Reference
- ApolloOne of the chief gods of Greek mythology; Olympian god of prophecy, of the arts and sciences, of medicine, of shepherds and animal husbandry, and since the 5th century bce also the sun god.
Although only a few sources deal with him in detail (among them a 7th-cent. bce hymn attributed to Homer and another hymn of the 3rd cent. bce by the Alexandrian poet Callimachus), Apollo is one of the most beloved gods of the pagan pantheon in the post-antique tradition. He is particularly prized as the god of the Muses and the arts. In the opening poem to Martianus Capella's De nuptiis Philologiae et Mercurii (before 439), Apollo advises Mercury to marry Philologia, who receives the Seven Liberal Arts as a gift from the gods. In a subtle allusion to Apollo's love for the nymph Daphne, who in her flight from the god was transformed into a laurel tree, Petrarch consistently plays in his Canzoniere (1370) with the notion of himself as a poet laureate and thus compares himself to Apollo, to whom the laurel is sacred. Cervantes, on the other hand, parodies the cult of laurel-crowned poets in his epic poem Viage del Parnaso (1614). There the indignant Cervantes makes a complaint against Apollo and denies him a place on Parnassus. - ApolloGreek god who was in time accepted by the Romans. When the Greeks were establishing their colonies in Italy, they dedicated their first settlement, at Cumae, to Apollo. The Italians believed in Apollo as a god of healing and medicine, but he was not given admission into the city of Rome itself because he was a foreign deity. Apollo was, however, a dominant figure in many periods. Although his name was never Latinized, his title of God of the Sun was forgotten. As the god of medicine he could be honored, a custom preserved by the Romans.
AUGUSTUS was responsible for establishing the god officially in the Eternal City. As the young Octavian, he had placed his house and his career into the care of Apollo, and the BATTLE OF ACTIUM, in which he seized power from Antony, was supposedly won because of the god's intervention. In honor of this patronage, a small temple was erected to the god in the imperial palace near the Palatine. Later, on private property so as not to violate Roman custom, Augustus constructed the Forum Augustum, housing three important temples: one for Julius Caesar the Divine, one to Mars, and one for Apollo. The Sibylline Books were moved from the Temple of Jupiter to Apollo's private shrine. Finally, in 17 C.E. at the ludi Saeculares (Secular Games, see LUDI) an ancient festival, prayers were offered to the gods, and Augustus added prayers to Apollo, concretizing the deity's role in the religio-political affairs of the empire. In 67 C.E., as a result of a personal vexation over some divinational insult, Emperor NERO abolished the oracles of Apollo.
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Perspectives
Apollo
Fritz Graf here presents a survey of a god once thought of as the most powerful of gods, and capable of great wrath should he be crossed: Apollo the sun god. From his first attestations in Homer, through the complex question of pre-Homeric Apollo, to the opposition between Apollo and Dionysos in nineteenth and twentieth-century thinking, Graf examines Greek religion and myth to provide a full account of Apollo in the ancient world. For students of Greek religion and culture, of myth and legend, and in the fields of art and literature, Apollo will provide an informative and enlightening introduction to this powerful figure from the past.
The Gods and Goddesses of Greece and Rome
The essential illustrated guide to the gods and goddesses of ancient Greece and Rome, vividly retelling their stories and exploring their origins. Who were the gods and goddesses of ancient Greece and Rome? What did they mean to the people who worshipped them? Although their time of widespread worship has long passed, the Greek and Roman gods have fascinated and inspired writers and artists for millennia. From Aphrodite to Apollo, Poseidon to Zeus, these are some of the most recognizable characters in Western culture, yet there is a much richer past behind famous paintings of the birth of Aphrodite or the bold iconography of Zeus and his thunderbolts. The Greek and Roman gods are enthralling characters in the enduringly powerful Iliad, Odyssey and Metamorphoses. They are immortal and powerful yet also vain, vindictive and vulnerable. Moreover, as manifestations of death, fertility, love and war, the gods are also our key to understanding how the Greeks and Romans saw their world. Philip Matyszak presents this pantheon in all their complexity, guiding us from Mount Olympus to the depths of Hades. Each chapter focuses on an individual god or goddess, beginning with their 'biography' as understood by the Greeks and Romans and exploring the origins of the legends. Matyszak mixes history with vivid retellings of the myths in which the gods have a starring role, from stories of cosmic creation and universal war to disastrous weddings and freak discus accidents. This sumptuously illustrated guide to the gods of Greece and Rome is a must-have for anyone interested in mythology and classical civilization.
The Legacy of Apollo
In The Legacy of Apollo, Jamie C. Fumo presents a series of connected readings of classical and medieval texts that shape the god's pre-modern legacy.
Gods and Goddesses of Greece and Rome
Represents a wide range of deities in the Greek and Roman pantheons, from Zeus and Jupiter to Eos and Quirinus. Includes discussions of the significance of the given deities, the mythology surrounding them, and the forms of worship associated with them.
From Delos to Delphi
This detailed literary and rhetorical analysis of the Homeric Hymn to Apollo treats the poem as a unified work of art in which sophisticated poetic craftsmanship is put to the service of serious ethical thought. By means of parallels from Homer, Hesiod, and other Homeric hymns, as well as from later epideictic poetry and prose, the author seeks to show that the poet of the Hymn follows a coherent ''program'' whose intention is to praise Apollo from his birth on humble Delos to his establishment in a position of glory at Delphi. At the same time, the ''Delian'' and ''Pythian'' portions of the hymn are linked by a complex network of ideas bearing on the ethos of Apollo and the nature of his Delphic oracle. The study takes into account previous scholarship on the Hymn and provides appendices on ''The Question of Unity'' and ''The Cosmological Hierarchy and Apollo's Timai''.
Apollo's Spiritual Cleansing
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After killing Python, Apollo went on a self-imposed exile. After Apollo's return from exile he was given a laurel wreath signifying his spiritual cleansing.
Daphne, the Laurel Tree
- Films on Demand This link opens in a new windowApollo's was deeply infatuated with the nymph Daphne, however, she refused his advances. His persistence annoyed her, so she asked the gods for help and was transformed into a laurel tree. Distraught by what by had happened, Apollo made the laurel his sacred tree.
Delos, Greece: The Island of Heavenly Light
- Films on Demand This link opens in a new windowAccording to Greek mythology, Apollo is said to have been born on this tiny island in the Cyclades archipelago. Apollo's sanctuary attracted pilgrims from all over Greece, and Delos was a prosperous trading port. The island bears traces of the succeeding civilizations in the Aegean world, from the 3rd millennium B.C. to the Paleo-Christian era. The archaeological site is exceptionally extensive and rich and conveys the image of a great cosmopolitan port of the Mediterranean.
Birth of Apollo
- Films on Demand This link opens in a new windowWhen the goddess Hera, the wife of Zeus found out about Leto's pregnancy, she forced Leto to roam the earth in search of a place to give birth. Leto ended up in Delos,a floating island in the Aaegen Sea where she gave birth to twins, Apollo and Artemis.
Online Resources
- Apollo, paenitentia, and Ovid's MetamorphosesThrough a comparison of several examples of divine repentance in Ovid's "Metamorphoses" to their closest human analogue (Apollo/Phaethon and Apollo/Coronis, each in book 2, Apollo/Hyacinthus and Cyparissus, each in book 10) this study attempts both to illustrate the characterization of Apollo in the poem and to raise questions about why Apollo is the god so portrayed. I will suggest that Apollo's paenitentia highlights a key difference between gods and mortals, and also that Ovid may be using the figure of Apollo to remark upon that of Augustus.
- Apollo ApollinarisThe poems of Sidonius contain several examples drawn from classical mythological sources and exhibit references to mythological subjects and figures. As panegyrics for Roman emperors, Sidonius's poems are situated in a highly political context. If Sidonius makes use of antique myths and gods in order to praise Roman emperors, his use of such literary models surely is an intentional and meaningful device. This paper aims to discuss the function of Apollo who, as god of the Muses, is the poet's source of inspiration and an important figure for the poetics of Sidonius's Carmina.