Apollo--Renaissance God

Greetings fans of Greek and Roman mythology! After having recently written about the Olympians Zeus, Hera, Demeter, Poseidon, and Artemis, with a serpentine digression upon Medusa, I will now return to the twin brother of Artemis, the god Apollo. Apollo was probably the god with the most attributes. One might wonder, even with his godlike status, how Apollo could be the god of light, music, archery, civilization, law, medicine, prophecy, truth, poetry, and even the "arts;" how did he even have time to breathe? Even with the blood of the gods, ichor, flowing through his veins, and imbibing nectar, the drink of the gods, and eating ambrosia, the food of the gods, you'd think he wouldn't have enough energy. All the arts??? Might I suggest that today Apollo would be the god of multitasking?

Apollo was the twin son of the god Zeus and the Titan Leto. Apollo's Roman name is very difficult to remember, as it is often confused with his Greek name. Take a moment now to breathe as I present this difficult name to thee. OK. Now. "A" "P" "O" "L" "L" "O".

On to simpler matters.

Apollo probably had the most influential oracle of the ancient world. His shrine at Delphi (at Mount Parnassus in the Phocis valley), of which he was the patron, was visited by people in the ancient world who just had to know what was going to happen (life in the ancient world was highly unpredictable). The seeress (or the Oracle) Pythia would sit upon a tripod over a crack in the earth at Delphi, where she would interpret the messages from Apollo for those wanting to know their future by breathing in the fumes from the depths of the earth. Delphi itself was founded when Apollo slew the monster Python (and hence the name of the seeress). Delphi was considered by the Greeks to be the omphalos of their culture, or the very spiritual center of the Greek world. By the bye, omphaloskepsis is the meditation upon one's navel, the "center" of one's body, or torso.

Of course, some of the prophecies or prognostications by Pythia went rather awry. When Acrisius heard that his grandson would one day kill him, he imprisoned his only daughter Danae in a tower of bronze, the shining light of which unluckily caught the eye of Zeus. Perseus never would have been born had Acrisius not tried to either counteract the prophecy, or had not gone to Delphi in the first place. Years later, Perseus was in a discus-throwing contest, threw the discus so far that it sailed out of the arena, and hit ... guess who on the head, killing him at once. Some believed that the voice of the Oracle (Pythia) brought about mortals creating their own destiny.

Once Apollo had his beautiful cattle stolen by his mischievous half-brother Hermes (after being just born, no less). Apollo complained to Maia, the mother of Hermes, who said that Hermes couldn't have stolen the cattle since he had remained sleeping by her side all night, wound up in swaddling clothes (Hermes was VERY sneaky, being the god of thieves); Hermes began to play his lyre, soothing the arguing gods, and Apollo offered all his cattle for the lyre that Hermes had invented from the intestines of a cow + the shell of a tortoise. So that is how Apollo got his lyre, with which he is often pictured as god of music. Hermes also traded the pan pipes and flute (which he also invented) for Apollo's caduceus. The caduceus was a magical wand with two snakes entwining on a rod with two wings sprouting from the top. It is NOT a medical symbol, which is properly the rod of Asclepius, the god of healing, which only has one snake entwining on a rod.

Although Apollo is often referred to as the god of the sun, he is actually the god of the light of the sun, or the power behind its radiance; in much the same way, his sister, Artemis, is the goddess of the light of the moon, whereas Selene was the goddess of the moon proper. Note that the god of the sun was Helios (whence helium, the product of fusion which fuels the sun). The Greeks envisioned the sun as a flaming chariot driven by two horses, with Helios as its charioteer.

There are many tales about Apollo, but probably the most famous is that of the nymph Daphne. Apollo was madly in love with Daphne, who would have nothing to do with him. One day, frustrated in his love for her, Apollo began to chase her through the woods; Daphne screamed in terror to her father, the river Peneus, who rose up, took human form, and transformed Daphne into a laurel tree. Apollo decided to use the laurel as his sacred tree, and put a wreath of its leaves on his head. Besides the laurel wreath, his other symbols were the bow and arrow, lyre, and raven.

The direct opposite of Apollo was the god Dionysus. Whereas Apollo was interested in law and order, Dionysus was most concerned with lawlessness and disorder (and probably wasn't as stiff and certainly had much more fun). More about Dionysus in the future. Philosophers, such as Nietzsche, love to bandy about the terms Apollonian and Dionysian to describe states of order vs. chaos.

**Mythology Book Corner**  Speaking of the Apollo of mythographers, Robert Graves has written what is definitely the most comprehensive guide to Greek mythology today, entitled:  The Greek Myths.  It is available in both hardcover and paperback.  The hardcover edition of The Greek Myths is hard to find these days.

My next post will feature another of the primary 6 Olympians: the goddess Hestia, about whom there are the fewest number of stories (great pitch, huh?).


Interested in improving your vocabulary? Find out how the Greek and Latin languages gave rise to most of the English language at www.wordempire.com.

Artemis--Cold Goddess of the Hunt, Chastity, and the Moon

Greetings fans of Greek and Roman mythology! After having recently written about the Olympians Zeus, Hera, Demeter, and Poseidon, and with a serpentine digression upon Medusa, one of the children of Poseidon, I will now return to the Olympian goddess Artemis, twin of Apollo. Artemis (Roman name Diana) was the child of Zeus and the Titaness Leto (Roman Latona). Artemis was the goddess of the hunt, chastity, and the moon (that is, the light of the moon; Selene was the goddess of the moon itself, just like Apollo was the god of the light of the sun, whereas Helios was the god of the sun chariot). She was probably the most unforgiving goddess or god for that matter; if you got on her bad side, you were doomed, often for the slightest offenses.

Consider the story of Actaeon. Actaeon was an innocent hunter out with his hunting dogs one day. He had no luck all morning long, and it was a hot day. Becoming thirsty, he went off to look for a cool drink, and came upon a pool in which the goddess Artemis happened to be taking a bath along with her handmaidens. Artemis immediately detected the innocent Actaeon, and became so enraged that she turned him into a stag; at that point Actaeon's hunting dogs, no longer recognizing their master, began to bay and chased after the stag, which they soon cornered, caught, and tore to pieces. Good grief.

Unfair, you say? Well, yes. Artemis can easily be viewed as a goddess who embodies the unfairness of life. She is cold (consider the light of the moon which gives no heat, the idea of chastity, and the idea of killing in cold blood during the hunt). Stone cold. In fact, she symbolizes those times during one's life when nothing seems to go right, when, in fact, a string of horrible occurrences happen for seemingly meaningless reasons. I remember one year in my life when my wife miscarried twins (5 months along), my wife's brother fell off a cliff, my father died, my grandfather died, and I suffered from a career-ending injury to my leg. I hope that Diana does not decide to frown upon me again for quite some long time, or upon you either, for that matter.
Another example of her cold nature is in the story of Niobe. Niobe, a queen of Thebes at the time, had fourteen wonderful children. One day she met Leto, the mother of Artemis and Apollo; they struck up a conversation, in which it was revealed that Leto only had two children. Niobe rather made fun of her (the more children one had in that time and culture the better) for having so few children (making fun of a deity is never a good idea, by the bye), so Leto, in her rage, sent Apollo and Artemis to slaughter those 14 children with their arrows (Apollo was the god of archery, and Artemis also possessed a silver bow, similar to the crescent of the silver moon); only one child remained after the twin god's killing spree, the daughter Chloris.
Like mother, like daughter.

The deer and the cypress tree were sacred to Artemis; since she was the goddess of chastity she never got married, nor did she bear any children. It was thought that she once fell in love with Orion, but please don't tell her that I said that (Orion preferred Eos, the goddess of the dawn, to her). She did kill Orion--you can tell her that, because she still might be proud of that part of the story.

Artemis was also the goddess who sent the Calydonian Boar to ravage the kingdom of King Oeneus. King Oeneus had forgotten to offer the first fruits of the harvest to her. This precipitated the great hunt for the Calydonian Boar, whom Atalanta at last vanquished.
And so, let us leave the cheery goddess Artemis behind for now.
My next post will focus upon her twin brother, the god Apollo.

**Mythology Book Corner**  If you simply cannot get enough of the Percy Jackson and the Olympians series, why not delve deeper and read Percy Jackson and the Olympians: The Ultimate Guide?  Of course, there's also the fabulous book on tape, Percy Jackson and the Lightning Thief.  If you have a long drive to work everyday like I do, it's the perfect remedy to shrink time.

Interested in improving your vocabulary? Find out how the Greek and Latin languages gave rise to most of the English language at www.wordempire.com.

Poseidon: Sovereign of the Sea

Greetings fans of Greek and Roman mythology! After having recently written about the Olympians Zeus, Hera, and Demeter, with a serpentine digression upon Medusa, I will now return to the Olympian god Poseidon, brother of Zeus, Hades, Demeter, Hera, and Hestia. Poseidon helped the gods win the Titanomachy, or war between the gods and the Titans, with his great trident, or fabulous three-pronged fork, which could whip up huge storms on the sea, earthquakes on land (Poseidon was known as "Earth Shaker"), and make huge rifts in the land into which the sea flowed. After the god's victory, he drew the second best straw and became lord of all the oceans on the planet. In Greek mythology, all rivers had their own god, who could take human form at will, and, of course, father children (for instance, Nike, the goddess of victory, was the child of the Titan Pallas and the river Styx), but Poseidon was the chief god of the big waters.

Poseidon rode about on the ocean's and sea's waves in a great chariot drawn by hippocampi, or half-horse, half-fish. He would wield his great trident above his head, and his son Triton would blow upon a huge conch shell to announce the arrival of his great father so that mere mortals might prepare for his awesome sight upon their shores.

Poseidon, besides being the god of the sea, was also god of horses and earthquakes. His wife was generally considered to be the nymph Amphitrite, with whom he fathered Triton, his primary son. To the Athenians, Poseidon was only considered to be second of the great Olympians to Athena herself, who gave the city of Athens its name. At one time there had been a contest between Poseidon and Athena as to who should be the tutelary, or protective deity, of Athens; Poseidon offered a spring of water, which unfortunately was salty, whereas Athena offered the olive tree. One can easily see why Poseidon lost!

Poseidon was the father of some rather unseemly children. He was the father of Polyphemus, the great Cyclops that so troubled Odysseus and his men until Odysseus tricked him by blinding him (more of that in a future post). He was the father of Pegasus and the giant Chrysaor, who sprung forth from the neck of Medusa after the hero Perseus cut off her head. He was also the father of the only other winged horse in mythology, Arion (Arion's mother was none other than Demeter!). Some sources claim that he was the father of Theseus, but most claim that Aegeus was his father (whose name gave rise to the Aegean Sea). The giants Otus and Ephialtes were also his children.

**Mythology Book Corner**  How can one not read the last of the Percy Jackson and the Olympians books, appropriately entitled The Last Olympian?  Or, for that matter, own all five of them, which are available in a boxed set?  Truly they are fantastic reads, probably the best fiction that incorporates Greek mythology within them.  I save this dedication to the post on Poseidon, since Percy Jackson was, after all, the son of the god Poseidon.  Note that Perseus, however (which sounds like Percy), the great hero that slew Medusa, was the son of Zeus.  

Interested in improving your vocabulary? Find out how the Greek and Latin languages gave rise to most of the English language at www.wordempire.com.

My next post will focus upon the goddess Artemis.