Apollo
God of Light and Prophecy
uh-POL-oh
God of prophecy, music, and healing, and of the plague-arrow, because the god who cures is the god who sends.
The Story
Born on Delos alongside his twin Artemis, Apollo took Delphi by killing the serpent Python that held it, and the oracle there spoke for him for the next thousand years. Its two maxims, know thyself, nothing in excess, are as close as Greek religion comes to a creed.
He is the most civilised Olympian and among the most dangerous. The same bow that opens the Iliad by raining plague on the Greek camp belongs to the god of healing, and his pursuits end badly with grim regularity: Daphne becomes a laurel, Cassandra is given true prophecy and the curse of never being believed.
Did You Know?
- He is the one major Greek god the Romans did not rename. Apollo is Apollo in both languages.
- The Pythia delivered her prophecies from a tripod over a chasm. Geologists surveying the site in the 1990s found faults releasing ethylene, a sweet-smelling gas that produces trance states.
- NASA named the moon programme after him because the image of the god riding his chariot across the sky suited a journey, which makes him the only Olympian with a landing site.