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| Background | |||||
| In Greek and Roman mythology, Apollo, 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 and Leto, and has a twin sister, the chaste huntress Artemis. Apollo is known in Greek-influenced Etruscan mythology as Apulu. In Roman mythology he is known as Apollo. | |||||
| The word 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. | |||||
| 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 BCE, as Apollo Helios he became identified among Greeks with Helios, god of the sun, and his sister Artemis similarly equated with Selene, goddess of the moon. | |||||
| It appears that both Greek and Etruscan Apollo came to the Aegean during the Iron Age (i.e. from c.1100 BCE to c. 800 BCE) 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 | |||||
| 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 Sites | |||||
Unusually 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 BCE. |
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Apollo 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 (Herodotus, 1.46). |
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| However the writings concerning Herodotus to other sites in the ancient world attributed to Apollo such as Hierapolis Bambyce indicate the deliberate and incorrect attributing of the well established oracles of Cybele (Sibyl) primarily to Apollo. | |||||
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