Apollo

Also known as: APOLLO / Apol. / Delian Healer / King Apollo / King Phoebus / Loxias / Lycian King / Phoebos / Phoebus / Phœbos / Phœbus · Family: Gods · Role: god · First appears: Aeschylus, The Seven Who Fought Against Thebes — Scene 4

Apollo’s oracle shaped the fate of Laius, who ignored its repeated warning that he must die childless to save the State. At Thebes, Apollo chose the seventh gate for a champion avenging Laius against Eteocles and Polynices. Through Loxias’ oracle, Inachos was commanded to drive Io from her home, while Apollo gave Cassandra prophetic gifts; after she broke her vow, mortals refused to believe her prophecies. He also directed Orestes to pursue and kill his father’s murderers, and warned that killing his mother would free him from blame: “That doing this I should be free from blame.”

Apollo then sheltered and defended Orestes. After admitting that he had urged the matricide, he sent Orestes to Athena’s city, promised to free him as his suppliant, presented him at Athena’s hearth, and sought a lasting alliance for him. He testified that Zeus commanded his prophetic utterances, and through Athena, Apollo, and Zeus, Orestes regained his fatherland and heritage. In other oracles, Apollo foretold Oedipus’s parricide and incest, commanded Creon to purge Laius’s murderer from Thebes, and required the murderers to be found and punished; his prophecies also directed the exile and destiny of Oedipus’s family. He later commanded Orestes to use cunning against his father’s murderers, moved him toward matricide, and ordered him to take Artemis’s image from Tauric territory to Athens, where Apollo testified and Athena cast the equal vote that freed him in the trial.

Apollo’s commands continued to govern Orestes after the trial: he ordered him to spend a year in the Parrhasian plain before facing the Furies’ charge at Athens, allowed him to reign over Argos, betrothed Hermione to him, and directed him to give Electra to Pylades. He commanded Menelaus to let Orestes rule Argos and to govern Sparta as Helen’s dowry, while preserving Helen from Orestes’ attack by Zeus’s authority. Elsewhere, an ancient oracle said Eurystheus would be buried at Pallene and protect the city, and Apollo’s oracle gave Adrastus instructions concerning the marriages of his daughters.