The god describes himself
The Homeric Hymn to Apollo gives the best starting point. Just born on the island of Delos, the god announces what will be his: “The lyre and the curved bow shall ever be dear to me, and I will declare to men the unfailing will of Zeus.” Music, archery and prophecy, in one line. The same poem calls him Phoebus, “the long-haired god who shoots afar”. Lyre, bow and long hair are exactly what sculptors and painters gave him.
The laurel
His plant is the laurel. The best-known version of its story is told by the Roman poet Ovid: Apollo chased the nymph Daphne, who was turned into a laurel tree to escape him, and the god declared that her leaves would always crown his head and be wreathed around his quiver and his lyre. A laurel wreath on a young male head is a strong hint. In Greek images, gods are often marked by such crowns: laurel for Apollo, olive for Athena, ivy for Dionysos.
The signs, one by one
- Kithara or lyre: the strongest clue. The kithara is a large lyre.
- Bow and arrows: Apollo shoots from afar, but so does Artemis; a quiver alone does not settle it.
- Laurel: a wreath on the head, or a branch in the hand.
- Long hair: sometimes tied in a knot above the forehead, as in the Apollo Lykeios type.
- Body: young and beardless.
These signs set him apart from the other gods, who also look human and are identified in the same way, by what they carry.
Five Apollos to practise on
On a vase. On a Greek amphora of about 530 BCE in the Metropolitan Museum, Apollo and Herakles pull at a tripod. Apollo has his bow and arrows, Herakles his club: on a vase, the objects do all the identifying.
The resting Apollo. A marble statue in the Met copies a famous Greek bronze of the mid-fourth century BCE, often attributed to Praxiteles, that stood in the Lyceum, the gymnasium outside Athens. Lucian described it as Apollo resting after his labours, his right arm laid on his head.
The god with the kithara. A small limestone statue from Cyprus, made between the third and first centuries BCE, carries a kithara in its left arm, now only partly preserved, and wears its hair in a knot above the forehead. Both signs together say Apollo.
The archer. The Apollo Belvedere in the Vatican shows the god having just shot an arrow from the bow he held in his left hand. It is a Roman marble of the early second century CE copying a Greek bronze of about 330 BCE, probably by Leochares. It was found in Rome in 1489 and restored in 1532-1533 by Giovannangelo Montorsoli, who completed the left arm.
The lizard-slayer. Praxiteles also made a youthful Apollo aiming an arrow at a lizard creeping towards him, known as the Sauroktonos, “lizard-killer”. The bow and arrow are still there; the target has become a lizard.
Where to see them
The Apollo Belvedere is in the Octagonal Court of the Museo Pio-Clementino in the Vatican Museums. The Metropolitan Museum in New York has the Apollo Lykeios, the Cypriot Apollo with the kithara and the amphora with Apollo and Herakles. Check opening times before you go.
Sources
- Homeric Hymn 3, to Apollo, 131-134, trans. H. G. Evelyn-White (Perseus Digital Library).
- Ovid, Metamorphoses 1.452-567, trans. B. More (Perseus Digital Library); Pliny the Elder, Natural History 34.70 (Perseus Digital Library).
- The Metropolitan Museum of Art: “Greek Gods and Religious Practices”; collection records 03.12.15, 74.51.2672, 63.11.6.
- Vatican Museums, “Apollo Belvedere”.
