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APOLLO
Apollo Belvedere
Arguably the most widely worshipped of the Greco-Roman gods, Apollo (to both Greeks and Romans) was the god of the sun, light, music, health, healing and human enlightenment. His twin sister Artemis was the goddess of hunting and, oddly enough, guardian of wildlife. Originally called Phoebus Apollo, he lived on the island of Delos in the east, where he was born, and Delphi to the north of Athens. He drove the chariot of the sun across the sky and had the power to cure illness and inflict it.
Apollo is viewed as the most perfect embodiment of Greek aesthetics and Greek gods. According to the Encyclopedia of World Mythology: Apollo's image as a beautiful and permanently young man significantly contributed to this modern evaluation, as did Apollo's identification with the sun. His darker sides, expressed through his deathly mastery of archery, were eclipsed in this modern reception. In Greek myth, Apollo is the favorite son of Zeus but has relatively few independent stories; he is connected either with young men and women, or with specific sanctuaries such as Delos or Delphi. In Greek religion, Apollo was the protector of young males and presided over divination, healing, and the complex of music and dance (Greek, molpē), whereas Etruscan and Roman religion embraced him almost exclusively as a healer. [Source: Encyclopedia of World Mythology, Encyclopedia.com]
Almost uniquely among the twelve Olympian gods, Apollo's name does not appear in the Mycenaean Bronze Age texts; these texts only preserve a god called Paiawon, presumably an early form of Apollo's later epithet "Paian." In Homer and Hesiod, however (that is, in the late eighth or early seventh centuries B.C.), Apollo's mythical and religious roles are firmly established, presumably developing and spreading during the intervening Dark Ages of the eleventh through the ninth centuries B.C.
Marianne Bonz wrote for PBS’s Frontline: “Not to be confused with the sun itself, which was represented by a special divinity, Helios, Apollo was nonetheless a solar god. Because the Mediterranean sun's rays strike the earth like darts, Apollo was thought of as an archer-god, whose arrows could either wound or heal. He was also the god of song and the lyre, as well as the god of divination and prophecy. His sanctuary at Delphi was one of the most sacred places in the Greek world for revelation and interpretation.” [Source: Marianne Bonz, Frontline, PBS, April 1998]
Like many important mythical figures, Apollo was a favorite subject of art and literature. Ancient sculptures show Apollo as a handsome youth. One of the most famous is the Apollo Belvedere, a marble version of an ancient bronze statue found in Rome. The great German artist Albrecht Durer used the proportions of the statue to create his “ideal male” figure. Apollo is featured in the poetry of Percy Bysshe Shelley and Algernon Charles Swinburne. He also served as the inspiration for a ballet by Igor Stravinsky. More than twenty operas have featured Apollo as a central figure.
Apollo Symbols
Youthful Apollo is often represented with the kithara Judging from his many cult sites, he was one of the most important gods in Greek religion. His main sanctuary at Delphi, where Greeks came to ask questions of the oracle, was considered to be the center of the universe. Apollo was both a patron of healing and a god of plague. In Homer’s Iliad Book I and the beginning of Sophocles play Oedipus Tyrannos, it is Apollo who is responsible for the death of Achilles. Apollo Smintheus was 'The Mouse God'.
Apollo was worshiped by musicians and poets. He was regarded as the handsomest of the Greek gods and was the master of the Oracle of Delphi. His connection with the sun led to associations with agriculture and titles such as “destroyer of locusts,” “destroyer of mice,” “protector of gain” and “sender of fertilizing dew.” Because Apollo was the god of music a number of theaters have been named after him. He also credited with inventing the flute.
Scholars think that Apollo's may have originated as protector of herdsmen and shepherds. Shepherds were known for playing music to pass the time. hours. Apollo's identification as god of music, archery, and medicine came after his oracle was established at Delphi. Only much later did he become the sun god. [Source Fritz Graf,Encyclopedia of Religion, Encyclopedia.com]
According to the Encyclopedia of Religion: Apollo represents “the light,” both literal (the sun) and metaphorical, as in the light of reason and the intellect. To the ancient Greeks, Apollo represented order, reason, beauty, and self-control. Apollo is typically portrayed holding a bow and arrow, symbols of his role as the god of death and disease. Another common symbol of Apollo is a tripod, a three-legged stool or altar normally reserved for oracles to use while communicating with the gods and predicting the future. Apollo was also associated with the wolf, the dolphin, the raven, the serpent, and other animals.
Apollo Worship
The worship of Apollo was widespread throughout the ancient world. Apollo shrines could be found from Egypt to Anatolia (now northwestern Turkey). The Romans built their first temple to Apollo in 432 B.C., and he became a favorite Roman god. The Roman emperor Augustus was a devoted worshiper because the battle of Actium, in which he gained political supremacy, was fought near a temple of Apollo. [Source Fritz Graf, Encyclopedia of Religion, Encyclopedia.com
Apollo the Healer is mainly attested to in the Greek East from the sixth to the fourth centuries B.C. Slowly, after that, this job was taken over by Apollo's son Asclepius, Generally, Apollo was seen as a divinity that kept away evil. Together with his sister Artemis, he guarded the city gates, and in a crisis, an image of the archer Apollo could defend a city against disease. Private houses were protected by simple stone pillars that were taken as Apolline symbols. In the cities of the Greek East and in Athens, the Apolline festival Thargelia was a festival of purification. The Athenians celebrated it on Thargelion 6 and 7 (the penultimate month of the year), and, as in some Ionian cities, they performed among other rites a scapegoat ritual (pharmakos) in order to cleanse the city before the period of reversal that leads to the Athenian New Year. [Source: Encyclopedia of World Mythology, Encyclopedia.com]
Particularly important was Apollo's connection with the young men, who sometimes wore their hair long to emulate Apollo. The Spartans performed several Apolline festivals in which the young men were central: the Gymnopaidia (Naked dances), which had their ritual center in the singing and dancing of young male choruses; the Karneia — the main festival of many Doric cities — were entirely organized by the young citizens; and the Hyacinthia — the main Spartan festival — featured as its etiological myth the story of how Apollo killed his adolescent lover Hyacinthus with the mistaken throw of a discus. Although the ritual combined grief for Hyacinthus with dance performances of boys and young men, the iconography of Apollo turned him into an archaic warrior who was depicted with shield and lance.
Apollo Stories
Apollo was the son of Zeus and one of his other wives, the goddess Ledo. When Hera discovered Ledo was pregnant she forbade her offspring from being born on earth. Delos had just been created by Poseidon and was still floating around and not under Hera's authority. That is why Apollo and his twin sister Artemis were born there.
According to legend, Apollo grew to adulthood in just four days. To escape from Delos he changed himself into a dolphin and caused a great storm on the sea and then threw himself on the deck of a ship in trouble and led it safely to shore. Having reached the mainland, Apollo set off for an important oracle of Gaia, the earth goddess. A monstrous serpent named Pytho not only guarded the place but also spoke the oracle's prophecies. Apollo killed Pytho and took the oracle for himself. The name of the site was called Delphi because Apollo had become a dolphin {delphis in Greek) in order to reach it. [Source Graf, Fritz, Encyclopedia of Religion, Encyclopedia.com]
Apollo was known for his heroism. When Apollo was a young god man Zeus sent him to claim the oracle of Delphi, the most sacred place on earth and a fiery place where a priestess was told prophecies by Mother Earth. Apollo captured the oracle after slaying the deadly serpent Python, a beast no else would even approach, with a golden arrow. Myths involving Apollo include: 1) Hyacinthus and Apollo, 2) Daphne and Apollo, 3) King Midas and Apollo, 4) The Punishment of Niobe by Apollo and Artemis. See Oracle of Delphi
Apollo also could be vengeful and ruthless. Once a satyr boasted he could produce better music than Apollo and challenged him to a contest. Apollo won the contest, which was judged by the nine Muses. As punishment for being so bold as to challenge him Apollo had the uppity satyr skinned alive.
Apollo in The Iliad
In the Iliad, Apollo is Troy's most loyal and enthusiastic champion against the Greeks. The Iliad opens with a fight between Apollo and Agamemnon, who took captive the daughter of Apollo's Trojan priest. Despite the priest's pleas and offers of ransom, Agamemnon refuses to return the girl. As punishment, Apollo sends a plague on the Greek army.
Temple of Apollo at Delphi
In the Iliad Gods who favored the Greeks included Hera, Athena, and Thetis; Gods who supported the Trojans were mainly Aphrodite, Apollo and Poseidon. Poseidon and Apollo, who built the walls of Troy, both killed thousands of Greeks, either at Troy during the war, or on the sea on the way home. Heroism by Patroclus, Achilles’ friend, resulted in the desired respite for the Greeks — but also leads to his death, which is greatly assisted by Apollo. Homer does not describe Achilles’s death in the Iliad, but later legends embellished the tale by saying that Hector’s brother, Paris, avenged his death by shooting Achilles with a poison arrow in the heel, with Apollo guiding the arrow to the one vulnerable spot in one of his heels,
According to the Encyclopedia of World Mythology, In order to punish the sacrilegious arrogance of the Greek leaders in Troy, Apollo sends a plague into their camp (Iliad 1.44–52); the plague is then healed through a sumptuous sacrifice, purificatory rites, and the singing and dancing of a paean by the "young men of the Achaeans" (Iliad 1.313–474). Apollo had caused the plague by shooting animals and men with his arrows, and thus his archery is an image for the deadly power of the illness. Much later, an image of the archer Apollo, erected in a city gate, was thought to avert disease and evil from the city. His arrows were believed to send swift and unexpected death to men in the same way that Artemis's arrows could kill women. Yet Apollo is also considered the patron god of real archers.
Apollo and Delos And Delphi
Apollo’s purported birth on Delos legitimated the Delian sanctuary — the central sanctuary for the cities of archaic Ionia, which inc — and gave credence to the The Delian League, confederacy of Greek city-states, numbering between 150 and 330, founded in 478 B.C. under the leadership of Athens. Apollo's main monument on Delos was an altar made from the horns of sacrificial goats. The monument stood next to the palm tree that lent support to Leto when giving birth. Apollo’s birthday, on the seventh day the month was the day most festivals of Apollo were held. [Source: Encyclopedia of World Mythology, Encyclopedia.com]
Delphi was the most famous and frequently visited oracle in the ancient world. Its location was considered to be the geographic center of the earth. The oracle's words were said to have been inspired by Apollo and delivered by a local female elder. She was called the Pythia in honor of Pytho, the snake Apollo killed.
Apollo also attracted noninstitutionalized divination: both the sibyl and the Trojan seer Cassandra were said to be his lovers. Most Panhellenic sanctuaries of Apollo were major oracular shrines (Delos is the one exception). Alongside Delphi, the sanctuaries in Didyma near Miletus and Clarus near Colophon in Western Asia Minor were already important in archaic Greece; they remained famous to the end of pagan antiquity. The Greco-Egyptian Magical Papyri refer to Clarian and Pythian Apollo as conferring private oracular dreams.
See Separate Article: ORACLE IN DELPHI: PYTHIA, TEMPLE, VAPORS europe.factsanddetails.com
Apollo’s Love Life
Fritz Graf wrote in the Encyclopedia of Religion: Apollo's form was considered the ideal of male beauty; therefore, he had many love affairs and fathered many children. Despite his attractiveness, there are numerous stories of Apollo's failure to win the heart of a woman he desired. There are more stories of lovers being unfaithful to him. In one story, Apollo fell in love with Cassandra, daughter of King Priam of Troy. In order to win her favor Apollo gave Cassandra the gift of prophecy. When she rejected him, Apollo punished her by declaring that her prophecies would be accurate but that no one would believe her. In another story, he courted the nymph (female nature god) Sinope, who asked him to grant her a favor before she accepted his proposal. When Apollo agreed, she asked to remain a virgin until her death. [Source Fritz Graf, Encyclopedia of Religion, Encyclopedia.com]
Apollo chasing Daphne
One of Apollo's tragic loves was Daphne, daughter of the river god Peneus. Apollo fell in love with Daphne, but she did not return his affection. When Apollo chased her through the woods, she became so frightened that she cried out for her father to save her. Peneus turned Daphne into a laurel tree so that she could avoid Apollo's advances. The disappointed Apollo broke off a branch of the laurel and twisted it into a wreath to wear on his head in memory of Daphne. Thereafter, the laurel tree became sacred to Apollo's cult, devoted worshippers of the god. The laurel wreath also became a mark of honor to be given to poets, victors, and winners of athletic contests.
Some of Apollo's romantic misfortunes involved animals that became associated with him. One myth explains how the crow's feathers turned from white to black. In it, Apollo asked the crow to watch over the princess Coronis who was pregnant with his son; nevertheless, the crow failed to prevent Coronis from having an affair with another man. Angry at the crow, Apollo turned its feathers from white to black. He then asked his sister Artemis to kill Coronis. When Coronis lay burning on the funeral pyre (a large pile of burning wood used in some cultures to cremate a dead body), Apollo pulled his unborn son Asclepius from her body. The boy later became the god of healing.
Apollo’s Male Lover Hyacinthus
John Adams of CSUN wrote: “Apollo Hyakinthios is a cult dedicated to Apollo in Laconia (Sparta). The shrine was at Amyclae, some 5 miles south of Sparta town. The shrine is described in Pausanias' Description of Greece (II cent. A.D.) Book III. The explanation of the cult name is given in the story of the handsome young Spartan Prince Hyakinthos, with whom Apollo fell in love. See: Ovid Metamorphoses X. 162-219; Apollodorus I. 1.1-2; Pausanias IV. 19. [Source: John Adams, California State University, Northridge (CSUN), “Classics 315: Greek and Roman Mythology class]
It seems, in fact, that Hyakinthos was the first young man in history with whom another male (the Poet Thamyras) fell in love. Thamyras boasted that he could surpass the Muses in song (cf. Athena and Arachne and weaving, Apollo and Marsyas the Satyr in singing). Apollo jealously told the Muses, who robbed Thamyras of his sight, voice, and memory for lyre playing. (See: Homer Iliad II. 594-600; Apollodorus Bibliotheka I. 3.3; Pausanias Guide to Greece IV. 33.3-7)
The West Wind (Zephyros) too fell in love with Hyakinthos, and one fine day when Apollo was teaching his boyfriend how to throw the discus (a sort of ancient frisbee made out of stone or metal), the Wind blew it off course so that it hit Hyakinthos in the head and killed him. From the boy's blood that fell on the ground sprang the hyacinth flower, which has on its petals the initials of Hyakinthos. [Note that -inthos is actually a pre-Greek place-name ending, as in Corinth, Probalinthos, etc.]
Jean Broc of the Musée de Poitiers wrote: “The month Hyakinthos is found in the calendars of Sparta, Gytheion, Thera, Rhodes, Kos, Knidos, Kalymna, and maybe Byzantium. Despite Robert Graves' statement in the Greek Myths I, p. 81, the order of the month in the calendars and the season at which it fell is, to a large extent, unknown. [See: Alan E. Samuel, Greek and Roman Chronology (München 1972) p. 93.]
Apollo and His Son Asklepios
Apollo and Hyacinthus
John Adams of CSUN wrote: “Apollo was in love with Coronis ('crow'), the daughter of King Phlegyas of the Lapiths (a son of Zeus, brother of Ixion, temple burner)Coronis was unfaithful to Apollo with ISCHYS the Arcadian (!) while she was pregnant with Apollo's child. A white bird, set by Apollo to keep watch over Coronis, informed the god about the infidelity, and (in anger) Apollo complained to Artemis his sister, who used her bow and arrows on the unlucky girl. Too late, when she was already being cremated, Apollo repented of his anger.” [Source: John Adams, California State University, Northridge (CSUN), “Classics 315: Greek and Roman Mythology class]
Apollo “had his brother Hermes (Psychopompos) cut the child, still alive, from the womb of the deceased Coronis. The child Asklepios was carried off by Apollo and placed in the Hero Academy which was run by the Centaur Cheiron. Apollo shot down Ischys, and turned the white bird to coal black (it became a crow or raven: etymological explanation) because it had not kept Ischys away from Coronis.
“When Asklepios grew up he practiced the art of medicine (which he learned from Apollo and Chiron). Athena gave him two vials of Medusa's blood; the one could kill instantly, the other could raise the dead. Asklepius used this latter fluid on Tyndareus, Capaneus, Lycurgus and Hippolytus, much to the annoyance of great-uncle Hades, who complained to Asklepios' granddad Zeus that his privileges were being violated. Zeus killed his grandson with a thunderbolt, but later was compelled to bring him back to life because of his knowledge of medicine which would work for divinities. (Cf. twice-born Dionysos) The most famous sanctuary of Asklepios was at Epidauros in the Peloponnesus.”
Pythian Apollo Homeric Hymn
Pythian Apollo Homeric Hymn III:179 goes: “O Lord, Lycia is yours and lovely Maeonia and Miletus, charming city by the sea, but over wave-girt Delos you greatly reign your own self. Leto's all-glorious son goes to rocky Pytho, playing upon his hollow lyre, clad in divine, perfumed garments; and his lyre, [185] at the touch of the golden key, sings sweet. Thence, swift as thought, he speeds from earth to Olympus, to the house of Zeus, to join the gathering of the other gods: then straightway the undying gods think only of the lyre and song, and all the Muses together, voice sweetly answering voice, [190] hymn the unending gifts the gods enjoy and the sufferings of men, all that they endure at the hands of the deathless gods, and how they live witless and helpless and cannot find healing for death or defence against old age. [Source: Anonymous. “The Homeric Hymns and Homerica” translated by Hugh G. Evelyn-White. Homeric Hymns. Cambridge, MA.,Harvard University Press; London, William Heinemann Ltd. 1914]
“Meanwhile the rich-tressed Graces and cheerful Seasons dance with [195] Harmonia and Hebe and Aphrodite, daughter of Zeus, holding each other by the wrist. And among them sings one, not mean nor puny, but tall to look upon and enviable in mien, Artemis who delights in arrows, sister of Apollo. [200] Among them sport Ares and the keen-eyed Slayer of Argus, while Apollo plays his lyre stepping high and featly and a radiance shines around him, the gleaming of his feet and close-woven vest. And they, [205] even gold-tressed Leto and wise Zeus, rejoice in their great hearts as they watch their dear son playing among the undying gods.
“How then shall I sing of you —though in all ways you are a worthy theme for song? Shall I sing of you as wooer and in the fields of love, how you went wooing the daughter of Azan [210] along with god-like Ischys the son of well-horsed Elatius, or with Phorbas sprung from Triops, or with Ereutheus, or with Leucippus and the wife of Leucippus ... you on foot, he with his chariot, yet he fell not short of Triops. Or shall I sing how at the first [215] you went about the earth seeking a place of oracle for men, O far-shooting Apollo? To Pieria first you went down from Olympus and passed by sandy Lectus and Enienae and through the land of the Perrhaebi. Soon you came to Iolcus and set foot on Cenaeum in Euboea, famed for ships: [220] you stood in the Lelantine plain, but it pleased not your heart to make a temple there and wooded groves. From there you crossed the Euripus, far-shooting Apollo, and went up the green, holy hills, going on to Mycalessus and grassy-bedded Teumessus,”
Delphic Hymn to Apollo
This hymn to Apollo, god both of the Delphic Oracle and of music, was found inscribed on a stone at Delphi. The text is marked with a form of music notation which makes it one of the earliest pieces of music to have survived in the western world. We have no way of determining exactly how the piece would have been performed, but recordings have been made which may convey something of the sound of the work. One version is available on the album “Music of Ancient Greece,” Orata ORANGM 2013 (track 3), and another on “Musique de la Grèce Antique” Harmonia Mundi (France) HMA 1901015 (track 24). Here is a translation of the first part of the Paean.
Apollo with kithara
Oh, come now, Muses, (1)
and go to the craggy sacred place
upon the far-seen, twin-peaked Parnassus, (2)
celebrated and dear to us, Pierian maidens. (3)
Repose on the snow-clad mountain top;
celebrate the Pythian Lord (4)
with the goldensword, Phoebus,
whom Leto bore unassisted (5)
on the Delian rock (6) surrounded by silvery olives,
the luxuriant plant
which the Goddess Pallas (7)
long ago brought forth.
[Source: translated by Richard Hooker]
Notes: (1) The muses were the goddesses of the arts, the word “music” comes from their name. (2) Mount Parnassus was the site of the temple of the Oracle of Apollo at Delphi, the most sacred spot in Greece. (3) The muses were also associated with a place called Pieria near Mount Olympus; but another explanation of the reference is that they were said to be the nine daughters of one Pierus. (4) Apollo. His priestess was called the Pythia, after a legendary snake that Apollo had killed in laying claim to the shrine. (5) There are many different accounts of how Apollo’s mother wandered the earth looking for a safe place in which to bear her child. (6) The island of Delos. (7) Athena. Note how the Athenian poet, even while praising the chief god of Delphi manages to bring in by a loose association the chief goddess of Athens.
Image Sources: Wikimedia Commons, The Louvre, The British Museum
Text Sources: Internet Ancient History Sourcebook: Greece sourcebooks.fordham.edu ; Internet Ancient History Sourcebook: Hellenistic World sourcebooks.fordham.edu ; BBC Ancient Greeks bbc.co.uk/history/; Canadian Museum of History, Perseus Project - Tufts University; perseus.tufts.edu ; MIT Classics Online classics.mit.edu ; Gutenberg.org, Metropolitan Museum of Art, National Geographic, Smithsonian magazine, New York Times, Washington Post, Live Science, Discover magazine, Natural History magazine, Archaeology magazine, The New Yorker, Encyclopædia Britannica, "The Discoverers" and "The Creators" by Daniel Boorstin. "Greek and Roman Life" by Ian Jenkins from the British Museum, Wikipedia, Reuters, Associated Press, The Guardian, AFP and various books and other publications.
Last updated September 2024