Apollo

Family: Olympian · Role: god · First appears: Apollodorus, Library 1.3

🌐 Also appears in: The Iliad (as Apollo) · The Odyssey (as Apollo) · The Aeneid (as Apollo) · The Metamorphoses of Ovid (as Apollo) · Plutarch's Lives of the Noble Grecians and Romans (as Apollo) · Greek Tragedy — The Same Myth, Three Voices (as Apollo) · The Divine Comedy (as Apollo)

Apollo, an Olympian god, loved Hyacinth and accidentally killed him with a quoit: “But afterwards Apollo loved Hyacinth and killed him involuntarily by the cast of a quoit.” At Delos, Latona gave birth first to Artemis and then to Apollo, with Artemis assisting as midwife; Hesiod instead names Leto as his mother by Zeus. Apollo was father to Linus, Orpheus, the Corybantes, Dorus, Laodocus, Polypoetes, Miletus, Eleuther, Aesculapius, Troilus, Anius, and Mopsus, by Calliope, Thalia, Phthia, Aria, Aethusa, Coronis, Manto, and others.

Apollo learned prophecy from Pan, then went to Delphi, where Themis delivered oracles, killed Python, and took over the oracle. He and Artemis killed Tityus after his attack on Latona; he later won a musical contest against Marsyas and killed him by hanging and flaying him. Apollo also shot Ephialtes in the left eye, killed the male children of Niobe, and fought Heracles; he had earlier given Heracles a sword’s counterpart, a bow and arrows.

Apollo wooed Marpessa, but Zeus let her choose between him and Idas, and she chose Idas. He served Admetus as a herdsman for a year, and with Poseidon undertook to fortify Pergamum for Laomedon, who refused their wages. When Coronis died, Apollo rescued Aesculapius from her pyre and brought him to Chiron. He promised Cassandra prophetic knowledge, but after she refused his favours, he removed prophecy’s power to persuade. Apollo’s oracles guided Alcmaeon and Amphilochus, he foretold Telephus’s cure, aided in the death of Achilles, sent the sign that devoured Laocoon’s sons, and spared Maro, his priest.