apollo
byname phoebus,in greek religion,a deity of manifold function and meaning,the most widely revered and influential of all the greek gods.though h** original nature ** obscure,from the time of homer onward he was the god of divine d**tance,who sent or threatened from afar;the god who made men aware of their own guilt and purified them of it;who presided over religious law and the constitutions of cities;who communicated to man through prophets and oracles h** knowledge of the future and the will of h** father,zeus.even the gods feared him,and only h** father and h** mother,leto,could endure h** presence.d**tance,death,terror,and awe were summed up in h** symbolic bow;a gentler side of h** nature,however,was shown in h** other attribute,the lyre,which proclaimed the joy of communion with olympus(the home of the gods)through music,poetry,and dance.in humbler circles he was also a god of crops and herds,primarily as a divine bulwark against wild animals and d**ease,as h** epithet alexikakos(**erter of evil)indicates.h** forename phoebus means“bright”or“pure,”and the view became current that he was connected with the sun.see helios.
among apollo's other epithets was nomios(herdsman),and he ** said to h**e served king admetus of pherae in the lowly capacities of groom and herdsman as penance for slaying zeus's armourers,the cyclopes.he was also called lyceius,presumably because he protected the flocks from wolves(lykoi);because herdsmen and shepherds beguiled the hours with music,scholars h**e argued that th** was apollo's original role.
though the most hellenic of all gods,apollo apparently was of foreign origin,coming either from somewhere north of greece or from asia.traditionally,apollo and h** twin,artem**,were born on the **le of delos.from there apollo went to pytho(delphi),where he slew python,the dragon that guarded the area.he establ**hed h** oracle by taking on the gu**e of a dolphin,leaping aboard a cretan ship,and forcing the crew to serve him.thus pytho was renamed delphi after the dolphin(delph**),and the cretan cult of apollo delphinius superseded that previously establ**hed there by earth(gaea).during the archaic period(8th to 6th century bc),the fame of the delphic oracle spread as far as lydia in anatolia and achieved pan-hellenic status.the god's medium was the pythia,a local woman over fifty years old,who,under h** inspiration,delivered oracles in the main temple of apollo.the oracles were subsequently interpreted and versified by priests.other oracles of apollo ex**ted on the greek mainland,delos,and in anatolia,but none rivalled delphi in importance.
of the greek festivals in honour of apollo,the most curious was the octennial delphic stepterion,in which a boy reenacted the slaying of the python and was temporarily ban**hed to the vale of tempe.
although apollo had many love affairs,they were mostly unfortunate:daphne,in her efforts to escape him,was changed into a laurel,h** sacred shrub;coron**(mother of asclepius)was shot by apollo's twin,artem**,when coron** proved unfaithful;and cassandra(daughter of king priam of troy)rejected h** advances and was pun**hed by being made to utter true prophecies that no one believed.
in italy apollo was introduced at an early date and was primarily concerned,as in greece,with healing and prophecy;he was highly revered by the emperor augustus because the battle of actium(31 bc)was fought near one of h** temples.in art apollo was represented as a beardless youth,either naked or robed,and often holding either a bow or a lyre.