Who is Apollo? Guide to the Greek God of Light and Music

Apollo is the god the Greeks trusted with the arts of civilisation: music, poetry, prophecy, healing, and light. He is one of the twelve Olympians, and one of the few whose name did not change when the Romans took over the tradition. He kept his own name because he was already the ideal the Greeks and the Romans both wanted their culture to look like. Balanced. Beautiful. Restrained. Also, on occasion, terrifying.

Key Takeaways

Apollo is the Greek god of the sun (in his later role), light, music, poetry, prophecy, healing, and archery.
He is the son of Zeus and the Titaness Leto, and the twin brother of Artemis, goddess of the hunt.
His most important sanctuary is the Oracle of Delphi, where the priestess Pythia delivered prophecies in his name for over a thousand years.
His symbols include the lyre, the laurel wreath, the bow, and the sun chariot; his sacred animals include the dolphin, the swan, and the wolf.
He is the father of Asclepius, the god of medicine, who was killed by Zeus’s thunderbolt for raising the dead.
His name is one of the few Olympian god-names to remain unchanged in Roman tradition; the Romans worshipped him as Apollo directly.
He absorbed the older Greek role of Helios as the sun-god during the classical period, though the two remained distinct in some traditions.

Who is Apollo?

Apollo is the Greek god of light, music, poetry, prophecy, healing, archery, and (from the classical period onward) the sun. He is one of the twelve Olympians and one of the most widely worshipped gods in the ancient Greek world.

Definition - Apollo

The Greek god of light, music, poetry, prophecy, healing, and archery. Apollo is the son of Zeus and Leto, twin brother of Artemis, and patron of the Oracle of Delphi. His name kept its Greek form under Roman worship. His attributes include the lyre, the laurel wreath, and the bow.

The domains Apollo governs are unusual for their range. Most Greek gods hold one or two spheres. Apollo holds an entire package of civilised arts. He is the god of the lyre and the god of the bow. The god of medicine and the god of prophecy. The god who bring plagues (with his arrows) and the god who cures them. The Greeks understood this range as expressing something specific about him: he is the god of what humans can do at their most refined and their most dangerous, both at once.

Apollo’s birth and family

Apollo is the son of Zeus and the Titaness Leto. His mother, pregnant with twins by Zeus, was pursued across the earth by the jealous Hera, who forbade any land to give Leto refuge for the birth. The floating island of Delos, which was not fixed to the earth in the ordinary way, took her in. There, Leto gave birth first to Artemis, and then, with Artemis assisting, to Apollo.

Apollo’s twin sister Artemis is the goddess of the hunt, of wild places, of the moon (in her later role), and of childbirth. The two are inseparable in Greek myth and often act together, particularly in matters of vengeance. When their mother Leto was insulted by the boastful Queen Niobe - who had many children and mocked Leto for having only two - Apollo and Artemis together killed all of Niobe’s fourteen children with their arrows, Apollo the sons and Artemis the daughters. Read the tragedy of Niobe.

Apollo’s own children are numerous. The most important is Asclepius, god of medicine, whom Apollo taught the arts of healing. Asclepius became so skilled that he began raising the dead, which alarmed Zeus enough that he killed Asclepius with a thunderbolt. Apollo, in retaliation, killed the Cyclopes who had forged the thunderbolt. Zeus punished him by exiling him to serve as a mortal shepherd for a year. Read the myth of Asclepius.

Apollo and the Oracle of Delphi

The most important sanctuary of Apollo was at Delphi, on the slopes of Mount Parnassus. For over a thousand years, from around the eighth century BCE, the Oracle of Delphi was the most consulted prophetic institution in the Greek world. Kings, generals, city-states, and private citizens traveled there to ask questions and receive answers spoken by the priestess Pythia, seated on a tripod above a chasm in the earth.

The site’s origin story explains how Apollo claimed it. The oracle had originally belonged to the earth-goddess Gaia and was guarded by an enormous serpent called Python. Apollo, still young, killed the Python with his arrows and took the sanctuary for himself. His priestess Pythia takes her name from the defeated serpent. Some accounts hold that Apollo had to be purified after the killing, since the Python was not entirely evil, and his exile in Thessaly was part of that purification. Read Apollo and the Oracle of Delphi.

The oracle’s answers were famously ambiguous. Croesus, king of Lydia, was told that if he made war on Persia, “a great empire will fall.” He made war. A great empire fell - his own. The Greek tradition treats Apollo’s oracles as always technically true but requiring careful interpretation.

Apollo the god of music

Apollo’s most consistent attribute in Greek art is the lyre. He is the god of music, particularly the kind of music the Greeks associated with reason and balance - stringed music, played and sung.

The tradition preserves a story of Apollo’s musical competition with the satyr Marsyas. Marsyas had found a flute that had been discarded by Athena, and had become extraordinarily skilled with it. Boastful, he challenged Apollo to a musical contest. The Muses were to judge. Apollo agreed. Both played. The Muses could not decide. Apollo then proposed a second round: they would each play their instrument upside down. Apollo could still play the lyre inverted. Marsyas could not play the flute inverted. Apollo was declared the winner, and the penalty for challenging a god was to be flayed alive. Apollo hung Marsyas from a tree and skinned him. Read the myth of Marsyas and Apollo.

The story preserves the darker side of Apollo. He is the god of music, but he is also the god who defends the boundary between divine skill and mortal hubris, and he defends it without mercy.

Apollo’s loves and losses

Apollo’s romantic life in Greek myth is unusually marked by loss. Almost every figure he loves - male or female, mortal or divine - dies, is transformed, or escapes him.

He fell in love with the nymph Daphne, who fled his pursuit. When he was about to catch her, she prayed to her father, the river god, to save her. She was transformed into a laurel tree. Apollo, unable to embrace her as a woman, embraced the tree instead, and the laurel became sacred to him. Victorious poets and athletes were crowned with laurel wreaths ever after. Read Apollo and Daphne and Apollo’s love for Daphne.

He loved the beautiful Spartan youth Hyacinthus. They were playing at throwing the discus when the west wind Zephyrus, jealous of Apollo’s love for the boy, blew the discus off course and killed him. Apollo mourned, and from Hyacinthus’s blood grew the flower that carries his name. Read the tale of Zephyrus and Hyacinthus.

The pattern - beauty, brief love, loss, and often a plant or a bird as memorial - runs through much of Apollo’s mythology. He is the god of light, and light, in the tradition, does not hold what it touches.

Apollo and Hermes

One of the most charming Apollo stories involves his relationship with his infant brother Hermes.

On the day of his birth, Hermes crawled out of his cradle, killed a tortoise, made the first lyre from its shell, and then stole Apollo’s sacred cattle, driving them backwards so their tracks would confuse anyone following. When Apollo discovered the theft, he traced the cattle to Hermes and hauled the infant before Zeus. Hermes, unrepentant, played the lyre for Apollo. Apollo, hearing the instrument, was so charmed that he agreed to a trade: he gave Hermes the cattle in exchange for the lyre. That is why Apollo is the god of the lyre and Hermes is the god of cattle-thieves. Read Hermes’s theft of Apollo’s cattle.

The story shows both gods in typical form: Apollo, willing to trade a stolen herd for a beautiful instrument; Hermes, already the trickster he will be for the rest of his career.

Apollo compared to other sun/light gods

Apollo’s combination of light, music, and prophecy is unusual. Most sun gods do not also govern the arts.

Tradition	Sun/light god	Additional domains	Notes
Greek	Apollo	Music, poetry, prophecy, healing, archery	The most range of any solar deity
Roman	Apollo	Same as Greek	Kept his Greek name in Roman tradition
Egyptian	Ra	Kingship of the gods	Primarily solar; not associated with music
Vedic Hindu	Surya	Solar authority	Not associated with the arts
Japanese	Amaterasu	Ancestor of imperial line	Solar goddess, distinct from Apollo’s masculine solar role

The Roman assimilation of Apollo without renaming is unusual and telling. Most Greek gods were renamed - Zeus became Jupiter, Aphrodite became Venus, Poseidon became Neptune. Apollo remained Apollo. The Romans considered him already what a Roman god should be.

Read the stories

Apollo appears throughout Greek myth. Some entry points:

Apollo is the god the Greeks would have put on the coin of their culture, if they had one. He was what they wanted civilisation to look like: beautiful, skilled, prophetic, luminous. The tradition also preserves what happens when that ideal is crossed. Marsyas found out. Niobe found out. The Greeks did not think their gods were kind. They thought they were correct.

Frequently Asked Questions

Is Apollo the god of the sun?

Yes, but that role came later in his career. In the archaic period, the sun was governed by the Titan Helios, distinct from Apollo. During the classical period, Apollo increasingly absorbed the solar role, and by Roman times he was firmly identified with the sun. His name became one of the most common ways to refer to the sun in poetry, and the sun chariot became one of his attributes.

Who is Apollo’s twin sister?

Artemis, goddess of the hunt, wild places, the moon (in her later role), and childbirth. The two were born together on the floating island of Delos to their mother Leto, with Artemis emerging first and helping her mother deliver Apollo. They frequently act together in myth, particularly in matters of vengeance - as in the killing of Niobe’s fourteen children, which they carried out together.

What is the Oracle of Delphi?

The Oracle of Delphi was the most important prophetic sanctuary in the ancient Greek world, located on the slopes of Mount Parnassus in central Greece and dedicated to Apollo. For over a thousand years, kings, generals, and private citizens traveled there to consult the priestess Pythia, who delivered prophecies in Apollo’s name while seated on a tripod above a chasm in the earth. The oracle’s answers were famously ambiguous and required careful interpretation.

Who is Asclepius?

Asclepius is Apollo’s son by the mortal Coronis, and he is the Greek god of medicine and healing. Apollo taught him the arts of healing, and he became so skilled that he began raising the dead. Zeus, alarmed at the disturbance to the natural order, killed Asclepius with a thunderbolt. Apollo, in retaliation, killed the Cyclopes who had forged the thunderbolt, and was punished by being sent to serve as a mortal shepherd for a year.

Why is the laurel wreath associated with Apollo?

Because of the nymph Daphne, whom Apollo pursued and who was transformed into a laurel tree at the moment he was about to catch her. Apollo, unable to embrace her as a woman, embraced the tree, and the laurel became sacred to him. Victorious poets, musicians, and athletes were crowned with laurel wreaths in the ancient Greek and Roman worlds, and the tradition continues in the word “laureate” (as in “poet laureate”).

Why did the Romans keep Apollo’s Greek name?

Most Greek gods were renamed when the Romans absorbed them into their pantheon: Zeus became Jupiter, Poseidon became Neptune, Aphrodite became Venus. Apollo was one of the few exceptions. The Romans considered him already what a Roman god should be - dignified, artistic, prophetic, associated with civilised order - and adopted him without translation. He kept his Greek name for the entire Roman period.