectryon (Ancient Greek: ἀλεκτρυών) is the Ancient Greek word for "rooster". In Greek mythology, Alectryon was a young soldier who was assigned by Ares to stand guard outside his door while the god indulged in illicit love with Aphrodite. He fell asleep on guard duty and Helios walked in on the couple where Helios then alerted Hephaestus on what Ares was doing with Aphrodite. Ares punished Alectryon by turning him into a rooster which never forgets to announce the arrival of the sun in the morning by its crowing. Both the words Alectryon and Halcyon might have been
Greek mythology and the Near East. Adonis seems to be the Greek counterpart—more clearly in cult than in myth—of a Near Eastern "dying god". Cybele is rooted in Anatolian culture while much of Aphrodite's iconography may spring from Semitic goddesses. There are also possible parallels between the earliest divine generations (Chaos and its children) and Tiamat in the "Enuma Elish". According to Meyer Reinhold, "near Eastern theogonic concepts, involving divine succession through violence and generational conflicts for power, found their way ... into Greek mythology". In addition to Indo-European and Near Eastern origins, some scholars have speculated on the debts of Greek