Apollo阿波罗

Origins

Son of Zeus and the Titaness Leto, twin brother of Artemis. Jealous Hera forbade every land to shelter Leto in labour, and only the drifting island of Delos took her in. Apollo was born there under a palm tree.

Sacred symbols

LyreLaurelSilver bowRaven

Myths

The oracle at Delphi

Only days old, he shot the great serpent Python on Mount Parnassus and founded the oracle of Delphi on the spot. For more than a thousand years its priestess, the Pythia, spoke prophecies in his name.

Daphne and the laurel

He mocked Eros's bow as a toy. Eros shot him with a golden arrow and the nymph Daphne with a leaden one: he pursued, she fled, and at last she turned into a laurel tree. He could only break off its leaves and wear them as a crown.

Marsyas

The satyr Marsyas challenged him with the double pipes, the winner to do as he pleased with the loser. Apollo won and had him flayed alive — the god of light had a cold side.

Relationships with the other gods

• KinZeus

  A clash of father and son

  Apollo's son Asclepius became so great a healer that he raised the dead; fearing for the order of life and death, Zeus struck him down with a thunderbolt. Apollo dared not touch his father, so he killed the Cyclopes who made the thunderbolts — and was sent to herd cattle for the mortal king Admetus for a year.

• FeudHera

  The child forbidden to be born

  Hera forbade any land to shelter pregnant Leto, kept the goddess of childbirth away so that her labour lasted nine days and nights, and set the serpent Python on her trail. Apollo's first great deed was to shoot Python and avenge his mother.

• KinArtemis

  The twins of Delos

  One rules the sun and one the moon, and neither ever misses with a bow. They were fierce on their mother's behalf: when Queen Niobe of Thebes boasted of her seven sons and seven daughters and mocked Leto for having only two, Apollo shot every son and Artemis every daughter.

• AllianceHermes

  The cattle thief and the lyre

  On the day he was born Hermes stole fifty of Apollo's cattle, driving them backwards to confuse the trail. Apollo hauled him before Zeus — and Hermes began to play the lyre he had just made from a tortoise shell. Apollo was so enchanted he traded the whole herd for it. A lawsuit turned into the closest friendship on Olympus.

• RivalryDionysus

  Apollonian and Dionysian

  One is reason, order and clarity; the other intoxication, chaos and ecstasy. Yet they shared one sanctuary at Delphi: each winter Apollo travelled north and the temple belonged to Dionysus. Two thousand years later Nietzsche used the "Apollonian" and the "Dionysian" to explain all of Greek art.

• AlliancePoseidon

  Two labourers at Troy

  The two were once sentenced to serve King Laomedon of Troy: Poseidon built the walls while Apollo herded cattle. When the work was done the king refused to pay and threatened to cut off their ears. Later, on opposite sides of the war, Poseidon challenged him — and Apollo answered that fighting his uncle over short-lived mortals was not worth it.