Apollo, also called Phoebus, "the shining one", is one of the most important and best-loved gods. He protects light, music, poetry, medicine and prophecy, and leads the nine Muses. He stands for beauty, order and moderation. The Romans adopted him under the same name.
Birth on Delos
His mother Leto had been loved by Zeus and was therefore persecuted by Hera, who forbade every land to receive her for the birth. Only a small, rocky, floating island, Delos, took her in: there, clinging to a palm tree, Leto gave birth first to Artemis and then to Apollo. From that day the island stood still and became one of the holiest places in Greece.
The Python and the oracle of Delphi
While still very young, Apollo killed with his arrows the Python, a huge serpent guarding the oracle of Earth at Delphi. There he founded his sanctuary and the most famous oracle of the ancient world: the priestess, the Pythia, seated on a tripod, spoke the god's answers, which priests wrote down in often ambiguous verse. Kings, cities and private citizens came to consult her before every important decision. The temple bore the mottoes Know thyself and Nothing in excess. The Pythian Games were held to celebrate the victory.
Apollo and Daphne
Struck by one of Eros's arrows, Apollo fell in love with the nymph Daphne, who had been hit by an arrow that makes love flee. Chased by the god, Daphne called on her father, the river Peneus, who turned her into a laurel tree. Ever since, Apollo wears a laurel wreath, which became the prize for poets and victors: hence the words laureate and the Italian laurea, a degree. See metamorphoses.
Other myths
- Marsyas: the satyr challenged Apollo to a music contest, flute against lyre; he lost and was terribly punished for his arrogance.
- Niobe: the queen boasted of having more children than Leto; Apollo and Artemis shot all her children, and Niobe, frozen by grief, became a weeping rock.
- Asclepius: his son became the god of medicine, worshipped at Epidaurus.
- In the Trojan War Apollo protects the Trojans and guides the arrow of Paris that kills Achilles.
See also the twelve Olympians and the Muses.