Apollo

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**Apollo** (Greek: Ἀπόλλων, *Apóllōn*; Latin APOLLO) is the Greek god of music, prophecy, the arts, the Sun, poetry, archery, medicine, light, healing, plague, knowledge, truth, herds and flocks, city-building, male beauty, and protection of young boys.

Of the main twelve (or thirteen) Olympian gods, he is the only one whose Roman equivalent shares his name, although they also give him a roman equivalent whith is the Roman God Phoebus.

## Overview

Apollo is the son of Zeus and Leto, the twin brother of Artemis, and the patron god of Delphi. Apollo is noted for his adventurous love life; he took many lovers, both female and male; the most notable among them is the Spartan prince Hyacinthus and the Naiad nymph Daphne.

## Miscellaneous Myths

### Hyacinthus

Apollo met and fell in love with the beautiful Spartan prince Hyacinthus. Despite Apollo's rather bad record with relationships (shown humorously in a montage), Hyacinthus actually fell for him as well, and the two entered a relationship. Unfortunately for both, the west wind god, Zephyrus, had also fallen for Hyacinthus and didn't take rejection well; so one day, as Apollo and Hyacinthus were playing a game of discus, Zephyrus sent the discus Apollo threw right into Hyacinthus' head, killing him. Apollo, distraught, turned Hyacinthus into a beautiful flower before he died. He then went to Dionysus's bar along with Hermes to drown his sorrows.

### Niobe

In the video *Miscellaneous Myths: Niobe*, it's explained how the goddess Leto, after a short fling with Zeus, fell pregnant and was forbidden by Hera to give birth, who additionally kidnapped Eileithyia, the goddess of childbirth. Leto eventually gave birth on Delos, first to Artemis, and nine whole days later to Apollo.

Later, when Niobe, Queen of Thebes, insulted Leto by claiming to be better than her, as she had fourteen children to Leto's two, Leto summoned her twins and asked them to avenge her. Apollo and Artemis answered by shooting Niobe's sons and daughters dead. Niobe's husband Amphion then killed himself, while Niobe herself turned into a weeping rock.

### The Theogony

Apollo appears as a baby, along with his twin sister Artemis, in the arms of their father Zeus, as the results of Zeus's fling with Leto, their mother.

### Ares' Abduction

Apollo has no active role in this myth, but he is seen battling the Aloadae when they invade Olympus, and afterwards he is seen tending to Dionysus's wounds.

### Hades and Persephone

Red claims that while some of Apollo's lover die tragically after fulfilling some relationship with him, most die trying to outrun him; the stories of Hyacinthus, Daphne and Cassandra are alluded to.

### Orion

Apollo is featured briefly in the video; in one version, where the giant Orion made great friends with Apollo's twin sister Artemis, Apollo feared that their feelings are romantic, and, disapproving of that, tricked Artemis into killing Orion by betting that she couldn't hit a dark spot in the sea with her arrow. Turns out she could, and that dark spot was in fact Orion. Later Artemis turned Orion into a constellation, and threatened Apollo that if he kills one of her friends again, she'd tell their mother that he didn't do right by Calliope.

### Pride Tales

Apollo features in the *Phoebus, Parthenos* segment. It's noted that he is a god who fell in love with both men and women, with his list of male lovers only being surpassed by his list of female lovers. The example of his romance with King Admetus is brought up; having killed a monster he wasn't supposed to kill, Apollo was made mortal and forced to serve the mortal King Admetus for a year. He doted so much on the king it embarrassed the other Olympians, and when time came for Admetus to marry, Apollo helped him by giving him a chariot.

### Endymion

Apollo appears briefly, as it’s explained how he came to be conflated with Helios (the sun god), the way his sister Artemis was conflated with Helios’s sister Selene (the moon goddess). The transition was smoother compared to that of their sisters, since “Apollo’s primary defining feature was that he liked music and pretty girls, not exactly the most restrictive characterization”, whereas the girls ran into some characterization issues, as Artemis was a sworn virgin, while Selene was not. This is depicted as Apollo happily holding the Sun (with Helios entirely out of the picture) while Artemis and Selene fight over the Moon.

### Hermes

In Hermes' video, the myth about the god's childhood is shown; Hermes, the very day he was born, escaped from the cave he and his mother Maia lived, and, feeling hungry, stole Apollo's cattle, sacrificed and ate some. In the morning, Apollo became aware of the theft, and tracked down Hermes, demanding to have his cows back; Hermes denied having stolen anything from him, so Apollo took him to Zeus, who ordered him to return Apollo's cattle. Hermes agreed, but on the way, Apollo became so impressed by Hermes' playing of the lyre, he exchanged the cattle for the lyre, and additionally gifted him his caduceus. Apollo is also sometimes the father of Pan, traditionally the son of Hermes.

### King Midas

Once Pan boasted that his music was even better than Apollo's, and Apollo accepted the challenge and entered a music contest with Pan. Pan first played a lovely rustic melody with his panpipes, but Apollo, classically trained and the god of music itself, entranced everyone with his breath-taking playing of his lyre. The judge, the mountain-god Tmolus, easily declared Apollo the winner. But Midas, one of those who witness the contest, disagreed and claimed that Pan was the better musician. Apollo then said that Midas must have ass' ears to think that; and truly enough, the moment he said those words, Midas' human ears turned to those of a donkey.

## Classics Summarized

### The Iliad

During the Trojan War, Apollo supported the Trojans. When Agamemnon took Chryseis, the daughter of Apollo's priest Chryses as his concubine, and refused to give her back, Chryses prayed to Apollo. Apollo then rained the Greek camp with his arrows, sending them a deadly plague.

Sometime later, Aphrodite fled the battlefield wounded by Diomedes, leaving Apollo to sweep down and grab her son Aeneas, whom Aphrodite had dropped as she left. Diomedes tried to stab Apollo as well, but Apollo intimidated him and thus Diomedes backed off. Much later, Apollo was chased down by Achilles, who was in a rage over Patroclus' death.

### The Odyssey

Apollo doesn't have much of a role in the Odyssey; he appears in the council of the gods along with the other Olympians.

### The Oresteia

In the second part of the trilogy, the long-exiled Orestes has returned to Mycenae to kill his mother Clytemnestra, per the instructions of Apollo’s oracle. Orestes does kill Clytemnestra, but is then relentlessly chased by the Furies, goddesses of retribution and punishment. At some point Apollo knocks them out with a spell, so Orestes can take a rest from the manhunt.

Eventually, Orestes arrives in Athens, and Athena decides to settle the matter via trial; Athena takes the part of the judge, while Apollo offers to be Orestes’ defense attorney (sporting Apollo Justice hair). The Furies try to get Orestes to confess that he did murder Clytemnestra, which he does, but adds that technically she wasn’t his mother. Apollo explains that mothers don’t have any claim to their children, as only the fathers are related to them; mothers are simply ‘walking fetus incubators’ as Red puts it, who also says that ‘that concept hasn’t aged very well.’

Nevertheless, Apollo’s argument is accepted by Athena and the jury, and Orestes is thus acquitted. Orestes is finally free to go, while the Furies stay with Athena to help her establish the Athenian judiciary system she's come up with and are dubbed the Eumenides.

### Dante's Inferno

In the eighth circle of Hell, Dante and Virgil find Tiresias, who was given the gift of prophecy from Apollo himself.

## Legends Summarized

### Underworld Tales

In the Greek segment of the video, Apollo appears in the Orpheus and Eurydice myth. Orpheus, after losing his beloved Eurydice, only played sad songs on his lyre bumming everyone else out. Apollo, having enough of this, ordered Orpheus, his son, to go to the Underworld and bring Eurydice back.

## Love life

Apollo is famous for his stormy love life, which has given birth to various amusing tales. His lovers include:

* Acantha, a nymph who scratched Apollo's face and turned into a cactus.
* Admetus, a mortal king whom he served for a year and then helped win a chariot race.
* Bolina, a woman who threw herself off a cliff to avoid him.
* Branchus, a mortal shepherd who gained the skill of prophecy by Apollo.
* Cassandra, a princess who rejected him and was cursed to never be believed.
* Castalia, a woman who ran away from him and turned into a spring.
* Daphne, a nymph who ran away from him and turned into a laurel tree.
* Hyacinthus, who was killed in a discus accident and turned into a flower.
* Leucates, a man who threw himself off a cliff to avoid him.
* Muses, the nine goddesses of arts, poetry, and song were all his lovers.
* Ocyrhoe, a nymph who threw herself off a cliff to avoid him.

## Physical appearance

Apollo is a youthful, yellow-coloured god, with long hair. The brooch holding his chiton together has a sun symbol on it. His bow and arrows are the same colour as himself. As a mortal man, he is still young, with golden hair and eyes.

## Appearances

The Iliad

Dante's Inferno

The Aeneid

Underworld Myths

Niobe

Endymion

The Oresteia

Hyacinthus

Dionysus (cameo)

Arachne (cameo)

The Theogony

Aphrodite (cameo)

Hermes

Pride Tales

Orion

Ares' Abduction (cameo)

King Midas

## Notes

1. ↑ No such nymph and no such myth exists in Greek mythology.
2. ↑ Usually already just a spring in Delphi by the time Apollo got there.
3. ↑ "Leucates" refers to Apollo as the god of the isle of Leucas, or a rock in there that people jumped off, but no man that jumped off said rock to avoid Apollo.
4. ↑ Her name is spelled **Ocyrhoe**.