in Mythology, a pagan deity worshipped by the Greeks and Romans, who was originally the god of the sun, and as such, synonymous with Ἥλιος or Sol.

Apollo had a variety of other names, derived from his principal attributes, or the chief places where he was worshipped. He was called the Healer (Akestor), from his enlivening warmth and cheering influence; 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; Ixius, Phoebus, and Phaneta, from his purity and splendour. As Apollo is almost always identified by the Greeks with the sun, it is no wonder that he should have been dignified with so many attributes. It was natural for the most glorious object in nature, whose influence is felt and seen by every animated part of creation, to be adored 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.

Vossius 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 Leto or 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 bows and arrows imply but his piercing beams?" And he adds, that all the ceremonies which were performed to his honour had a manifest relation to the great source of light which he represented.

Of the four Apollos mentioned by Cicero, it appears that the last three were Greeks, and the first an Egyptian, who, according to Herodotus, was the son of Osiris and Isis, and called Orus. Pausanias 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 physic, he adds, that she taught this art to her son Orus, named Apollo, who was the last of the gods that reigned in 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. One of the chief functions of this divinity was that of revealing the future to man, whence he was the great oracular divinity among the ancients.

The defeat of the serpent Python formed a celebrated incident in the history of Apollo. The waters of Deucalion's deluge, says Ovid, which had overflowed the earth, left a slime, from whence sprung unnumerable 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 steams, these monsters soon disappeared.

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 priesthood that of Pythia. The city of Delphi, where the famous oracles were so long delivered, was frequently styled Pytho.