The Probert Encyclopaedia of Greek & Roman Mythology

APOLLO

In Greek and Roman mythology, Apollo was the god of the sun, music, poetry, prophecy, agriculture, and pastoral life, and leader of the Muses. He was the twin child of Zeus and Leto.
Apollo, being persecuted by the jealousy of Hera, after tedious wanderings and nine days' labour, was delivered of him and his twin sister, Artemis, on the island of Delos. Skilled in the use of the bow, he slew the serpent Python on the fifth day after his birth; afterwards, with his sister Artemis, he killed the children of Niobe. He aided Zeus in the war with the Titans and the giants. He destroyed the Cyclopes, because they forged the thunderbolts with which Zeus killed his son and favourite Asklepios.

According to some traditions he invented the lyre, though this is generally ascribed to Hermes. Apollo was originally the sun-god; and though in Homer he appears distinct from Helios (the sun), yet his real nature is hinted at even here by the epithet Phoebus, that is, the radiant or beaming. In later times the view was almost universal that Apollo and Helios were identical. from being the god of light and purity in a physical sense he gradually became the god of moral and spiritual light and purity, the source of all intellectual, social, and political progress. He thus came to be regarded as the god of song and prophecy, the god that wards off and heals bodily suffering and disease, the institutor and guardian of civil and political order, and the founder of cities. His worship was introduced at Rome at an early period, probably in the time of the Tarquins. Ancient statues show Apollo as the embodiment of the Greek ideal of male beauty. Apollo epitomized the transition between adolescence and manhood in Greek male society.
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