CC 303: Lecture 6 Outline, September 17, 2002

Apollo

A. Features

• domain: oracle, prophecy, healing, plague, music, poetry, sun, sudden death, enlightenment, sailors, colonization
• attributes/iconography: ideal beauty, eternal youth, lyre, bow, tripod, dolphin, laurel
• possible origins: Lycian plague god
• princial partners:

1. Hyacinthus (Ovid 10.170-239)

2. Coronis (offspring: Asclepius/Aesculapius) (Ovid 2.539-636)

• major myths:

1. Daphne

2. Cassandra

3. Sibyl of Cumae

• Metamorphoses
• Aeneid

4. Marsyas (Ovid 6.382-397)

• personality: youth, order vs. irrationality, gentle vs. vehement, healer vs. destroyer

B. Geography

• Homeric Hymn to Apollo 3 (Part I: Delian, Part II: Pythian)

1. Delos: birthplace, sanctuary

2. Delphi: oracle (adyton, tripod, Python/Pythia, temple)

• Famous oracles:

1. Croesus

2. Themistocles

3. Socrates

• inscriptions: GNOTHI SAUTON (know thyself), "nothing too much"
• games