Chapter XXII: Part 22

Among the Romans the worship of Apollo was adopted from the Greeks. There is a tradition that the Delphian oracle was consulted as early as the period of the kings during the reign of Tarquinius Superbus, and in 430 a temple was dedicated to Apollo on the occasion of a pestilence, and during the Second Punic War (in 212) the _Ludi Apollinares_ were instituted in his honour. But it was in the time of Augustus, who considered himself under the special protection of Apollo and was even said to be his son, that his worship developed and he became one of the chief gods of Rome. After the battle of Actium, Augustus enlarged his old temple, dedicated a portion of the spoil to him, and instituted quinquennial games in his honour. He also erected a new temple on the Palatine hill and transferred the secular games, for which Horace composed his _Carmen Saeculare_, to Apollo and Diana.

Apollo was represented more frequently than any other deity in ancient art. As Apollo Agyieus he was shown by a simple conic pillar; the Apollo of Amyclae was a pillar of bronze surmounted by a helmeted head, with extended arms carrying lance and bow. There were also rude idols of him in wood (_xoana_), in which the human form was scarcely recognizable. In the 6th century, his statues of stone were naked, stiff and rigid in attitude, shoulders square, limbs strong and broad, hair falling down the back. In the riper period of art the type is softer, and Apollo appears in a form which seeks to combine manhood and eternal youth. His long hair is usually tied in a large knot above his forehead. The most famous statue of him is the Apollo Belvidere in the Vatican (found at Frascati, 1455), an imitation belonging to the early imperial period of a bronze statue representing him, with aegis in his left hand, driving back the Gauls from his temple at Delphi (279 B.C.), or, according to another view, fighting with the Pythian dragon. In the Apollo Citharoedus or Musagetes in the Vatican, he is crowned with laurel and wears the long, flowing robe of the Ionic bard, and his form is almost feminine in its fulness; in a statue at Rome of the older and more vigorous type he is naked and holds a lyre in his left hand; his right arm rests upon his head, and a griffin is seated at his side. The Apollo Sauroctonus (after Praxiteles), copied in bronze at the Villa Albani in Rome and in marble at Paris, is a naked, youthful, almost boyish figure, leaning against a tree, waiting to strike a lizard climbing up the trunk. The gigantic statue of Helios (the sun-god), "the colossus of Rhodes," by Chares of Lindus, celebrated as one of the seven wonders of the world, is unknown to us. Bas-reliefs and painted vases reproduce the contests of Apollo with Tityus, Marsyas, and Heracles, the slaughter of the daughters of Niobe, and other incidents in his life.

AUTHORITIES.--F.L.W. Schwartz, _De antiquissima Apollinis Natura_
(Berlin, 1843); J.A. Schonborn, _Uber das Wesen Apollons_ (Berlin,
1854); A. Milchhofer, _Uber den attischen Apollon_ (Munich, 1873); T.
Schreiber, _Apollon Pythoktonos_ (Leipzig, 1879); W.H. Roscher,
_Studien zur vergleichenden Mythologie der Griechen und Romer_, i.
(Leipzig, 1873); R. Hecker, _De Apollinis apud Romanos Cultu_
(Leipzig, 1879); G. Colin, _Le Culte d'Apollon pythien a Athenes_
(1905); L. Dyer, _The Gods in Greece_ (1891); articles in
Pauly-Wissowa's _Realencyclopadie_, W.H. Roscher's _Lexikon der
Mythologie_, and Daremberg and Saglio's _Dictionnaire des antiquites_;
L. Preller, _Griechische und romische Mythologie_ (4th ed. by C.
Robert); J. Marquardt, _Romische Staalsverwaltung_, iii.; G. Wissowa
_Religion und Kultus der Romer_ (1902); D. Bassi, _Saggio di
Bibliografia mitologica_, i. _Apollo_ (1896); L. Farnell, _Cults of
the Greek States_, iv. (1907); O. Gruppe, _Griechische Mythologie und
Religionsgeschichte_, ii. (1906). In the article GREEK ART, fig. 9
represents a bearded Apollo, playing on the lyre, in a chariot drawn
by winged horses; fig. 55 (pl. ii.) Apollo of the Belvidere; fig. 76
(pl. v.) a nude and roughly executed colossal figure of the god.
(J. H. F.)

FOOTNOTES:

[1] Hesychius; who also gives the explanation [Greek: sekos]
("fold"), in which case Apollo would be the god of flocks and herds.

[2] The authority for the quantity is Isyllus.

[3] Hence some have derived "Apollo" from [Greek: apollunai], "to
destroy."

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