in mythology, a Pagan deity worshipped by the Greeks and Romans. Cicero mentions four of his names: the most ancient of whom was the son of Vulcan; the second a son of Corybas, and born in Crete; the third an Arcadian, called Nomian, from his being a great legislator; and the last, to whom the greatest honour is ascribed, the son of Jupiter and Latona.

Apollo had a variety of other names, either derived from his principal attributes, or the chief places where he was worshipped. He was called the Healer from his enlivening warmth and cheering influence; Paean, from the penitential heats: to signify the former, the ancients placed the graces in his right hand; and for the latter, a bow and arrows in his left: Nomius, or the shepherd, from his fertilizing the earth, and thence sustaining the animal creation: Delius, from his rendering all things manifest: Pythius, from his victory over Python; Lycias, Phoebus, and Phaneta, from his purity and splendor. As Apollo is almost always confounded by the Greeks with the sun, it is no wonder that he should be dignified with so many attributes. It was natural for the most glorious object in nature, whose influence is felt by all creation, and seen by eve- Apollo. ry animated part of it, to be adorned as the fountain of light, heat, and life. The power of healing diseases being chiefly given by the ancients to medicinal plants and vegetable productions, it was natural to exalt into a divinity the visible cause of their growth. Hence he was also styled the God of Physic; and that external heat which cheers and invigorates all nature, being transferred from the human body to the mind, gave rise to the idea of all mental effervescence coming from this god; hence, likewise, poets, prophets, and musicians, are said to be Numine afflati, inspired by Apollo.

Whether Apollo was ever a real personage, or only the great luminary, many have doubted. Indeed, Voctius has taken great pains to prove this god to be only a metaphorical being, and that there never was any other Apollo than the sun. "He was styled the son of Jupiter" (says this author), because that god was reckoned by the ancients the author of the world. His mother was called Latona, a name which signifies hidden; because, before the sun was created, all things were wrapped up in the obscurity of chaos. He is always represented as beardless and youthful, because the sun never grows old or decays. And what else can his bow and arrows imply, but his piercing beams?" And adds, "that all the ceremonies which were performed to his honour, had a manifest relation to the great source of light which he represented. Whence (he concludes) it is vain to seek for any other divinity than the sun, which was adored under the name of Apollo."

However, though this be in general true, yet it does appear, from many passages in ancient authors, that there was some illustrious personage named Apollo, who, after his apotheosis, was taken for the sun; as Osiris and Orus in Egypt, whose existence cannot be called in question, were, after their death, confounded with the sun, of which they became the symbols, either from the glory and splendor of their reigns, or from a belief that their souls had taken up their residence in that luminary.

Of the four Apollos mentioned by Cicero, it appears that the three last were Greeks, and the first an Egyptian; who, according to Herodotus, was the son of Osiris and Isis, and called Orus. Paufanias is of the same opinion, as Herodotus, and ranks Apollo among the Egyptian divinities. The testimony of Diodorus Siculus is still more express; for in speaking of Isis, after saying that she had invented the practice of medicine, he adds, that she taught this art to her son Orus, named Apollo, who was the last of the gods that reigned in Egypt.

It is easy to trace almost all the Grecian fables and mythologies from Egypt. If the Apollo of the Greeks was said to be the son of Jupiter, it was because Orus the Apollo of the Egyptians had Oliris for his father, whom the Greeks confounded with Jupiter. If the Greek Apollo was reckoned the god of eloquence, music, medicine, and poetry, the reason was, that Oliris, who was the symbol of the sun among the Egyptians, as well as his son Orus, had there taught those liberal arts. If the Greek Apollo was the god and conductor of the mules, it was because Oliris carried with him in his expedition to the Indies fingering women and musicians. This parallel might be carried on still further; but enough has been said to prove that the true Apollo was that of Egypt.

To the other perfections of this divinity the poets have added beauty, grace, and the art of captivating the ear and the heart, no less by the sweetness of his eloquence, than by the melodious sounds of his lyre. However, with all these accomplishments, he had not the talent of captivating the fair, with whose charms he was enamoured. But the amours and other adventures related of this god during his residence on earth, are too numerous, and too well known, to be inferred here. His musical contests, however, being more connected with the nature of this work, must not be wholly unnoticed.

To begin, therefore, with the dispute which he had with Pan, that was left to the arbitration of Midas. Pan, who thought he excelled in playing the flute, offered to prove that it was an instrument superior to the lyre of Apollo. The challenge was accepted; and Midas, who was appointed the umpire in this contest, deciding in favour of Pan, was rewarded by Apollo, according to the poets, with the ears of an ass, for his flippant. —This fiction seems founded upon history. Midas, according to Paufanias, was the son of Gordius and Cybele; and reigned in the Greater Phrygia, as we learn from Strabo. He was possessed of such great riches, and such an inordinate desire of increasing them by the most contemptible parlimony, that, according to the poets, he converted whatever he touched into gold. However, his talent for accumulation did not extend to the acquirement of taste and knowledge in the fine arts; and, perhaps, his dulness and inattention to these provoked some musical poets to invent the fable of his decision in favour of Pan against Apollo. The scholiast upon Aristophanes, to explain the fiction of his long ears, says, that it was designed to intimate that he kept spies in all parts of his dominions.

Marfyas, another player on the flute, was still more unfortunate than either Pan or his admirer Midas. This Marfyas, having engaged in a musical dispute with Apollo, chose the people of Nyfa for judges. Apollo played at first a simple air upon his instrument; but Marfyas, taking up his pipe, struck the audience so much by the novelty of its tone, and the art of his performance, that he seemed to be heard with more pleasure than his rival. Having agreed upon a second trial of skill, it is said that the performance of Apollo, by accompanying the lyre with his voice, was allowed greatly to excel that of Marfyas upon the flute alone. Marfyas with indignation protested against the decision of his judges; urging that he had not been fairly vanquished according to the rules stipulated, because the dispute was concerning the excellence of their several instruments, not their voices; and that it was wholly unjust to employ two arts against one.

Apollo denied that he had taken any unfair advantages of his antagonist, since Marfyas had employed both his mouth and fingers in performing upon his instrument; so that, if he was denied the use of his mouth, he would be still more disqualified for the contention. The judges approved of Apollo's reasoning, and ordered a third trial. Marfyas was again vanquished; and Apollo, inflamed by the violence of the dispute, slew him alive for his presumption. See Marfyas. Pausanias relates a circumstance concerning this contest, that had been omitted by Diodorus, which is, that Apollo accepted the challenge from Marsyas, upon condition that the victor should use the vanquished as he pleased.

Diodorus informs us, that Apollo, soon repenting of the cruelty with which he had treated Marsyas, broke the strings of the lyre, and by that means put a stop, for a time, to any farther progress in the practice of that new instrument.

The next incident to be mentioned in the history of Apollo is his defeat of the serpent Python.

The waters of Deucalion's deluge, says Ovid, which had overflowed the earth, left a slime from whence sprung innumerable monsters; and among others the serpent Python, which made great havoc in the country about Parnassus. Apollo, armed with his darts, put him to death; which, physically explained, implies, that the heat of the sun having dissipated the noxious fleas, those monsters soon disappeared; or, if this fable be referred to history, the serpent was a robber, who haunting the country about Delphos, and very much infesting those who came thither to sacrifice; a prince, who bore the name of Apollo, or one of the priests of that god, put him to death.

This event gave rise to the institution of the Pythian games, so frequently mentioned in the Grecian history; and it was from the legend of Apollo's victory over the Python that the god himself acquired the name of Pythius, and his priesthoods of Pythia. The city of Delphos, where the famous oracles were so long delivered, was frequently styled Pytho.

As Apollo was the god of the fine arts, those who cultivated them were called his sons. Of this number was Philammon of Delphos, whom the poets and mythologists make the twin-brother of Autolycus, by the nymph Chione, and Apollo and Mercury. It is pretended that both these divinities were favoured by the nymph on the same day, and that their fires were known from their different talents. Philammon, a great poet and musician, was reported to be the offspring of the god who presides over those arts; and Autolycus, from the craftiness and subtlety of his disposition, was said to have sprung from Mercury, god of theft and fraud. Philammon is one of the first, after Apollo, upon fabulous record, as a vocal performer, who accompanied himself with the sound of the lyre: his son was the celebrated Thamyris. See Thamyris.

There can be no doubt but that Apollo was more generally revered in the Pagan world than any other deity; having, in almost every region of it, temples, oracles, and festivals, as innumerable as his attributes: the wolf and hawk were consecrated to him; as symbols of his piercing eyes; the crow and the raven, because these birds were supposed to have by instinct the faculty of prediction; the laurel, from a persuasion that those who slept with some branches of that tree under their heads received certain vapours, which enabled them to prophesy. The cock was consecrated to him, because by his crowing he announces the rising of the sun; and the grasshopper on account of his singing faculty, which was supposed to do honour to the god of music. Most of the ancient poets have celebrated this tuneful insect, but none better than Anacreon, Ode 43.

Plato says that the grasshopper sings all summer without food, like those men who, dedicating themselves to the muses, forget the common concerns of life.

The swan was regarded by the ancients as a bird sacred to Apollo in two capacities; first, as being, like the crow and raven, gifted with the spirit of prediction; and, secondly, for his extraordinary vocal powers. The sweetness of his song, especially at the approach of death, was not only extolled by all the poets of antiquity, but by historians, philosophers, and sages; and to call a great writer the swan of his age and nation, was a full acknowledgment of his sovereignty. Thus Horace calls Pindar the Theban swan.

Plutarch, who was himself a priest of Apollo, impressed with the highest respect and veneration for him and for music, in his dialogue upon that art, makes one of his interlocutors say, that an invention so useful and charming could never have been the work of man, but must have originated from some god, such as Apollo, the inventor of the flute and lyre, improperly attributed to Hyagnis, Mariyas, Olympus, and others; and the proofs he urges in support of this assertion, show, if not its truth, at least that it was the common and received opinion.

All dances and sacrifices, says he, used in honour of Apollo, are performed to the sound of flutes: the statue of this god at Delos, erected in the time of Hercules, had in its right-hand a bow; and on the left stood the three graces, who were furnished with three kinds of instruments; the lyre, the flute, and the syrinx. The youth also who carries the laurel of Tempe to Delphos, is accompanied by one playing on the flute; and the sacred presents formerly sent to Delos by the Hyperboreans, were conducted thither to the sound of lyres, flutes, and shepherds pipes. He supports these facts by the testimonies of the poets Alcaeus, Alcmon, and Corinna.

It seems as if the account of Apollo could not be concluded by anything that is left to offer on the subject, so properly, as by part of the celebrated hymn of Callimachus, which during many ages was performed and heard by the most polished people on the globe, with the utmost religious zeal, at the festivals instituted to this god.

Ha! how the laurel, great Apollo's tree, And all the cavern, shakes! Far off, far off, The man that is unhallow'd: for the god approaches. Hark! he knocks: the gates feel the glad impulse; and the fever'd bars submissive clink against their brazen portals. Why do the Delian palms incline their boughs, self-mov'd; and hovering twains, their throats releas'd From native silence, carol sounds harmonious? Begin, young men, the hymn: let all your harps break their inglorious silence; and the dance, in mystic numbers trod, explain the music. But first, by ardent prayer, and clear lustration, purge the contagious spots of human weakness: Impure no mortal can behold Apollo. So may you flourish, favour'd by the god, in youth with happy nuptials, and in age with silver hairs, and fair descent of children; So lay foundations for aspiring cities, and bless your spreading colonies increase. Pay sacred reverence to Apollo's song; left watchful the far-shooting god emit his fatal arrows. Silent, Nature stands; and seas subside, obedient to the sound of Io! Io Pan! nor dares Thetis longer bewail her lov'd Achilles' death. For Phebus was his foe. Nor must sad Niobe In fruitless sorrow persevere, or weep Even thro' the Phrygian marble. Hapless mother! Whose fondness could compare her mortal offspring To those which fair Latona bore to Jove. Io! again repeat ye, Io Pæan.

Recite Apollo's praise till night draws on, The ditty still unfinish'd; and the day Unequal to the godhead's attributes Various, and matter copious of your songs. Sublime at Jove's right-hand Apollo sits, And thence distributes honour, gracious king, And theme of verse perpetual. From his robe Flows light ineffable! his harp, his quiver, And Lactian bow, are gold: with golden sandals His feet are shod. How rich! how beautiful! Beneath his steps the yellow mineral rites; And earth reveals her treasures. Youth and beauty Eternal deck his cheek: from his fair head Perfumes distil their sweets; and cheerful Health, His dutous hand-maid, through the air improv'd With lavish hand diffuses scents ambrosial.

The spearman's arm by thee, great god, directed, Sends forth a certain wound. The laurel'd bard, Inspir'd by thee, composes verse immortal. Taught by thy art divine, the sage physician Eludes the urn, and chains or exiles death.

Perpetual fires shine hallow'd on thy altars, When annual the Carnean feast is held: The warlike Libyans, clad in armour, lead The dance; with clanging swords and shields they beat The dreadful measure: In the chorus join Their women; brown, but beauteous: such rites To thee well pleasing.

The monstrous Python Durst tempt thy wrath in vain; for dead he fell, To thy great strength and golden arms unequal. Io! while thy unerring hand elanc'd Another and another dart, the people Joyfully repeated Io! Io Pæan! Elance the dart, Apollo; for the safety And health of man, gracious thy mother bore thee!

Prior.

Apollo Belvidere, one in the first clasps of the ancient statues. The excellence of this statue consists in the expression of something divine, whereas the rest excel only in things that are common to men. This statue may perhaps justly enough claim the preference, even in the superior and distinguished clasps of the best remains of all antiquity. There are about twenty ancient statues which the moderns have discovered that are referred to the first clasps, and considered each as the chief beauty in its kind.

Apollodorus, born at Damascus, a famous architect under Trajan and Hadrian. He had the direction of the bridge of stone which Trajan ordered to be built over the Danube in the year 104, which was deemed the most magnificent of all the works of that emperor. Hadrian, one day as Trajan was discoursing with this architect upon the buildings he had raised at Rome, would needs give his judgment, and showed he understood nothing of the matter. Apollodorus turned upon him bluntly, and said to him, Go paint citrus, for you are very ignorant of the subject we are talking upon. Hadrian at this time boasted of his painting citrus well. This insult cost Apollodorus his life.