47 Fun Facts About Apollo

Apollo is the twin brother of which goddess?

Artemis, in one telling, was born first and then helped her mother deliver Apollo.

Who was Apollo's mother?

Leto later turned the Lycian peasants who stirred up the mud of a pond to stop her drinking into frogs.

On which island was Apollo born?

Delos was then a floating island, and in Callimachus's hymn the unborn Apollo speaks from the womb to ask to be born there.

Apollo's oracle told which king that if he attacked Persia, he would destroy a great empire?

Croesus marched on the Persians and lost his own kingdom, as they captured his capital Sardis and took him prisoner.

Apollo was the patron deity of which famous oracle?

Delphi was hailed as the centre of the world, the spot where two eagles released by Zeus from opposite ends of the earth are said to have met.

Which monstrous serpent did Apollo kill at the site of his future oracle?

Python, in one telling, had hunted Apollo's pregnant mother, and Apollo slew the serpent to avenge her.

Which nymph turned into a laurel tree to escape Apollo's pursuit?

Ovid blames Cupid, who shot Apollo with a golden arrow that kindles love and Daphne with a blunt leaden one that repels it.

Apollo's chief epithet, meaning 'bright', is what?

Phoebus echoes the name of his grandmother Phoebe, the Titan who in Aeschylus hands the oracle to him as a birthday gift.

From the 5th century BC, Apollo was increasingly identified with which other god?

Helios was the god of the Colossus of Rhodes, which the Rhodians paid for by selling the siege gear an attacking army left behind.

Which emperor, a lyre-player like Apollo, sang on stage?

Nero toured Greece entering contests, and he was allowed to win every one of them.

Apollo's son Asclepius was famous as what?

Asclepius became so skilled a healer that he raised the dead, so Zeus struck him down with a thunderbolt.

Apollo took revenge for his son's death by killing whom, the makers of Zeus's thunderbolt?

Zeus nearly hurled Apollo into Tartarus for killing the Cyclopes, but instead made him serve a mortal for a year.

After killing the makers of Zeus's thunderbolt, Apollo was sentenced to serve which mortal king as a herdsman?

Admetus was later rewarded: Apollo won from the Fates a promise that he could escape death if someone would die in his place.

Who challenged Apollo to a music contest and was flayed alive for losing?

Marsyas had found the pipes Athena threw away because playing them disfigured her face.

When King Midas preferred Pan's pipes to Apollo's lyre, what did Apollo give him?

Midas hid the ears of a donkey, but his barber whispered the secret into a hole, and the reeds that grew there repeated it.

Which object, blown off course by a jealous wind in one telling, killed Apollo's beloved Hyacinthus?

The discus Apollo threw killed Hyacinthus, and from the youth's blood the god raised the flower that bears his name.

After Apollo and his twin killed Queen Niobe's children, what did the grieving mother become?

Niobe became a weeping rock on Mount Sipylus, and in Homer Zeus turned her people to stone so no one could bury her children.

Apollo gave Cassandra the gift of prophecy; what curse did he add when she rejected him?

Cassandra warned the Trojans that the wooden horse held armed men, but no one would believe her.

The Sibyl of Cumae asked Apollo for as many years of life as what?

She got a year for each of the grains of sand in her hand, but no youth, and withered until only her voice remained.

Apollo acquired the lyre from which god, who built it from a tortoise shell?

Hermes stole Apollo's cattle as a newborn, then settled the quarrel by giving Apollo the lyre.

As Musagetes, Apollo led which group in dance?

Plato said humanity's delight in rhythm and harmony was the gift of Apollo and these nine sisters.

In the Iliad, Apollo sends a plague on the Greek camp because Agamemnon refused to return whose daughter?

Apollo forced Agamemnon to give back the daughter of Chryses, his priest, so the king took Achilles's prize Briseis instead, provoking the anger that drives the Iliad.

In the Iliad, Apollo is called Smintheus, a title traditionally linked with which animal?

Mice, in a tale Strabo tells, ate the leather gear of settlers from Crete, fulfilling an oracle to stay where the 'earth-born' attacked them.

Apollo caused the death of Achilles by doing what?

Guiding Paris's arrow fulfilled the dying Hector's prophecy that Paris and Apollo would kill Achilles at the Scaean gates.

What did Apollo do to hide Hector from Achilles during their duel?

Having wrapped him in mist to save him, Apollo later covered the dead Hector with a dark cloud so the sun would not parch the body.

Which Trojan king did Apollo and Poseidon serve, tending cattle and building the walls?

Laomedon refused to pay the gods, so Apollo sent a plague and Poseidon a sea monster against Troy.

In Aeschylus's Eumenides, Apollo defends which prince on trial for killing his mother to avenge Agamemnon?

Orestes was acquitted with Athena's vote on his side, and she then persuaded the Furies who had hunted him to accept the verdict.

Which goddess, leaping into the sea to escape Zeus, became Apollo's floating birth-island?

In Pindar, Asteria's drifting island stopped wandering when four pillars rose from the roots of the earth as the pregnant goddess set foot on it.

In Ovid's telling, who told Apollo that his lover Coronis, pregnant with Asclepius, was unfaithful?

Apollo repaid his raven for the bad news by turning its white feathers black.

In Ovid, which tree did Apollo's young favourite become after accidentally killing his beloved pet stag?

Cyparissus grieved so deeply that Apollo could not console him, and as he wept he became a cypress.

Why did Marpessa choose Idas over Apollo?

Idas fought Apollo for her until Zeus parted them, and she chose Idas because an immortal would tire of her as she aged.

Apollo took the shape of which animal to steer Cretan sailors to his oracle, where they became his priests?

Apollo leapt aboard as a dolphin while the Cretans were sailing to Pylos to trade, and a divine wind carried the ship to his shrine instead.

Which mystical northern land of eternal spring venerated Apollo above all gods?

Hyperborea, Pindar says, was once visited by the hero Perseus, who feasted with its people as they sacrificed to Apollo.

After Athens purified Apollo's holiest island, what was no one allowed to do there?

Anyone about to give birth or die was carried over to the neighbouring island of Rhenea instead.

Which Roman emperor built a temple to Apollo on part of his own house on the Palatine?

Augustus was even said to be Apollo's son, after a story that his mother slept in Apollo's temple and was visited by a serpent.

The Ludi Apollinares, games in Apollo's honour, were instituted at Rome during which war?

During the Second Punic War, the Senate trusted Marcius's prophecies because one had already foretold the disaster at Cannae.

In Nietzsche's famous contrast, the 'Apollonian' is set against which other god's spirit?

Dionysus gave Greek tragedy its chorus music and Apollo its dialogue and action, Nietzsche argued, and the art was born from their union.

Apollo's epithet Lyceus was later linked to which animal, sacred to him?

A wolf beating a bull was taken as a sign for Danaus, who won the throne of Argos and honoured Apollo as the wolf-god.

In Plato's Phaedo, which bird has the gift of prophecy because it is sacred to Apollo?

The swan sings before it dies not in grief, the dialogue argues, but for joy at the blessings awaiting it in the other world.

Apollo's oracle told the Athenian Chaerephon that no man was wiser than which philosopher?

Socrates set out to prove the oracle wrong by questioning men thought wise, and concluded he was wiser only in knowing his own ignorance.

As Apollo Agyieus, honoured with a pillar at many Greek homes, the god protected what?

Streets and doorways were his to guard, so Greeks set his pillar by the door to keep evil from getting in.

Apollo's oracle was routinely consulted before Greek cities did what?

As Archegetes he was patron of town-founding, and colonists carried his authorisation with them.

The painted terracotta Apollo of Veii, now in Rome, was made by which ancient people of Italy?

The Etruscans set the statue on a temple roof, where it faced a hero in a fight over a golden-horned deer.

In Celtic lands the Romans equated Apollo with which local healing and sun god?

The Hyperborean and Celtic cults are where Apollo looks most like a straightforward sun god.

Apollo's prophetic priestess traditionally delivered his answers while seated on what?

A tripod was also a victory gift to him: the Greeks who beat Persia at Plataea gave a golden one set on a bronze three-headed serpent.

Which prince, said to be Apollo's son, did Achilles kill inside the god's own temple?

Troilus later became a medieval love hero, betrayed by Criseyde in Chaucer's poem and by Cressida in Shakespeare's play.

Greek boys cut their hair and dedicated it to Apollo to mark which moment in life?

Coming of age meant offering hair to Apollo, and Plutarch says Theseus went to the god's oracle to do it but cut only the front of his.