How was Apollo worshipped? Apollo was widely worshipped with sanctuaries and festivals. His oracle at Delphi was one of the most influential in the Greek world. Apollo also had a major sanctuary on the tiny island of Delos, where he was said to have been born.
Rather than having a cult following, Apollo was honored with shrines, most famously at Delphi and Delos. At these shrines, seekers of truth and wisdom sought oracles (predictions or clarifications of facts) from one of Apollo's priests or priestesses.
In Roman religion, Apollo was worshiped in various forms, most significantly as a god of healing and of prophecy. In art he was portrayed as the perfection of youth and beauty. The most celebrated statue of him is the Apollo Belvedere, a marble statue in the Belvedere of the Vatican.
He was worshipped at Delphi and Delos, amongst the most famous of all Greek religious sanctuaries.
The ancient Greeks and Romans worshipped Apollo as the god of music, healing, light, and prophecy (predicting the future).
Apollo or Apollon is one of the Olympian deities in classical Greek and Roman religion and Greek and Roman mythology. The national divinity of the Greeks, Apollo has been recognized as a god of archery, music and dance, truth and prophecy, healing and diseases, the Sun and light, poetry, and more.
Apollo. God of music, arts, knowledge, healing, plague, prophecy, poetry, manly beauty and archery.
They celebrated their gods with festivals like Gymnopaedia, which was a festival that was a rite of passage for young soldiers and ended with the induction of young soldiers with a presentation to Apollo, and Hyakinthia, which was a festival dedicated to the worship of Apollo.
Chryses prayed to Apollo, and he, in order to defend the honor of his priest, sent a plague sweeping through the Greek armies.
Pyanopsia, also spelled Pyanepsia, in ancient Greek religion, a festival in honour of Apollo, held at Athens on the seventh day of the month of Pyanopsion (October).
Three major festivals of Sparta, the Hyacinthia, Gymnopaedia and Carneia, were celebrated in honour of Apollo.
He was unlucky in love
For all his weakness for nymphs and beautiful mortals, very few were willing to receive his advances. For example, the nymph Daphne ran away from him when he tried to pull her into his arms.
Daphne, in her effort to escape him, was changed into a laurel, his sacred tree; Coronis was shot by Apollo's twin, Artemis, when she proved unfaithful; and Cassandra rejected his advances and was punished by being made to utter true prophecies that no one believed.
The most celebrated of his loves were the nymph Daphne, princess Koronis (Coronis), huntress Kyrene (Cyrene) and youth Hyakinthos (Hyacinthus). The stories of Apollo's lovers Daphne and Kyrene can be found on their own separate pages--see the Apollo pages sidebar.
"Father Apollo, I pray to You, all-seeing guardian God, be gracious to me and protect me, watching over my kingdom. Be ever vigilant and warn me what strangers or what subjects of mine conspire against me. Whatever treacherous plots there may be, keep me alert and prepared."
Apollo and Artemis were often in opposition, and yet they sometimes came together in unison. Together they represent the impossibility of having one side of something without the other. Without the light, there would be no moon. Their opposites and parallels signify the duality of mankind through divine expression.
The lyre that Handel strums here was not an instrument that he would have had much call to compose for in eighteenth-century England. It is, rather, a conventional attribute of the master musician, a symbol that associates him with two great lyre-players of classical myth: the god Apollo and the mortal hero Orpheus.
Apollo and Asclepius
But unfortunately, Apollo found out through the crow that Coronis was having an affair with another man. Apollo was so angry that he told his sister Artemis to kill Coronis and burn the crow on her funeral fire.
Muses, the nine goddesses of arts, poetry, and song were all his lovers.
Like all the Olympian gods, Apollo was an immortal and powerful god. He had many special powers including the ability to see into the future and power over light. He could also heal people or bring illness and disease. When in battle, Apollo was deadly with the bow and arrow.
4. Apollo liked cows…but he liked music more. Although his sacred animals were the wolf, the raven and the dolphin, Apollo was also known as the god of cowherds and kept (bright red) sacred cows, the finest cattle in the world.
Ancient Greeks associated with Apollo a deep blue or violet precious gem called hyacinth. It was called so because its colour resembled that of the hyacinth flowers. This gem was held sacred to Apollo due to the mythological connection.
In the myth, Apollo falls madly in love with Daphne, a woman sworn to remain a virgin. Apollo hunts Daphne who refuses to accept his advances. Right at the moment he catches her, she turns into a laurel tree, a scene famously depicted in Bernini's Apollo and Daphne sculpture.