Apollo is a many-talented Greek god of prophecy, music, intellectual pursuits, healing, plague, and sometimes, the sun. Writers often contrast the cerebral, beardless young Apollo with his half-brother, the hedonistic
Dionysus, god of wine.
Leto (Latona) and Zeus (Jupiter) are the parents of the versatile god Apollo and his twin sister
Artemis (Diana), the virgin hunter.
There were 2 main sites to honor him:
- Delphi site of the famous oracle and
- Delos, his birthplace.
Occupation
God
Roman Equivalent:
Apollo
Unlike most of the Olympian gods, there was no special Latin variant of his name, so the Romans also called him Apollo.
Phoebus Apollo
Sometimes the Romans referred to him as Phoebus, either alone or combined, as in Phoebus Apollo.
Sol
As sun god, he was also called by the Latin word for sun, Sol.
Apollo's Attributes, Animals, and Powers:
Apollo is depicted as a beardless young man (
ephebe). His attributes are the
tripod, omphalos, lyre, bow and arrows, laurel, hawk, raven or crow, swan, fawn, roe, snake, mouse, grasshopper, and griffin. Although often associated with the sun, Apollo was not originally a sun god. In Homer, he is god of prophecy and plagues. He is also a warrior in the
Trojan War. [
Gods in the Iliad shows which side the gods favored.] Elsewhere Apollo is also a god of healing and the arts -- especially music (Apollo taught
Orpheus to play the lyre) -- archery, agriculture . His arrows could send plague, as happens in the
Iliad Book I.
Apollo's Mates:
Apollo mated with many women and a few men. It wasn't safe to resist his advances. When the seer Cassandra rejected him, he punished her by making it impossible for people to believe her prophecies. When Daphne sought to reject Apollo, her father "helped" her by turning her into a laurel tree. Apollo sired mostly males, including
Asclepius.
Apollo never married.
Apollo Becomes a Laborer:
Apollo is a healing god. He transmitted this power to his son
Asclepius, who exploited his ability to heal by raising men from the dead. Zeus punished Asclepius by striking him with a thunderbolt. Apollo retaliated by killing the Cyclops, who had created the thunderbolt. Zeus punished Apollo by sentencing him to a year of servitude, which he spent as herdsman for the mortal king Admetus.
Euripides'
Alcestis tragedy tells the story of the reward Apollo paid Admetus.
Apollo in the Trojan War:
The Trojan War was a pivotal event for the Greeks. In the
Iliad (attributed to Homer), the god Zeus attempts to maintain neutrality during the war, but other gods and goddesses choose sides. Apollo and his sister Artemis side with the Trojans in the Trojan War. In the first book of the
Iliad, Apollo is angry with the Greeks for refusing to return the daughter of his priest Chryses. To punish them, the god showers the Greeks with arrows of plague, possibly bubonic, since the plague-sending Apollo is a special aspect connected with mice, sort of an Apollo the mousey god.
Homeric Hymn to Pythian Apollo:
There is a hymn called the
Homeric Hymn to Pythian Apollo, because it was attributed to Homer, that was written to honor the Apollo who slew the
python. There is another Homeric hymn,
to Delian Apollo, honoring Delos, his birthplace.
Apollo and the Laurel Wreath of Victory:
Apollo slew the python, competed musically with another god, Pan, and insulted still another god, the god of love (Eros/Amor/Cupid). As a result of the last, Cupid shot him with one of his special arrows: Apollo was fated to a disastrous and unrequited love. Daphne, the object of his love, metamorphosed into a laurel tree to avoid him. Leaves from the laurel tree were thereafter used to crown victors at the Pythian games.
Apollo's expiation for the crime of the murder of the Python is connected with laurel, as well. [See
Apollo at Delphi.]
Apollo in 20th Century Culture:
Apollo Mission: The U.S. used the name of the Greek god Apollo for NASA's
Apollo Program (1963 - 1972), whose purpose was to take people to the moon.
Who Mourns for Adonais? (1967):
Apollo also made a memorable appearance in the original
Star Trek television series where he was trying to find worshipers.
Apollo and the Sun:
Apollo has many attributes, but he wasn't originally the chariot-riding sun god
Helios. He was god of prophecy, healing, music, archery, light, and truth, the twin brother of Artemis (Greek) or Diana (Rome) who became associated with the moon. Perhaps the earliest reference to Apollo as the sun god Helios occurs in the surviving fragments of Euripides'
Phaethon. Phaethon was one of the chariot horses of the Homeric goddess of the dawn, Eos. It was also the name of the son of the sun god who foolishly drove his father's sun-chariot and died for the privilege.
By the
Hellenistic period and in
Latin literature, Apollo is associated with the sun. The firm connection with the sun may be traceable to the
Metamorphoses of the popular Latin poet
Ovid (43 B.C. - A.D. 17).
See "Apollo and the Sun-God in Ovid," by Joseph E. Fontenrose. The American Journal of Philology, Vol. 61, No. 4. (1940), pp. 429-444.
Apollo in Bulfinch's Greek Mythology
Sources
Ancient sources for Apollo include:
- Aeschylus,
- Apollodorus,
- Apollonius Rhodius,
- Callimachus,
- Cicero,
- Diodorus Siculus,
- Euripides,
- Hesiod,
- Homer,
- Hyginus,
- Ovid,
- Pausanias,
- Pindar,
- Statius,
- Strabo, and
- Virgil.
See
Picture Gallery.
As sun god, he was also called by the Latin word for sun,
Sol.
Apollo's Attributes, Animals, and Powers:
Apollo is depicted as a beardless young man (
ephebe). His attributes are the
tripod, omphalos, lyre, bow and arrows, laurel, hawk, raven or crow, swan, fawn, roe, snake, mouse, grasshopper, and griffin. Although often associated with the sun, Apollo was not originally a sun god. In Homer, he is god of prophecy and plagues. He is also a warrior in the
Trojan War. [
Gods in the Iliad shows which side the gods favored.] Elsewhere Apollo is also a god of healing and the arts -- especially music (Apollo taught
Orpheus to play the lyre) -- archery, agriculture . His arrows could send plague, as happens in the
Iliad Book I.
Apollo's Mates:
Apollo mated with many women and a few men. It wasn't safe to resist his advances. When the seer Cassandra rejected him, he punished her by making it impossible for people to believe her prophecies. When Daphne sought to reject Apollo, her father "helped" her by turning her into a laurel tree. Apollo sired mostly males, including
Asclepius.
Apollo never married.
Apollo Becomes a Laborer:
Apollo is a healing god. He transmitted this power to his son
Asclepius, who exploited his ability to heal by raising men from the dead. Zeus punished Asclepius by striking him with a thunderbolt. Apollo retaliated by killing the Cyclops, who had created the thunderbolt. Zeus punished Apollo by sentencing him to a year of servitude, which he spent as herdsman for the mortal king Admetus.
Euripides'
Alcestis tragedy tells the story of the reward Apollo paid Admetus.
Apollo in the Trojan War:
The Trojan War was a pivotal event for the Greeks. In the
Iliad (attributed to Homer), the god Zeus attempts to maintain neutrality during the war, but other gods and goddesses choose sides. Apollo and his sister Artemis side with the Trojans in the Trojan War. In the first book of the
Iliad, Apollo is angry with the Greeks for refusing to return the daughter of his priest Chryses. To punish them, the god showers the Greeks with arrows of plague, possibly bubonic, since the plague-sending Apollo is a special aspect connected with mice, sort of an Apollo the mousey god.
Homeric Hymn to Pythian Apollo:
There is a hymn called the
Homeric Hymn to Pythian Apollo, because it was attributed to Homer, that was written to honor the Apollo who slew the
python. There is another Homeric hymn,
to Delian Apollo, honoring Delos, his birthplace.
Apollo and the Laurel Wreath of Victory:
Apollo slew the python, competed musically with another god, Pan, and insulted still another god, the god of love (Eros/Amor/Cupid). As a result of the last, Cupid shot him with one of his special arrows: Apollo was fated to a disastrous and unrequited love. Daphne, the object of his love, metamorphosed into a laurel tree to avoid him. Leaves from the laurel tree were thereafter used to crown victors at the Pythian games.
Apollo's expiation for the crime of the murder of the Python is connected with laurel, as well. [See
Apollo at Delphi.]
Apollo in 20th Century Culture:
Apollo Mission: The U.S. used the name of the Greek god Apollo for NASA's
Apollo Program (1963 - 1972), whose purpose was to take people to the moon.
Who Mourns for Adonais? (1967):
Apollo also made a memorable appearance in the original
Star Trek television series where he was trying to find worshipers.
Apollo and the Sun:
Apollo has many attributes, but he wasn't originally the chariot-riding sun god
Helios. He was god of prophecy, healing, music, archery, light, and truth, the twin brother of Artemis (Greek) or Diana (Rome) who became associated with the moon. Perhaps the earliest reference to Apollo as the sun god Helios occurs in the surviving fragments of Euripides'
Phaethon. Phaethon was one of the chariot horses of the Homeric goddess of the dawn, Eos. It was also the name of the son of the sun god who foolishly drove his father's sun-chariot and died for the privilege.
By the
Hellenistic period and in
Latin literature, Apollo is associated with the sun. The firm connection with the sun may be traceable to the
Metamorphoses of the popular Latin poet
Ovid (43 B.C. - A.D. 17).
See "Apollo and the Sun-God in Ovid," by Joseph E. Fontenrose. The American Journal of Philology, Vol. 61, No. 4. (1940), pp. 429-444.
Apollo in Bulfinch's Greek Mythology
Sources
Ancient sources for Apollo include:
- Aeschylus,
- Apollodorus,
- Apollonius Rhodius,
- Callimachus,
- Cicero,
- Diodorus Siculus,
- Euripides,
- Hesiod,
- Homer,
- Hyginus,
- Ovid,
- Pausanias,
- Pindar,
- Statius,
- Strabo, and
- Virgil.
See
Picture Gallery.
Related Articles
The Greek god Apollo is the brother of Artemis (huntress and sometimes thought of as the moon goddess), and the son of Zeus and Leda.
Apollo is associated with the prophecies coming from the Delphic oracle and the laurel, since when he pursued Daphne she was turned into a laurel tree to escape from him.
Apollo had few children and many romances. The healing god Asclepius was one of these children. Because of his gifts, Asclepius not only could, but did bring mortals back to life. Zeus was horrified and so stopped him by killing him.
In
Euripides' play
Alcestis, Apollo has been forced by Zeus to labor as punishment for his grief-stricken misbehavior when Zeus killed Asclepius.
The Romans did not have a noticeably different version of the name Apollo.
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pronunciation (help·info)) (April 15, 1452 – May 2, 1519, Old Style) was an Italian Renaissance polymath: painter, sculptor, architect, musician, scientist, mathematician, engineer, inventor, anatomist, geologist, cartographer, botanist and writer whose genius, perhaps more than that of any other figure, epitomized the Renaissance humanist ideal. Leonardo has often been described as the archetype of the Renaissance Man, a man of "unquenchable curiosity" and "feverishly inventive imagination".[1] He is widely considered to be one of the greatest painters of all time and perhaps the most diversely talented person ever to have lived.[2] According to art historian Helen Gardner, the scope and depth of his interests were without precedent and "his mind and personality seem to us superhuman, the man himself mysterious and remote".[1] Marco Rosci points out, however, that while there is much speculation about Leonardo, his vision of the world is essentially logical rather than mysterious, and that the empirical methods he employed were unusual for his time.
