The Ancients - Apollo: God of the Sun

Episode Date: April 21, 2024

Apollo, the favourite son of Zeus and twin brother of Artemis, was a Greek God with many faces. Perhaps most famous as Phoebus, the God of the Sun, he was the patron of poetry and prophecy, of music and dance. And yet he also possessed a darker side. He was a terribly vengeful character and brought death and disease to both those he hated and loved through his trademark poisonous arrows.In this episode of The Ancients, Tristan Hughes is joined by Liv Albert, host of the podcast Let's Talk About Myths Baby to peel back the layers from one of Greek mythology's most complicated characters.This episode was produced by Joseph Knight and edited by Aidan Lonergan.Enjoy unlimited access to award-winning original documentaries that are released weekly and AD-FREE podcasts. Get a subscription for £1 per month for 3 months with code ANCIENTS - sign up here.You can take part in our listener survey here.

Hi, I'm Tristan Hughes, and if you would like the Ancient ad-free, get early access and bonus episodes, sign up to History Hit. With a History Hit subscription, you can also watch hundreds of hours of original documentaries, including my recent documentary all about Petra and the Nabataeans, and enjoy a new release every week. Sign up now by visiting historyhit.com slash subscribe. So asks young Melanthus as he bundles himself up against the cold on Mount Sipylos He has not come alone He leads Nestor by the arm, helping the old king navigate the mountain path on frail, faltering legs Nestor calls Melanthus grandson, and the young boy does not correct him The truth, the thirteen generations that separate them, it would only

confuse the old man now, and he has already lived too much of his long life in a fog. This desire, this compulsion to visit Sipylus has become Nestor's only constant. Why? Melanthus cannot say. Nestor will not explain. Perhaps he does not even know himself. And yet, as they climb, Melanthus notices the old king's mumblings cease, his eyes focus, senility burning off like morning mist. And then they finish the climb. It is a barren tour, but for a single hunk of stone. Only when they get closer does Melanthus realise that it is a statue, a woman kneeling.

Perhaps it is just the sleet and the rain, but her eyes seem to water. And now tears start to stain Nestor's face too. Who is she? Melanthus asks. But it is not the old king who replies. Another figure has joined them on the tour, and sure as Melanthus knows day from night, he knows him for a god.

Apollo, the archer. His bow is slung across a shoulder. She is Niobe, Apollo explains. Ask the muses. They will tell you of her punishment, of her grief and of my gift to her grandson, Nestor. Nesta. this mini-series but also sad because this mini-series it's been going on for about a year and a half now. We've only got one, two, three deities left after the one we have today which is Apollo. Apollo, a god of the sun but also of prophecy, of medicine, music, poetry and more. He was the god of a huge range of different things. Oh and did I also mention he was also one of Zeus' favourite sons? Now, as with all of our episodes in this miniseries, we are kicking off this one

with a story. An oral retelling of a myth about Apollo. And the one we've chosen today, well, it's a pretty gruesome one. It's the story of Niobe and her 14 children. Seven sons and seven daughters who fell victim to the wrath of Apollo and his twin sister Artemis after Niobe had foolishly boasted that she was a better mother than their mother Leto. It is quite the story. Following this, we have an interview with the podcast host and Greek mythology expert Liv Albert. Liv, she has been on the pod before to talk all things Aphrodite and we're very grateful that she agreed to return to talk all things Apollo, even though she readily admits that he

is her least favourite of all the gods. You'll find out why. Do also go and check out her podcast, Let's Talk About Myths Baby, if you want even more Greek mythology once you've listened, of course, to this one. I really do hope you enjoy, and to kick it all off, here's the story of Apollo and Niobe. The Musa's song starts with screaming and the spilling of blood, but it is not upon the battlefield. It is upon two birthing beds. One is in Thebes, the other in Delos. One is covered with silken sheets attended by midwives and priestesses. The other is simply the hard earth, a dark cave attended only by beasts and howling winds.

On one bed strains a mortal, the princess Niobe. On the other, a deathless goddess, the titan Leto. And when nine days pass, when their labours finally end, when the threads of life unspool, all effort spent, the difference becomes most stark. One bed sees the birth of two, the other fourteen. All Thebes marvels when Niobe presents her brood at court. Seven perfect boys and seven perfect girls. They say the children are the foundation stones on which Thebes' future will be built. They say no woman has produced such progeny since Gaia of the Good Earth,

she who birthed the world itself. Aniobe breathes deep the court's delight, but it is merely the popular breeze, and before long the wind turns, bringing word of that other birth to Thebes. The birth of gods. The Archer twins Apollo and Artemis. For years then, all the world fates their mother Leto. The details of her tryst with Zeus, they become sonnets that lovers share. The woes of her exile by Hera, they become tragedies that playwrights stage. And as for her devotion to her children, it becomes the exemplar of motherhood for mortal and deathless alike. Niobe seethes, thiethes as all but forgotten her children, and so one evening, when she hears a praise of Leto once again, she snaps. I have carried seven times her children, so what would Leto know of motherhood that I do not know seven times over. It is a fateful boast.

What is it about hubris that so attracts the gods' attention? Are boasts like a sheen of oil floating atop the spoken sea? Perhaps Apollo spies Niobe's words in the breaking waves on Delos' shore. Or is it that when they say all words are winged, a boast is some great feathered thing, an ocean bird far ranging and borne aloft on so much hot air? Perhaps it is with an arrow from his bow that Apollo brings down the boast and learns of the insult to his mother. Leto's fury is terrifying. Motherhood has cost her too much to hear it slighted by a mere mortal. She demands retribution. She demands her children tip the scales. seven adamantine arrows from the forge of Hephaestus. The only mercy Artemis offers

is a quick death. Apollo carries the quiverful for Niobe's seven perfect girls, but these arrows he has fletched himself, each tipped with pestilence. You see, he is not merely a god of medicine, but the tail of that coin too, a god of epidemic. When an army is struck with sickness and plague, it is Apollo's barrage that has laid them low. He scores bullseyes with blister, boil, and bruise. Niobe has only just learnt of the slaughter of her boys when her eldest girl collapses. Before dusk falls, she has lost three daughters. Before day dawns, another three, till only one child is left.

Her last born, Chloris. In desperation, Niobe climbs to the heights of Mount Sipylus to pray for some deliverance, to beg some explanation for this suffering reaped upon her family. And Leto is ready to oblige. You have only one child now, Niobe, whereas I have two. So what could you know of motherhood that I do not know twice over? But Leto's arithmetic is wrong. There is something of motherhood that she will never know greater than Niobe. Not merely twice over, not merely seven times over.

It is beyond all counting. But Leto's children are deathless gods, and so she will never know the grief of losing a child. That sinking weight in Niobe's stomach that drives her to her knees, deathless gods, and so she will never know the grief of losing a child. That sinking weight in Niobe's stomach that drives her to her knees, that freezes her muscles and fuses her bones, it robs her of every movement. She petrifies, stone weathered by the wind, overgrown by the moss.

Polo watches her long petrification, and he recalls his own mother on the shore of Delos. Her stillness. Her silence. The grief of her exile. And he feels something almost like regret. So, he rebalances the scales. like regret. So, he rebalances the scales. The end of the Musa's story is lost in a thud. It is the sound of Nestor sinking to his knees, till he and Niobe are all the same. Statues. Unmoving. Those years I gave you were a reparation, Apollo says,

confused at this lack of appreciation for his generosity, his magnanimity. Thirteen generations, one for each of your aunts and uncles, for the siblings of your mother, Cloris. And still, Nestor does not move, does not reply. Apollo turns to Melanthus then, searching for some answer. But what could a boy say to make a god understand his error?

The fault in his arithmetic. How could a boy explain that, like his mother, Apollo 2 has never known the grief of losing a child? But Nestor has. The fog of his age has cleared completely and now he remembers. Thirteen generations he has lived. So how many generations has he seen die? His children, his grandchildren, his great-grandchildren, and on, and on, and on. His grief is not twice Niobe's. It is not seven times Niobe's. It is beyond all counting.

Liv, it is such a pleasure to have you back on the podcast. It is beyond all counting. Apollo. And we're now quite a way down the line of the Greek gods and goddesses, but a couple more to do, including this deity. First off, no such thing as a silly question, Liv, who was Apollo? I was excited to talk about Apollo because Aphrodite is my favourite Olympian goddess, and Apollo is my least favourite, but like for fun reasons. So I thought it was very fitting. Apollo is the god of everything. I like to say he's the god of everything and nothing. He is Zeus's favorite son who really gets to kind of control a real myriad of things in the ancient Greek world. You know, he's the god of music and prophecy and healing and also plague. He's both a protector of young men and also basically the cause of any sudden death. He really is just everything and nothing. Because that nothing bit at the same time, because I mean, people say Apollo, they say

God of the sun. But if someone mentions God of the sun, I think of a deity like Helios or something like that. So is there much depth in him being God of the sun as you've highlighted? God of everything but God of nothing at the same time. I was so glad to see that the sun would be mentioned because it is a sort of a pet obsession of mine. And I say that he's the God of nothing because the things that he is the God of, to me, are so based in the natural world, I suppose, that it feels like they just kind of gave them to him, but he doesn't actually have to do much. I understand that, obviously, all of this is to understand that the gods were doing these things, but the stuff that he controls also just feels like they just kind of threw a bucket of stuff

at him and just were like, I don't know, handle this. But the sun is a really interesting one because I didn't say the sun because I live in the depths of archaic and classical Greece, which is when Helios is very much the god of the sun. And Apollo has little to no association with the sun, aside from the fact that, you know, he is called Phoebus Apollo primarily, and that Phoebus does mean bright. So it has this like connotation with the brightness, but both he and Artemis, because Artemis, you know, becomes the goddess of the moon later, the opposite.

And neither of them really have that association in the earliest surviving Greek sources, because yes, you're right, Helios is the god of the sun and Selene is the goddess of the moon. Basically, the way I like to phrase it, I'm sure there are loads of much more in-depth historical analyses that can go on here. But the way that I like to phrase how Apollo becomes the sun is that as time goes on, as centuries pass through the Greek culture and then later into, you know, when Rome kind of adopts bits and pieces from Greek mythology and turns it into something new, they kind of seem to reach this point where they have a better understanding of the world around them. They have a less of a need for so many individualized gods. And it seems to me that a lot of the more important gods, like Apollo being

honestly like second to Zeus in importance, he is really, really up there. And these important gods tend to sort of take on other roles that used to be reserved for the older, more primordial deities, like Helios was a titan. And so when they seem to have less need for so many gods, they give that important stuff to the important gods. So Apollo becomes the god of the sun and Artemis becomes the goddess of the moon. But they really don't have that kind of direct association in the earlier times and in these kind of the earliest surviving sources. And it just fascinates me because he's become ubiquitous as the god of the sun. Everyone calls him the god of the sun. It's his big thing when

you look at pop culture representation or anything about the Greek gods. Whereas, yeah, if you're looking at classical period, archaic period, he is not the god of the sun. Well, I'm glad we've highlighted that straight away because the title may well be Apollo, God of the Sun. And if so, we've clarified straight away when actually that comes to fruition. If Apollo is almost like this favourite son of Zeus, king of the gods, do we know much about his characteristics, what he was like as a god, at least according to what the ancient Greeks thought? Well, yes.

And I am slightly biased in how I read the gods. I do think I read them quite literally, but I'm not particularly kind to those readings. Apollo is, he does a lot of bad stuff, a lot of crimes under his belt. He causes the death of basically everyone he claims to love through various means. One of his most famous stories is his quote-unquote love of the nymph Daphne, where he seems to fall in love with her, chases after her trying to convince her to love him, and then she just runs and runs and eventually is so afraid that she asks her father to transform her into a tree to get away from him and then he loves quote unquote loves her so much in death or as a tree that he like not only gropes this tree but then

also takes you know the tree the laurel tree as his symbol as a god and he's forever conveyed with a laurel and you're like that origin story like isn't great and i should say daphne just literally means laurel in greek which i think is sort of an interesting piece and one thing we often forget we think of like oh that's just her name because to us in english it's a name but it's just the greek word for laurel he also loved a guy named hyacinthus so much and accidentally was was playing discus with him and threw a discus and it hit him in the head. There's more to these stories, but basically, there's a lot of death in Apollo's life. I can't immediately think of a particularly good, nice, happy story associated

with him. I think we'll explore these characteristics and some of these stories in detail as we go on. But let's start let's start with the origins. And you've already mentioned how Artemis is his twin sister. So when we talk about the origins of Apollo, I'm guessing it's very much intertwined with the story of Artemis too. Very much. And I think it makes Artemis look far more interesting, but the inter-Greeks would disagree. Yeah, the story of his birth is quite iconic. His and Artemis' mother is a titan named leto who was one of zeus's many we can say conquests it's hard to say with those two kind of what the mentality was between them but essentially leto gets pregnant and harrah finds

out as she kind of always does and this is a sort of ongoing story with harrah it's not the most ideal but you know she wants to punish the woman for the fact that Zeus cheated on her. And she, as a goddess of childbirth herself, there's a lot of goddesses of childbirth to preface, basically speaks to the various deities to ensure that Leto just can't give birth. So, you know, she gets to nine months and she's just ready to pop, but nothing can happen. nine months and she's just ready to pop but nothing can happen and she kind of travels all around looking for a place to give birth but the earth itself won't let her and all the gods that need to be involved won't allow it until she finally gets to this island in the Cyclades called Delos which they believed was floating and because they believed this particular island it was said to be like in the center of the Cyclades because it floating, it didn't have contact with Earth. And thus, after a little

convincing to a personification of the island, the goddess Leto is finally able to give birth. She first gives birth to Artemis. And then Artemis actually helps as just a tiny baby. She helps in the birth of her twin Apollo. And then meanwhile, Apollo gets all the credit for being the golden child, which I just think is wrong. Artemis is an infant, a newborn, and then helps her mother with childbirth and becomes a goddess of childbirth herself, even though she remains childless. But I know this isn't about Artemis. But essentially, that's Apollo's birth. Well, I mean, exactly. But of course, we can mention the story of Artemis too, because it's very much linked to the story of Apollo as these divine twins almost. And it's quite interesting. Is that key part of the story

of the birth of Apollo and Artemis that there are several places that Leto is not allowed to give birth because of jealousy or, well, I know, as he said, it should be Zeus who's punished for it, but Leto is the person targeted. Is that something that very much becomes a part of Apollo's story when he starts to grow up? It's almost kind of straightaway that desire for vengeance against those who hurt his family, and in this case, his mother. There's a lot of stories about vengeance when it comes to his mother. I'm a little less familiar with the various locations just because there are so many different little bits and pieces that come across the Greek world. But when it comes to Leto herself and wanting to defend her, this definitely becomes an incredibly common storyline with Apollo.

There's a number of different stories associated with both him and Artemis coming to Leto's aid and ensuring that there is vengeance for anyone who wrongs her. Is one of these stories, I'm correct if I'm wrong, but I've got on my notes the name, I mean, the Serpent's Python. Is this one of the big stories associated with Apollo and this desire to kind of protect his mother and get revenge almost? The story of Python, I think, has a little bit less when it comes to Leto. The one I think of primarily is there is the giant Titius who attempts to assault Leto and then Apollo takes him out completely. And I think it's in the general area of Boeotia, which is later,

maybe it might be where then he's over there and then he keeps wandering. And this is when he finds the dragon, the giant snake, Python. I mean, there's so many little versions of every story, but Python definitely is a huge storyline for Apollo because this is essentially just a, they call it a dracon, a dragon. It's sort of the earliest name for what is really just a very large snake, a python even. And, you know, Apollo finds Python, comes across him. It's said that Python was guarding the Oracle as it currently was in existence in Delphi on Mount Parnassus. And so, you know, he kills this snake with his bows and arrows. The story itself doesn't have much detail besides he did it because he's Apollo and of course he can kill this snake. But the after effects are enormous because of where this is taking place. It's around where

the Oracle was said to have existed. And what's really interesting about it is that in the sources, the Oracle was said to have been run by the goddess Themis at the time. And then because Apollo killed Python, he took it over and it became his Oracle. But what we also know historically is that there was an earlier site of the Oracle, which in an archaeological sense, in a physical sense, there was an earlier site of the Oracle that was probably devoted to a Mother Earth goddess. And then it came in and Apollo became the primary god associated with that oracle so what's really interesting to me is that this story of python feels very much like a like a literal healing essentially of the matriarchy that might have existed in earlier times and where the you know a goddess was worshipped over gods and then a man literally comes in and and takes

out this snake and takes it over and then becomes the primary god of the oracle. And that becomes his biggest claim to fame in all of the Greek world is that the oracle of Delphi was Apollo's, despite that it was women's first. You know, that was something that rattled my brain for some time as kind of the Joblogs looking in. I mean, having gone to a place like Delphi and thinking of all of the Greek gods that this oracle is dedicated to. I mean, it's not like to Dona, it's not to Zeus, not to like Hades or Poseidon, it's to Apollo. And I didn't realise it's kind of entwined with that myth, but of all deities, I mean, initially you think it seems a bit of a weird choice to do it to Apollo almost. Well, he is the god of prophecy, but that

also seems to come from a woman first because his grandmother is the titan phoebe who is the titan goddess of prophecy and bright intellect so her name kind of means brightness along with some word associated with prophecy that i'm going to forget exactly but her name comes from it and then down the line apollo not only takes her name, becoming Phoebus Apollo, but he takes prophecy too. This is why I have a real love-hate relationship with Apollo, because to me, he feels like the personification of the patriarchy in a way that most of the other gods don't. He really took away a lot of things explicitly from women who held them before.

And of course, it's based in stories and it's sort of this mythologized account, but at the same time, you can see the remnants of it in history where we know that there was a heavier worship of women before the period that we have record from. And so you can almost see that kind of slowly being chipped away through Apollo. So you can almost see that kind of slowly being chipped away through Apollo. With the slaying of the monster, this giant snake, of course, this is a god battling a monster. And does this almost kind of like lead us into another of these attributes, which I believe is associated with Apollo, which is like the bow and the arrows?

Yeah, that's his primary weapon of choice. I don't know of an origin story for kind of how he gets those, but both he and Artemis are known for their archery. Their epithets are often things like far darter or far shooter. He's said to have been very good with that bow and arrow. Hi, live here again. Are you looking to learn even more about your favorite characters from Greek myth? Persephone, maybe? Medusa? Even Theseus? From the big gods everyone's obsessed with, down into the minor gods you've probably never heard of,

I have episodes on almost anything you can imagine from Greek myth. Plus, I have conversations with some of the most interesting experts in the field. Find Let's Talk About Myths, Baby wherever you're listening to this podcast. Let's delve more into this kind of vengeance arc of Apollo an interesting way and and hurting other people because I've got in my notes coming next the story of Niobe who seems to be this queen of Thebes now what's the story of Niobe with Apollo that's a very big story when it comes to him getting vengeance for his mother right Leto is a goddess of childbirth like I said there are there are really a number there's also a literal goddess of childbirth. Like I said, there are really a number. There's

also a literal goddess of childbirth, Ilithea, who is the one who's actually there in order to facilitate. But there are, I think, at least four goddesses of childbirth. But Leto is one of them. And because she's a Titan, she's this oldest one, right? She's like the first goddess of childbirth. And Niobe is a princess, I believe. I know that she is from my favorite cursed family line, the line of Tantalus. The curses in that family are really utterly perfect. But Niobe is the only woman that's part of this curse, and she has 14 children. And of course, she brags about this. She talks about how Leto only has two, she is 14. So she's obviously better. And this results in Apollo and Artemis coming down and just systematically shooting with their

arrows every single one of her children. It's an incredibly tragic story. Not one of my favorites, I won't lie. Not least because it just makes Niobe look awful. And it's just tragedy. Would you say this is one of the key myths that kind of symbolizes that horrific streak, particularly of Apollo? It is. It's so interesting. You know, he punishes on behalf of Artemis as well sometimes. But this one with Niobe is definitely one of the most viscerally violent, the one of the most straight tragic, because there's also a sort of version where you know the tears that she cries over her children eventually transform her into

a rock a real rock that was said to have weeped tears essentially like it's very much just sad rather than you know something like the python or tityus or something where it's just kind of like, oh, that's just a vengeance story or just a monster story. Whereas this is just a bunch of children died. Yeah, innocent people. Yeah. Yeah, no, exactly. And I know that so many of the stories and myths of all of these deities are pretty horrible and horrific and all these deities are horrible in many ways. But this one, in many ways it stands out, doesn't it, with Apollo? I mean, so you kind of have that quite vengeful side of Apollo. And yet he's still, as you've mentioned earlier, almost as if someone's thrown a bucket at him with all of

these different attributes that he becomes a god over. And some of these is like arts and music. I mean, Liv, talk to us a bit about Apollo being the god of arts and music and the attributes that he has as god of these things. It's another one of those ones where, yeah, it feels like they just kind of tossed stuff at him because I'm sure that someone could pull an association of why he would be the god of both plague and art and music. I can't think of it. But it is really interesting. To me, it feels more like this need to give him important stuff alongside more vengeful attributes. One of my favorite little anecdotes is how he gets the lyre because he's this god of music

and he always has association. He's the god of the arts, all these different things. But it's not Apollo who invents the lyre and it in fact comes from what I would defend with my life is the funniest ancient source ever. It is the Homeric Hymn to Hermes. It is truly the most joyful thing you'll ever read in your entire life. It's from the Archaic Period, so it's also very old. It's one of these very few instances where we get an incredibly long and detailed source that is just joy. But essentially, Hermes is born. And as a baby, he is wandering this mountain where his

mother gave birth to him, and he lived in this cave with his mom, and he gets restless. He's a baby, but he's also Hermes. He's a trickster god who's, I mean, if Apollo is the god of everything, I don't even know what Hermes is, because he's the god. His list is far longer than Apollo. But he's out wandering as a newborn, mind you, a newborn baby. And he's wandering to the edge of his cave. And he comes across a tortoise. And he thinks, oh, my gosh, this tortoise is just the cutest thing. Like, he's a newborn baby. He's looking at this tortoise. How very cool, this little thing. If you've seen any Greek tortoises, they're truly, they are very fun. They're always wandering the Acropolis and the Agora. It's wonderful. And he comes across this

tortoise. And he thinks, oh, it's so cute. And then he thinks, actually, what if I killed it? And then I dug out its insides and then I, you know, strung some strings and did whatever he had to do to invent the lyre with this tortoise shell. And it's just, he is a baby for all of this. And what's best is that this is like four lines in this hymn and then he goes on to wander all around Greece and steal Apollo's cattle and it is a very long and epically wonderful story but the liar ends up getting given to Apollo in sort of an apology because Hermes stole all of his cows it is by far the funniest source that survives and I just I love it more than anything so not only does baby Artemis help Apollo be born,

but also baby Hermes gets won over on Apollo. And the liar becomes his most iconic, other than the laurel, I would say, which again has these not great connotations, it becomes his most iconic attribute. Like Apollo and the liar and him being this god of music and song and everything is so vital to his character that it is a real joy that like he didn't invite the liar he got it given to him as just like a way to appease him and then he made

it his sort of entire personality he seems to be accompanied a lot of time by the muses now who are these people the muses are an absolutely wonderful bunch it's sort of undetermined just how many there were depending on the sources. But today, contemporarily, we often or will almost always just say there were nine because it is the most interesting to have so many of them. I could probably name almost nine off the top of my head. Calliope, Orato. Calliope is the goddess of oral poetry, I should say, or epic storytelling. Orato is the goddess of erotic poetry. Melpomene is the goddess of tragedy. Thalia is the goddess of comedy. Polyamnia is the goddess of hymns,

religious songs. And Cleo is the goddess of history. We might have hit a wall. That's six. That's right. We've got six. That's two thirds of the way. I mean, fair play. Urania is the goddess of astrology. Excuse me, astronomy, not astrology, astronomy. Well, I'm guessing though with the titles of history and erotic poetry and so on, you can kind of understand why they're so closely associated with Apollo if he is the god of arts and so on. Do we regularly see them in mythology and so on lingering next to Apollo or are they more kind of detached? Well, it's another of those really interesting cases where it feels to me like they tacked it on to Apollo because they are not related to Apollo

in anything other than, you know, Zeus has so many children that you can count it as a relation, but does it really count when Zeus has hundreds? But they are the children of Zeus and the goddess Mnemosyne, who is the Titan goddess of memory. So it's kind of a beautiful thing to associate these goddesses of the arts and creation broadly, creativity broadly with memory. It's a nice little association. Like, well, he's the god of the arts, so we'll have them all together. But in terms of any kind of story, the muses don't feature all that often. There's a whole host of hundreds and hundreds of deities who are really so practical that they don't take part in stories necessarily, where they are just so much a part of the practicality of creating something that they're not characters in it because they helped you make it. So instead, you have both the Iliad and the Odyssey begin, sing, muse, and then continue on. And all poets would tend to begin at least their longer pieces with sing, muse. They're calling to the muses to help them create this thing. So the muses are really associated

with the creation itself. So they appear visually on a lot of things, often with Apollo kind of somewhere around. But in terms of stories, they don't really. And I kind of love that for them. The goddess Hestia is a lot like that, where she is simply so important to daily life, to humanity, that she doesn't feature into stories because they wouldn't create a story about her because life is about her. So these muses, you can't create a story about the creatrix, really, right? She's so busy helping you. She's not going to be part of it. She's creating it through you. The muses are a fascinating bunch. I wish there were stories associated, but the why

is sort of more interesting anyway. It's interesting that you drew that parallel with Hestia as well, which I think is a great parallel to choose right there. I'm also very glad that you mentioned in passing the Iliad, because that is a lovely tangent for us to go on to the next area that I'd love for us to talk about, which is Apollo and the Trojan War. Now, so many deities seem to have a big part in the Trojan War, but when it comes to Apollo, he seems to have a humongous, absolutely massive part in meddling in the Trojan War. But when it comes to Apollo, he seems to have a humongous, absolutely massive part in meddling in the Trojan War. He really does in a number of different ways. Apollo being on the side of Troy, though, is odd to me because he is also part of the sort of origin story of why anyone was angry at Troy.

Not the Helen bit, but the earlier kings of Troy long before Priam were said to have asked the gods Poseidon and Apollo to help build the walls around the city. And then when it came time to pay up, they refused. It's why Poseidon is against Troy during the war. But Apollo is still kind of on their side for, you know, whatever god reasons seem necessary. But what's interesting about him during the Iliad is that, you know, the Iliad is ultimately about Achilles' rage. the Iliad is that, you know, the Iliad is ultimately about Achilles' rage, but Apollo's meddling helps an awful lot because abducting women from a nearby town and taking them as, I don't like to say war booty because they are people, but, you know, war prisoners, I suppose,

but they take a woman named Chryseis and she is the daughter of a priest of Apollo and this ultimately is what causes Apollo to enforce a plague on the Greeks at the camps and they're sort of completely taken out by this plague until eventually they return Chryseis to her father Chryseis. It's interesting because he doesn't really I mean he does play a role literally but it's the plague itself ultimately so it feels like another one of those moments where he's kind of just like, letting his attributes sort of do the work for him. Like all he had to do was kind of be like, oh, there's going to be a plague on you now. And then you have to figure out how to fix it. Right. So his role appears massive because the plague is so central to the Iliad story, you know, with the rage of Achilles and so on and so

forth, which is, and I'm now remembering the epic movie Troy where Achilles cuts off the head of the Apollo statue or something like that. Oh yeah. Just like not something a Greek would do. No, exactly. I mean, there's a handful of those in Troy, you know. Very Hollywood indeed. I mean, when coming to ancient Greek society and Apollo being the god of all of these different things, and also you've got the Oracle of Delphi, the Oracle to Apollo, god of prophecy, and so on. What would you argue is the most significant part of Apollo, his characteristics, his story, what he represents

to ancient Greek society? Oh, that's an interesting question. It's very difficult with Apollo because he simply was one of the most important deities in terms of stories, but also just acknowledging that. I recorded an episode at the end of last year where I talked to someone about the role of the gods, and it raised something really interesting to me about Apollo, which is that he is the first in the line of the succession who doesn't take over for Zeus or for his father, rather. You know, Uranus is first, Kronos takes over from Uranus, and Zeus takes over from Kronos. But Apollo doesn't ever take control. And it feels to me like so much of what he is the god of and

his importance is almost pandering to him. if we make him you know the most important he won't try to overthrow zeus and so i kind of wonder how much that went into it but it is really interesting because not only is he the god of so many of these things but he also just becomes this just really so important that you know he's the the only real example when the romans you know adopt much of greek myth and it's important always to say that while they adopted some of it and made it their own, like they did not copy. People love to say they copied Greek myths. They really did not. They were simply influenced by a number of Greek deities. But Apollo is the most obvious in that he's the only one who keeps exactly the same Greek name

in Latin, which is really interesting. You know, Dionysus is Bacchus, which is also a Greek epithet, or rather a Greek form of his name, as so is Pluto, Hades. But Apollo is the one where it's just Apollo. It remains Apollo. He is a Greek Apollo, and then he is Roman Apollo. And it's notable that he just retained this importance, because I believe in Rome, he was also an incredibly important God. And the importance, when it comes to worship worship and daily well i mean the reason i ask is because if we mention apollo now and of course because he's associated with the oracle of delphi and there are all these foundation myths of cities like i don't know sirene i mean even ikanum in afghanistan and places like that where the people who found

these cities originally they go to the oracle ofphi, to Apollo, and so on and so forth. And they get the counsel about how they're going to settle the city or deal with a big problem such as the Persian invasions and the trust in the wooden wall and all of that. Because that's not everyday life. That's not an everyday person in ancient Greece going and worshipping Apollo at the Oracle. These are massive events, really significant events in a city or an event in ancient Greek history. It was kind of asking, I mean, is the Oracle that most important part? Or is there actually that part of Apollo's story where he is, as I said, kind of central to daily life of ancient Greeks too? Yes, the references you've made were these big decisions that the Oracle helped to make. But it was also just something that people would go to.

You know, I'm sure not poor people couldn't go. The everyday person couldn't go. But then, unfortunately, we tend not to know anything about the everyday person because they wouldn't have been able to write it down. Or if they did, it didn't get preserved for us today. So in terms of what we are able to know, the Oracle was so vital. And what's always interested me about the Oracle is the way that the everyday people, again, I say everyday, but I do mean the people in charge who were capable of going to the Oracle and then writing it down so that we know they did, really considered it to be a really important way of making decisions. And they recorded all of these things and really listened. Meanwhile, in the myths, it's always interesting because the myths of people going to the Oracle tend to always end poorly. They love to misunderstand

what the Oracle's prophecy is and have that blow up in their faces. Whereas when it came to historically accessing the Oracle, it seems to have gone a little bit better, or at least they were able to read into it in ways where they felt like it went a little bit better. There was no Oedipus, at least. Well, a couple of questions before we completely wrap up, Liv. This is kind of a small tangent. With Artemis, she seems to have always been displayed as this young maiden. I said with bow and arrow, this huntress idea. I'm sure there are other depictions of her too. With Apollo, in ancient Greek art, is he also displayed usually as quite a young figure too? Very much. He's always beardless, which I suppose a lot of the gods are, and in pottery,

people just tend to be. But he is displayed quite young. He often has this cool little bow in his hair, which always interests me. He's a little bit feminine in his appearance, which is interesting. I mean, he definitely always looks young and often, you know, has some sort of musical association with him. But there's a bust that I think of that seems to appear kind of everywhere where he's got this bow. And it's this is a silly anecdote, but I once saw a big replica of it in a shop. It was a huge bust of Apollo, honestly, almost life size. And it just said, like, goddess. And I was the nerd who went to the owner of the shop and was like, just so you know, that's Apollo. She was actually like, oh, I actually knew that. I'm going to fix this. Thank you. But it was a fun thing where he does

kind of, he very easily can be construed as a goddess, if you don't know. Like, the clothing, of course, if you're aware of what they would have worn, it's pretty easy to tell that it's him. But it's an interesting thing. And, you know, he's also a god where his stories of people he loved, he loved both men and women, which is vital to his story, but an interesting note about him as well. But he is often conveyed as young, and that's in large part because he was also, along with Artemis, they were both the protectors of young people. So he was the protector of young men and she was the protector of young women. And so they kind of have this association with youth in that way. Apollo is also the god of medicine, which we didn't talk about a lot, but it's an interesting

part of him as well. Well, let's quickly talk about that. I mean, Liv, what do we know about Apollo as the god of medicine? Because when I think of Greek medicine, I think of figures like Asclepius or Epidavros, isn't it? That in the Peloponnese. I mean, how is Apollo related to all of that? Asclepion is in Epidavros. Just to clarify that, that's where the big, big complex to Asclepius was. And Asclepius is the son of Apollo. So that's it.

Asclepius is the literal god of medicine in terms of who was doing the medicine and who was dedicated to it. But Apollo was his father and therefore sort of the father of medicine in terms of, you know, who was doing the medicine and who was dedicated to it. But Apollo was his father and therefore sort of the father of medicine. He was a god of healing. And what's interesting is that the birth of Asclepius comes through the very tragic death of his mother, where Apollo learns from a raven that maybe she cheated on him, except he's a god. And so, I mean, there's a whole lot going on there. But essentially, he is told by a bird that she cheated on him, and so he kills her. And I believe it's that she's pregnant with Asclepius. And so Asclepius, oh yes, Asclepius is the first to be brought back from the dead in this way. So Apollo sort of navigates getting his child brought back from the dead after he killed the mother. It's quite a story,

but essentially that's how Asclepius gets linked both to Apollo and to being the literal god of medicine. But Apollo is still the sort of overarching figure, and it's another good example of how he was the overarching god of so many things, but there were all the other gods doing the literal stuff for him. Like, he's the god of the arts, but the muses are doing all the work. He's the god of healing, but Asclepius is doing all of the work. It feels like another good reminder of he was just the important one. He was sort of the figurehead god, more than the literal down-in-the-dirt god. I think that's a great way to kind of summarize it. The figureheads, the perceived to be an important one, but as you said, the others are actually doing all the dirty

work for him. So interesting. I mean, Liv, last question. One other part of Apollo's story that I know you mentioned right at the start, which is this part of like Apollo, all these people he seems to love appear to die. We've got to explore this a bit more. I mean, who are these people? What are their stories? Yes. Well, I mentioned Asclepius and his mother, and I believe his mother is Coronis. And of course, she died very tragically in the birth of Asclepius. And then there is Hyacinthus, who I mentioned in the tragic Discus Row. So he kills Hyacinthus because of that. He falls in love with a man named Siparisus, who dies in a very similar way. It's one of those stories where they, I think they kind of reuse tragedy. I don't, I can't recall if it is a discus also, but essentially it's another story of him falling in love with a man and that man dies. And then of course, you know, Hyacinthus

became Hyacinth flowers and Siparisis became the cypress tree. And then there's Daphne, who is very famous, who I mentioned at the beginning, who doesn't die, but she's transformed intopress tree. And then there is Daphne, who is very famous, who I mentioned at the beginning, who doesn't die, but she's transformed into a tree. So she might as well have died. It is quite impressive, the volume. You know, when it comes to gods who fall in love with men, unfortunately, it happens quite regularly that they die. And, you know, I think this has some association with the idea that the ancient Greeks definitely had romances and sexual relationships between men, but they didn't have lasting relationships in the same way. So I think there's an association with that or why Apollos always die. But it is,

yeah, it's very interesting. He has a lot of these apparent loves who perish and he gets to be very sad about it, but then also go find another pretty quickly well Liv this has been a great overview into the story of Apollo it's great to have you back on the podcast last but certainly not least you do have a very popular podcast of your own it is called let's talk about myths baby a thing I always have trouble saying out loud even though it's been seven years of it but yes I know I know I run the Greek and Roman, but primarily a Greek myth retelling podcast where I retell stories from the ancient Greek world. But I also have conversations with historians and experts. And I've been dabbling into history a little bit more, getting close to you guys,

what you're doing there. Yeah, together, we're kind of, you know, just rocking the ancient history realm of podcasting. But you can find me wherever podcasts are found. And I have truly an absurd number of episodes that people can go listen back to and learn. Honestly, at this point, almost anything there is to know about Greek myth. That's right. That's right. We are rocking the ancient history podcast world. And Liv, once again, such a pleasure to have you back on the podcast. Thank you so much for taking the time to come back on. Thank you so much for having me. It was very fun, just like last time. Well, there you go. There was Liv Albert talking all the things Apollo, God of

Prophecy, Medicine, the Sun, and so much more. I hope you enjoyed today's episode, the latest in our Greek gods and goddesses mini-series. We've only got two, three deities more to do before this series comes to a close, roughly a year and a half after we began it in late 2022. It'll be an exciting but also quite a sad day when this series comes to a close but it has been so much fun creating it alongside the team and I hope you've enjoyed the series so far. The script for this episode was written by Andrew Hulse, the script for the story. The narrator for that story was Nicola Woolley. The whole episode was produced by Joseph Knight and it was edited by Aidan Lonergan. Thank you to you all for making this episode a reality. Last thing from me,

wherever you're listening to The Ancients, make sure that you hit the notification button that you are following the podcast so that you don't miss out when we release new episodes twice every week. And what's more, if you buy a subscription, if you subscribe to The Ancients,

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