by Andrew J. Zintl

Created on: September 04, 2008   Last Updated: October 08, 2008

Apollo is to young men as Ares is to war, Hera to marriage, and Hades to the dead. He is principally the patron god of young men among numerous others, including archery, music, and prophecy. Today, he is most commonly recognized as the Sun god. However, this is a title which only passed to him in later times, presumably because of his association with light, and which belonged to Helios in the era of ancient Greece.

Along with his twin sister, Artemis, Apollo was one of the many children of Zeus. Like the majority of Zeus' children, they were not the children of Hera, Zeus' nominal wife. Since Hera was unable to avenge herself for being slighted in this manner upon Zeus, whose power far outranked hers, she resorted to her usual tactic of persecuting the woman he had slept with. Leto, the mother of Apollo and Artemis, was forced to wander the earth, endlessly searching for a place to deliver her children and being constantly turned away because no one dared to defy Hera by aiding her. Luckily for Leto, she eventually stumbled upon Delos, the wandering island.

Since Delos had no fixed position at that time, floating at random through the ocean, it was entirely deserted when Leto arrived there. Leto took advantage of this fact to bribe Delos into allowing her to give birth there by swearing that the island would experience great prosperity as a sacred site to her son, Apollo. According to legend, four pillars rose from the sea to fix Delos in position as an early confirmation of her words. Thus it was that Delos became one of the two chief locations sacred to Apollo.

The other chief location that was important to Apollo was the site of the famed oracle, Delphi.
The site for his temple there is rumored to have been chosen by Apollo himself because of the great locale.
Rulers and peasants alike flocked to the Delphic oracle, who had a direct line to Apollo, for both practical advice and prophecy from the Greek god of light and truth. Most famously, the parents of Oedipus received the prophecy that he would kill his father and sleep with his mother from the oracle at Delphi and tried to change that fate, but only succeeded in bringing it about through their efforts.

Depictions of Apollo in art and sculpture allude to some of the various myths about him. He was usually portrayed as an athletic-looking young man who is wearing a crown of laurel leaves and carrying both a bow, complete with arrow, and a lyre. As the patron god of young men, Apollo was cast as the ideal image

• 1
• 2
• Next Page >>