John Henry Freese

“ He plays the lyre at the banquets of the gods, and causes Marsyas to be flayed alive because he had boasted of his superior skill in playing the flute, and the ears of Midas to grow long because he had declared in favour of Pan, who contended that the flute was a better instrument than Apollo’s favourite, the lyre.
A less important aspect of Apollo is that of a marine deity, due to the spread of his cult to the Greek colonies and islands. As such, his commonest name is Delphinius, the “dolphin god,” in whose honour the festival Delphinia was celebrated in Attica. ”

“ For the manner in which the solar theory is developed, reference must be made to Roscher’s article, but one legend may here be mentioned, since it helps to trace the spread of the cult of the god. It was said that Apollo soon after his birth spent a year amongst the Hyperboreans, who dwelt in a land of perpetual sunshine, before his return to Delphi. This return is explained as the second birth of the god and his victory over the powers of winter; the name Hyperboreans is explained as the “dwellers beyond the north wind.” ”

“ In the riper period of art the type is softer, and Apollo appears in a form which seeks to combine manhood and eternal youth. His long hair is usually tied in a large knot above his forehead. The most famous statue of him is the Apollo Belvidere in the Vatican (found at Frascati, 1455) , an imitation belonging to the early imperial period of a bronze statue representing him, with aegis in his left hand, driving back the Gauls from his temple at Delphi (279 B.C.) , or, according to another view, fighting with the Pythian dragon. ”

“ According to the Delphic legend, this took place in the laurel grove of Tempe, and after nine years of penance the god returned, as was represented in the festival called Stepterion or Septerion (see A. Mommsen, Delphika, 1878) . Thus the old law of blood for blood, which only perpetuated the crime from generation to generation, gave way to the milder idea of the expiatory power of atonement for murder (cf. the court called τὸ ἐπὶ Δελφινίῳ at Athens, which retained jurisdiction in cases where justifiable homicide was pleaded) . ”

“ Possibly at Delphi and other places there was an old serpent-worship ousted by that of Apollo, which may account for expiation for the slaying of Python being considered necessary. In the solar explanation, the serpent is the darkness driven away by the rays of the sun. (On the Delphian cult of Apollo and its political significance, see Amphictyony, Delphi, Oracle; and Farnell, Cults, iv. pp. 179-218.) ”

“ G. Colin, Le Culte d’Apollon pythien à Athènes (1905) ; L. Dyer, The Gods in Greece (1891) ; articles in Pauly-Wissowa’s Realencyclopädie, W. H. Roscher’s Lexikon der Mythologie, and Daremberg and Saglio’s Dictionnaire des antiquités ”