Apollo (deity)

Symbols: bow & arrow, lyre

Culture: Greco-Roman

Mother: Leto

Father: Zeus

Siblings: Artemis

Children: Many, most notably Asclepius

Apollo was a figure of central importance and great complexity in Greek and Roman mythology. In various times and places, Apollo was recognized as the god of the sun, the god of prophecy and divination, the god of music and poetry, and the god of both disease and healing. Apollo was the patron god of the Oracle at Delphi on Mount Parnassus, where priests and priestesses would seek knowledge of the future through trances and visions that he was believed to inspire. Apollo was the inventor of the lyre and the greatest lute player. He was a strong supporter of Troy in Homer's account of the Trojan War and its aftermath.

Apollo’s father was Zeus, the greatest of the twelve Olympian gods. Apollo’s mother was the goddess Leto, who also gave birth to Apollo’s twin sister Artemis, the goddess of wild animals and hunting. Leto was a Titan who belonged to the generation of gods before Zeus and the Olympians.

The origin of the name Apollo is uncertain and subject to scholarly dispute. A possible ancient Greek origin would link it to words for sheepfold or assembly. An alternate possibility links the name to the Middle Eastern god Aplu, the god of plague, who later became associated with the Babylonian god of the sun. Identifying Apollo as god of the sun (he is sometimes known as Phoebus) is probably a later historical development, perhaps as late as the third century BCE.

In Mythology

The Homeric Hymns, a very early source that predates the poet Homer by several centuries, identify the island of Delos as the birthplace of Apollo. Zeus’s wife Hera, enraged that her husband had impregnated Leto, decreed that Leto could give birth nowhere that was on solid earth. Hera was jealous and angry and felt threatened by Leto’s stature and liaison with Zeus.

Leto wandered until she found the island of Delos. Because many thought it was not a true island but instead floated on the waters of the Aegean Sea, it thus appeared to be a place not truly of the earth. So here she could give birth without violating Hera’s decree. But the inhabitants of Delos feared the wrath of Hera if they allowed Leto’s children to be born here, so Leto promised that her son would always favor them. She said, "If you have the temple of far-shooting Apollo, all men will bring you hecatombs [large, public sacrifices] and gather here, and incessant savor of rich sacrifice will always arise, and you will feed those who dwell in you" (Rayor, 51–60).

Only four days after Apollo’s birth, Hera sent a serpent, Python, to hunt down and kill Leto for the crime of having conceived and borne children with Hera’s husband Zeus. The young Apollo cornered and killed Python with a bow and arrow at the cave in Delphi that became the site of the Oracle. For this incident, Apollo is sometimes known as Pythian Apollo, and the presiding priestess at the Oracle at any given time was called Pythia.

Bow and arrow figure prominently in other stories about Apollo. He and his sister Artemis slew with bow and arrow many of the children of Niobe, who had boasted that her fertility exceeded that of Leto. Apollo is depicted at the beginning of Homer’s Iliad in the act of raining down arrows infected with plague upon the Greek soldiers encamped before the walls of Troy. It was Apollo who guided the arrow, shot from the bow of Paris, that killed Achilles near the end of the Iliad.

Apollo’s identification as a god of healing is the converse of his role as god of disease and plague. It was his wrath that brought plague and disease to mortals; but when appeased by those same mortals, he would provide them relief. Apollo’s son Asclepius was even more closely identified as a god of healing; the staff of Asclepius has become over time a symbol of the healing arts.

Several stories cast Apollo’s musical abilities in the context of competition. In one such story, Apollo, playing his lyre, decisively defeated the god Pan, who was playing his pipes. The only listener who dissented was Midas, who protested the results of the contest. As punishment for marring his otherwise perfect victory, Apollo caused Midas’s ears to become the ears of a donkey.

Revered for his physical beauty and masterful musicianship, Apollo was nevertheless unlucky in love. He gave the gift of prophecy to Cassandra, daughter of the Trojan king Priam. When she later rejected his advances, he cursed her, saying that no one would ever believe her prophecies. The nymph Sinope demanded that he grant her one favor before accepting his courtship; the favor turned out to be a promise that she could remain a virgin until her death. In other episodes, as well, Apollo was thwarted in love and often responded with vindictive rage.

Origins and Cults

Many scholars claim an eastern origin for the god Apollo, based upon linguistic evidence, including the possible derivation of his name from Aplu and his strong partisanship for the eastern land of Troy in the Trojan War. Though he was revered and worshipped throughout the ancient world, the two main cult centers for Apollo were Delos, marking his birthplace, and Delphi, where he slew Python and became the patron of the Oracle. Both of these sites were associated with Apollo from at least the eighth century BCE, as was an important temple in Thebes that is perhaps even older. Traditions of the Oracle at Delphi record hundreds of oracular statements, the most famous of these being "Know Thyself," which Plato cited as a central goal in the philosophy of Socrates.

Bibliography

Eddy, Steve. Understand Greek Mythology. Chicago: McGraw, 2012. Print.

Ferry, Luc. The Wisdom of the Myths: How Greek Mythology Can Change Your Life. New York: Harper, 2014. Print.

Grant, Michael, and John Hazel. Gods and Mortals in Classical Mythology: A Dictionary. New York: Dorset, 1985. Print.

Hamilton, Edith. Mythology: Timeless Tales of Gods and Heroes. New York: Grand Central, 2011. Print.

Homer. Iliad. Trans. Stanley Lombardo. Cambridge: Hackett Classics, 1997. Print.

Murray, A. S. Mythology: Who’s Who in Greek and Roman Mythology. Minneapolis: Wellfleet, 2015. Print.

Rayor, Diane J. The Homeric Hymns. Berkeley: U of California P, 2004. Print.