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Apollo
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In Greek and Roman mythology, Apollo (in Greek, ?p?????—Apóllon or ?p?????—Apellon), is one of the most important and many-sided of the Olympian deities. The ideal of the kouros (a beardless youth), Apollo has been variously recognized as a god of light and the sun; truth and prophecy; archery; medicine and healing; music, poetry, and the arts; and more. Apollo is the son of Zeus|Jupiter]]) and Leto (Latona), and has a twin sister, the chaste huntress Artemis|Diana]]). Apollo is known in Greek-influenced Etruscan mythology as Apulu. In Roman mythology he is known as Apollo.
As the patron of Delphi (Pythian Apollo), Apollo was an oracular god — the prophetic deity of the Delphic Oracle. Medicine and healing were associated with Apollo, whether through the god himself or mediated through his son Asclepius.
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362 The temple of Apollo at Daphne, outside of Antioch is destroyed in a mysterious fire.
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In Greek and Roman mythology, Apollo (in Greek, ?p?????—Apóllon or ?p?????—Apellon), is one of the most important and many-sided of the Olympian deities. The ideal of the kouros (a beardless youth), Apollo has been variously recognized as a god of light and the sun; truth and prophecy; archery; medicine and healing; music, poetry, and the arts; and more. Apollo is the son of Zeus|Jupiter]]) and Leto (Latona), and has a twin sister, the chaste huntress Artemis|Diana]]). Apollo is known in Greek-influenced Etruscan mythology as Apulu. In Roman mythology he is known as Apollo.
As the patron of Delphi (Pythian Apollo), Apollo was an oracular god — the prophetic deity of the Delphic Oracle. Medicine and healing were associated with Apollo, whether through the god himself or mediated through his son Asclepius. Apollo was also seen as a god who could bring ill-health and deadly plague as well as one who had the ability to cure. Amongst the god's custodial charges, Apollo became associated with dominion over colonists, and as the patron defender of herds and flocks. As the leader of the Muses (Apollon Musagetes) and director of their choir, Apollo functioned as the patron god of music and poetry. Hermes created the lyre for him, and the instrument became a common attribute of Apollo. Hymns sung to Apollo were called paeans.
In Hellenistic times, especially during the third century BC, as Apollo Helios he became identified among Greeks with Helios, god of the sun, and his sister Artemis|Diana]]) similarly equated with Selene, goddess of the moon. In Latin texts, however, Joseph Fontenrose declared himself unable to find any conflation of Apollo with Sol among the Augustan poets of the first century, not even in the conjurations of Aeneas and Latinus in Aeneid XII (161-215). Apollo and Helios/Sol remained separate beings in literary and mythological texts until the third century AD.
EtymologyThe etymology of Apollo is uncertain. Several instances of popular etymology are attested from ancient authors. Thus, Plato in Cratylus connects the name with "redeem", with "purification", and with "simple", in particular in reference to the Thessalian form of the name, , and finally with "ever-shooting". Hesychius connects the name Apollo with the Doric ape??a, which means "assembly", so that Apollo would be the god of political life, and he also gives the explanation s???? ("fold"), in which case Apollo would be the god of flocks and herds. It is also possible that apellai derives from an old form of Apollo which can be equated with Appaliunas, an Anatolian god whose name possibly means "father lion" or "father light". The Greeks later associated Apollo's name with the Greek verb ap????µ? (apollymi) meaning "to destroy".
It has also been suggested that Apollo comes from the Hurrian and Hittite divinity, Aplu, who was widely evoked during the "plague years". Aplu, it is suggested, comes from the Akkadian Aplu Enlil, meaning "the son of Enlil", a title that was given to the god Nergal, who was linked to Shamash, Babylonian god of the sun.
Origins of cult
It appears that both Greek and Etruscan Apollo came to the Aegean during the Iron Age (i.e. from c.1100 BC to c. 800 BC) from Anatolia. Homer pictures him on the side of the Trojans, against the Achaeans, during the Trojan War and he has close affiliations with a Luwian deity, Apaliunas, who in turn seems to have traveled west from further east. The Late Bronze Age (from 1700–1200 BC) Hittite and Hurrian Aplu, like the Homeric Apollo, was a god of plagues, and resembles the mouse god Apollo Smintheus. Here we have an apotropaic situation, where a god originally bringing the plague was invoked to end it, merging over time through fusion with the Mycenaean "doctor" god Paieon (PA-JA-WO in Linear B); Paean, in Homer, was the Greek physician of the gods. In other writers, the word is a mere epithet of Apollo in his capacity as a god of healing, but it is now known from Linear B that Paean was originally a separate deity.
Homer left the question unanswered, whilst Hesiod separated the two and, in later poetry Paean was invoked independently as a god of healing. It is equally difficult to separate Paean or Paeon in the sense of "healer" from Paean in the sense of "song."
Such songs were originally addressed to Apollo, and afterwards to other gods (i.e. Dionysus (Bacchus), Helios, Asclepius (Asculapius)) associated with Apollo. About the fourth century BC, the paean became merely a formula of adulation; its object was either to implore protection against disease and misfortune, or to offer thanks after such protection had been rendered. It was in this way that Apollo became recognised as the god of music. Apollo's role as the slayer of the Python led to his association with battle and victory; hence it became the Roman custom for a paean to be sung by an army on the march and before entering into battle, when a fleet left the harbour, and also after a victory had been won.
Apollo's links with oracles again seem to be associated with wishing to know the outcome of an illness. He is a god of music and the lyre. Healing belongs to his realm: he was the father of Asclepius, the god of medicine. The Muses are part of his retinue, so that music, history, poetry and dance all belong to him.
Cult sitesUnusually among the Olympic deities, Apollo had two cult sites that had widespread influence: Delos and Delphi. In cult practice, Delian Apollo and Pythian Apollo (the Apollo of Delphi) were so distinct that they might both have shrines in the same locality. Theophoric names such as Apollodorus or Apollonios and cities named Apollonia are met with throughout the Greek world. Apollo's cult was already fully established when written sources commenced, about 650 BC.
Oracular shrinesApollo had a famous oracle in Delphi, and other notable ones in Clarus and Branchidae. His oracular shrine in Abae in Phocis, where he bore the toponymic epithet Abaeus (, Apollon Abaios) was important enough to be consulted by Croesus.
His oracular shrines include:
- In Didyma, an oracle on the coast of Anatolia, south west of Lydian Sardis, in which priests from the lineage of the Branchidae received inspiration by drinking from a healing spring located in the temple.
- In Hierapolis Bambyce, Syria (modern Manbij), according to the treatise De Dea Syria, the sanctuary of the Syrian Goddess contained a robed and bearded image of Apollo. Divination was based on spontaneous movements of this image.
- In Delos, there was an oracle to the Delian Apollo, during summer. The Hieron (Sanctuary) of Apollo adjacent to the Sacred Lake, was the place where the god was said to have been born.
- In Corinth, the Oracle of Corinth came from the town of Tenea, from prisoners supposedly taken in the Trojan War
- In Bassae in the Peloponnese
- In Abae in Phocis
- In Delphi, the Pythia became filled with the pneuma of Apollo, said to come from a spring inside the Adyton.
- At Patara, in Lycia, there was a seasonal winter oracle of Apollo, said to have been the place where the god went from Delos. As at Delphi the oracle at Patara was a woman.
- At Clarus, on the west coast of Asia Minor; as at Delphi a holy spring which gave off a pneuma, from which the priests drank.
- In Segesta in Sicily
Oracles were also given by sons of Apollo.
- In Oropus, north of Athens, the oracle Amphiaraus, was said to be the son of Apollo; Oropus also had a sacred spring.
- in Labadea, 20 miles east of Delphi, Trophonius, another son of Apollo, killed his brother and fled to the cave where he was also afterwards consulted as an oracle.
FestivalsThe chief Apollonian festivals were the Boedromia, Carneia, Carpiae, Daphnephoria, Delia, Hyacinthia, Metageitnia, Pyanepsia, Pythia and Thargelia.
Attributes and symbols
Apollo's most common attributes were the bow and arrow. Other attributes of his included the kithara (an advanced version of the common lyre), the plectrum and the sword. Another common emblem was the sacrificial tripod, representing his prophetic powers. The Pythian Games were held in Apollo's honor every four years at Delphi. The bay laurel plant was used in expiatory sacrifices and in making the crown of victory at these games. The palm was also sacred to Apollo because he had been born under one in Delos. Animals sacred to Apollo included wolves, dolphins, roe deer, swans, cicadas (symbolizing music and song), hawks, ravens, crows, snakes (referencing Apollo's function as the god of prophecy), mice and griffins, mythical eagle-lion hybrids of Eastern origin.
As god of colonization, Apollo gave oracular guidance on colonies, especially during the height of colonization, 750–550 BC. According to Greek tradition, he helped Cretan or Arcadian colonists found the city of Troy. However, this story may reflect a cultural influence which had the reverse direction: Hittite cuneiform texts mention a Minor Asian god called Appaliunas or Apalunas in connection with the city of Wilusa attested in Hittite inscriptions, which is now generally regarded as being identical with the Greek Ilion by most scholars. In this interpretation, Apollo’s title of Lykegenes can simply be read as "born in Lycia", which effectively severs the god's supposed link with wolves (possibly a folk etymology).
In literary contexts, Apollo represents harmony, order, and reason—characteristics contrasted with those of Dionysus, god of wine, who represents ecstasy and disorder. The contrast between the roles of these gods is reflected in the adjectives Apollonian and Dionysian. However, the Greeks thought of the two qualities as complementary: the two gods are brothers, and when Apollo at winter left for Hyperborea, he would leave the Delphic oracle to Dionysus (Bacchus). This contrast appears to be shown on the two sides of the Borghese Vase.
Apollo is often associated with the Golden Mean. This is the Greek ideal of moderation and a virtue that opposes gluttony.
Roman ApolloThe Roman worship of Apollo was adopted from the Greeks. As a quintessentially Greek god, Apollo had no direct Roman equivalent, although later Roman poets often referred to him as Phoebus. There was a tradition that the Delphic oracle was consulted as early as the period of the kings of Rome during the reign of Tarquinius Superbus. On the occasion of a pestilence in the 430s BC, Apollo's first temple at Rome was established in the Flaminian fields, replacing an older cult site there known as the "Apollinare". During the Second Punic War in 212 BC, the Ludi Apollinares ("Apollonian Games") were instituted in his honor, on the instructions of a prophecy attributed to one Marcius. In the time of Augustus, who considered himself under the special protection of Apollo and was even said to be his son, his worship developed and he became one of the chief gods of Rome. After the battle of Actium, which was fought near a sanctuary of Apollo, Augustus enlarged Apollo's temple, dedicated a portion of the spoils to him, and instituted quinquennial games in his honour. He also erected a new temple to the god on the Palatine hill. Sacrifices and prayers on the Palatine to Apollo and Diana formed the culmination of the Secular Games, held in 17 BC to celebrate the dawn of a new era.
In art In art, Apollo is depicted as a handsome beardless young man, often with a kithara (as Apollo Citharoedus) or bow in his hand, or reclining on a tree (the Lycian Apollo and Apollo Sauroctonos types). The Apollo Belvedere is a marble sculpture that was rediscovered in the late 15th century; for centuries it epitomized the ideals of Classical Antiquity for Europeans, from the Renaissance through the nineteenth century. The marble is a Hellenistic or Roman copy of a bronze original by the Greek sculptor Leochares, made between 350 and 325 BC.
The lifesize so-called "Adonis" found in 1780 on the site of a villa suburbana near the Via Labicana in the Roman suburb of Centocelle now in the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford, (illustration, left) is identified as an Apollo by modern scholars. It was probably never intended as a cult object, but was a pastiche of several fourth-century and later Hellenistic model types, intended to please a Roman connoisseur of the second century AD, and to be displayed in his villa.
In the late second century AD floor mosaic from El Djem, Roman Thysdrus (illustration, above right), he is identifiable as Apollo Helios by his effulgent halo, though now even a god's divine nakedness is concealed by his cloak, a mark of increasing conventions of modesty in the later Empire. Another haloed Apollo in mosaic, from Hadrumentum, is in the museum at Sousse. The conventions of this representation, head tilted, lips slightly parted, large-eyed, curling hair cut in locks grazing the neck, were developed in the third century BC to depict Alexander the Great (Bieber 1964, Yalouris 1980). Some time after this mosaic was executed, the earliest depictions of Christ will be beardless and haloed.
Mythology
BirthWhen Hera discovered that Leto was pregnant and that Zeus was the father, she banned Leto from giving birth on "terra firma", or the mainland, or any island. In her wanderings, Leto found the newly created floating island of Delos, which was neither mainland nor a real island, and she gave birth there. The island was surrounded by swans. Afterwards, Zeus secured Delos to the bottom of the ocean. This island later became sacred to Apollo.
It is also stated that Hera kidnapped Ilithyia, the goddess of childbirth, to prevent Leto from going into labor. The other gods tricked Hera into letting her go by offering her a necklace, nine yards long, of amber. Mythographers agree that Artemis was born first and then assisted with the birth of Apollo, or that Artemis was born one day before Apollo, on the island of Ortygia and that she helped Leto cross the sea to Delos the next day to give birth to Apollo. Apollo was born on the seventh day () of the month Thargelion —according to Delian tradition— or of the month Bysios— according to Delphian tradition. The seventh and twentieth, the days of the new and full moon, were ever afterwards held sacred to him.
Youth In his youth, Apollo killed the chthonic dragon Python, which lived in Delphi beside the Castalian Spring. This was the spring which emitted vapors that caused the oracle at Delphi to give her prophesies. Apollo killed Python but had to be punished for it, since Python was a child of Gaia.
Apollo has his ominous aspects, too. Marsyas, a satyr who dared challenge him to a music contest, was flayed after he lost. Apollo brought down arrows of plague upon the Greeks because they dishonored his priest Chryses. Apollo's arrows of plague struck Niobe, who, excessively proud of her seven sons and seven daughters, had disparaged Apollo's mother, Leto, for having only two children (Apollo and Artemis).
Admetus When Zeus struck down Apollo's son Asclepius, with a lightning bolt for resurrecting the dead (transgressing Themis by stealing Hades's subjects), Apollo in revenge killed the Cyclops, who had fashioned the bolt for Zeus. Apollo would have been banished to Tartarus forever, but was instead sentenced to one year of hard labor as punishment, thanks to the intercession of his mother, Leto. During this time he served as shepherd for King Admetus of Pherae in Thessaly. Admetus treated Apollo well, and, in return, the god conferred great benefits on Admetus.
Apollo helped Admetus win Alcestis, the daughter of King Pelias and later convinced the Fates to let Admetus live past his time, if another took his place. But when it came time for Admetus to die, his parents, whom he had assumed would gladly die for him, refused to cooperate. Instead, Alcestis took his place, but Heracles managed to "persuade" Thanatos, the god of death, to return her to the world of the living.
Trojan War Apollo shot arrows infected with the plague into the Greek encampment during the Trojan War in retribution for Agamemnon's insult to Chryses, a priest of Apollo whose daughter Chryseis had been captured. He demanded her return, and the Achaeans complied, indirectly causing the anger of Achilles, which is the theme of the Iliad.
When Diomedes injured Aeneas (Iliad), Apollo rescued him. First, Aphrodite tried to rescue Aeneas but Diomedes injured her as well. Aeneas was then enveloped in a cloud by Apollo, who took him to Pergamos, a sacred spot in Troy.
Apollo aided Paris in the killing of Achilles by guiding the arrow of his bow into Achilles' heel. One interpretation of his motive is that it was in revenge for Achilles' sacrilege in murdering Troilus, the god's own son by Hecuba, on the very altar of the god's own temple.
Niobe A queen of Thebes and wife of Amphion, Niobe boasted of her superiority to Leto because she had fourteen children, seven male and seven female, while Leto had only two. Apollo killed her sons as they practiced athletics, with the last begging for his life, and Artemis her daughters. Apollo and Artemis used poisoned arrows to kill them, though according to some versions of the myth, a number of the Niobids were spared. Amphion, at the sight of his dead sons, either killed himself or was killed by Apollo after swearing revenge. A devastated Niobe fled to Mount Sipylos in Asia Minor and turned into stone as she wept. Her tears formed the river Achelous. Zeus had turned all the people of Thebes to stone and so no one buried the Niobids until the ninth day after their death, when the gods themselves entombed them.
Consorts and children Love affairs ascribed to Apollo are a late development in Greek mythology. Hecuba, wife of King Priam of Troy, Apollo had a son named Troilus. An oracle prophesied that Troy would not be defeated as long as Troilus reached the age of twenty alive. He was ambushed and killed by Achilles.
Apollo also fell in love with Cassandra, daughter of Hecuba and Priam, and Troilus' half-sister. He promised Cassandra the gift of prophecy to seduce her, but she rejected him afterwards. Enraged, Apollo indeed gifted her with the ability to know the future, with a curse that she could only see the future tragedies and that no one would ever believe her.
Coronis, daughter of Phlegyas, King of the Lapiths, was another of Apollo's liaisons. Pregnant with Asclepius, Coronis fell in love with Ischys, son of Elatus. A crow informed Apollo of the affair. When first informed he disbelieved the crow and turned all crows black (where they were previously white) as a punishment for spreading untruths. When he found out the truth he sent his sister, Artemis, to kill Coronis (in other stories, Apollo himself had killed Coronis). As a result he also made the crow sacred and gave them the task of announcing important deaths. Apollo rescued the baby and gave it to the centaur Chiron to raise. Phlegyas was irate after the death of his daughter and burned the Temple of Apollo at Delphi. Apollo then killed him for what he did.
In Euripides' play Ion, Apollo fathered Ion by Creusa, wife of Xuthus. Creusa left Ion to die in the wild, but Apollo asked Hermes to save the child and bring him to the oracle at Delphi, where he was raised by a priestess.
One of his other liaisons was with Acantha, the spirit of the acanthus tree. Upon her death, Apollo transformed her into a sun-loving herb.
Male lovers
Apollo, the eternal beardless kouros himself, had the most prominent male relationships of all the Greek Gods. That was to be expected from a god who was god of the palaestra, the athletic gathering place for youth who all competed in the nude, a god said to represent the ideal educator and therefore the ideal erastes, or lover of a boy (Sergent, p.102). All his lovers were younger than him, in the style of the Greek pederastic relationships of the time. Many of Apollo's young beloveds died "accidentally", a reflection on the function of these myths as part of rites of passage, in which the youth died in order to be reborn as an adult.
Hyacinth was one of his male lovers. Hyacinthus was a Spartan prince, beautiful and athletic. The pair were practicing throwing the discus when Hyacinthus was struck in the head by a discus blown off course by Zephyrus, who was jealous of Apollo and loved Hyacinthus as well. When Hyacinthus died, Apollo is said in some accounts to have been so filled with grief that he cursed his own immortality, wishing to join his lover in mortal death and made Zephyrus into the wind so that he could never truly touch or speak to anyone again. Out of the blood of his slain lover Apollo created the hyacinth flower as a memorial to his death, and his tears stained the flower petals with ?? ??, meaning alas. The Festival of Hyacinthus was a celebration of Sparta.
Another male lover was Cyparissus, a descendant of Heracles. Apollo gave the boy a tame deer as a companion but Cyparissus accidentally killed it with a javelin as it lay asleep in the undergrowth. Cyparissus asked Apollo to let his tears fall forever. Apollo turned the sad boy into a cypress tree, which was said to be a sad tree because the sap forms droplets like tears on the trunk.
Birth of Hermes Hermes was born on Mount Cyllene in Arcadia. The story is told in the Homeric Hymn to | |
