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| Belvedere Apollo |
Apollo, in mythology, the son of Zeus and Leto. He was one of the twelve great gods of Greece, the god of the sun, of poetry, prophecy, and of medicine. With his twin sister, Artemis, he was born on the island of Delos. Next to Zeus, Apollo was the most important of the gods of Olympus. When five days old he throttled the Python. With his father Zeus he fought the Titans and the Giants and destroyed the Cyclops. He aided Poseidon in building the walls of Troy, and afterward sent a pestilence on the city because he was cheated out of his pay. There are many points of similarity between Apollo of the Greeks and the sun-god of the Egyptians. The arrows of Apollo correspond to the beams of the sun. His smile was essential to the prosperity of the herdsmen and the tillers of the field. People dying without sickness were thought to be struck by the darts of Apollo. In the worship of Apollo at Thebes, the peasants are said to have thrust wooden pegs into apples, to represent legs and horns, and to have offered these as an inexpensive substitute for sheep. A temple of Apollo at Delphi in Greece was a noted place of resort. His priests were supposed to be entrusted by him with information as to the future. In art Apollo is represented as youthful, vigorous, and graceful, carrying variously a bow, a quiver, a shepherd's crook, a swan, an olive branch, or a tripod. He is represented frequently as playing while the Muses dance. The most famous statue of Apollo is that called the
Belvedere, preserved in the Vatican Palace at Rome. It represents him just after his victory over the serpent, Python, the terror of the people of Parnassus. In his
Childe Harold Byron thus describes this statue:
The Lord of the unerring bow,
The god of life, and poetry, and light,
The Sun, in human limbs arrayed, and brow
All radiant from his triumphs in the fight.
The shaft has just been shot; the arrow bright
With an immortal's vengeance; in his eye
And nostril, beautiful disdain, and might,
And majesty flash their full lightnings by,
Developing in that one glance the Deity.
