Concept

Apollo

Overview

god in Greek and later Roman mythology

Overview adapted from Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 4.0; see the article history for authors).

In the original texts

Passages from public-domain books where Apollo is discussed.

I omit many of the points that are used as arguments. For our tradition does not rank this god amongst those that were born, and then made immortal, as Hercules and Bacchus, whom their virtue raised above a mortal and passable condition; but Apollo is one of the eternal unbegotten deities, if we may collect any certainty concerning these things, from the statements of the oldest and wisest in such subjects.
Plutarch, Plutarch
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Apollo was also bidden to heal their wounds and compose their forms. So he gave a turn to the face and pulled the skin from the sides all over that which in our language is called the belly, like the purses which draw in, and he made one mouth at the centre, which he fastened in a knot (the same which is called the navel); he also moulded the breast and took out most of the wrinkles, much as a shoemaker might smooth…
Plato, Symposium
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This cheerful acquiescence in the dream-experience has likewise been embodied by the Greeks in their Apollo: for Apollo, as the god of all shaping energies, is also the soothsaying god. He, who (as the etymology of the name indicates) is the "shining one," the deity of light, also rules over the fair appearance of the inner world of fantasies.
Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche, The Birth of Tragedy
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16, 153; his picture of Alexander, 494; and Megabyzus, ii. 122; and Arcesilaus, 133. Aphareus, adopted son of Isocrates, wrote orations and tragedies, v. 32. Apis, the sacred bull of the Egyptians, iv. 68; slain by Ochus, king of Persia, 74, 92. Apollo and the dragon Python, iv. 20. Apollo, inventor of the flute and harp, i. 113. Apollo, temple of, iv. 478-498; the inscription ει over its gate, 479. Apollodorus…
Plutarch, Plutarch's essays and miscellanies, Vol. 1
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SOCRATES: Then in reference to his ablutions and absolutions, as being the physician who orders them, he may be rightly called Apolouon (purifier); or in respect of his powers of divination, and his truth and sincerity, which is the same as truth, he may be most fitly called Aplos, from aplous (sincere), as in the Thessalian dialect, for all the Thessalians call him Aplos; also he is aei Ballon (always shooting)…
Plato, Cratylus
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Apollo

Overview

In the original texts

Philosophers who discussed Apollo

Related ideas

Opposing perspectives

Place in the tradition