Alectryon (mythology)

Alectryon (from Ancient Greek: ἀλεκτρυών, Alektruṓn pronounced [alektryɔ̌ːn], literally meaning "rooster") in Greek mythology, was a young soldier who was assigned by Ares, the god of war, to guard the outside of his bedroom door while the god took part in a love affair with the love goddess Aphrodite. Alectryon however failed at his job when he fell asleep, allowing Helios, the god of the Sun, to see the two lovers and alert Hephaestus, the husband of Aphrodite, thereupon Ares changed him into a rooster in anger, in an etiological myth that attempts to explain the origin of roosters and the reason why they crow each morning at dawn, warning of the Sun approaching. The myth is not mentioned by Homer, who first related the story of Ares and Aphrodite's infidelity in his Odyssey, but rather it was interpolated later by various authors.