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8 Apollo & Hermes

The document summarizes information about the Greek gods Apollo and Hermes. It discusses their origins and attributes, including Apollo's association with prophecy, healing, music and poetry as well as his oracles at Delphi. It describes Hermes as a trickster god and messenger, known for his winged sandals and caduceus. The document also provides context about their depictions in 17th century Netherlands, France and Spain during cultural debates about tradition versus modernity.

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85 views30 pages

8 Apollo & Hermes

The document summarizes information about the Greek gods Apollo and Hermes. It discusses their origins and attributes, including Apollo's association with prophecy, healing, music and poetry as well as his oracles at Delphi. It describes Hermes as a trickster god and messenger, known for his winged sandals and caduceus. The document also provides context about their depictions in 17th century Netherlands, France and Spain during cultural debates about tradition versus modernity.

Uploaded by

eruiluvalar
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
Available Formats
Download as PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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Apollo and Hermes

Power of language: prophecy and trickery


Paths to Success: reason and hustle/profit
Apollo: Far-shooter
Attributes, Influence
Delos, Delphi: Pytho, sophrosyne, omphalos
Asclepius, Cassandra, Sibyl, Daphne
Hermes: Trickster
Attributes, Influence
Herms, Lyre
Argeïphontes
Myth in 17th c. Netherlands, France, and Spain
Apollo the Far-shooter, God of Prophecy

• A deity with Near Eastern origins


• No early references to Apollo in Linear B
• Presence attested in Ancient Near East
• Hittite god Appaliunas (protect Troy)
• Hurrian god Aplu (plague)
• Great god by 8th c. BCE in Greece
• His Temples at Delos and Delphi make
him most important Olympian after Zeus
• Plus, he knows Zeus’ mind
Attributes of
Apollo
• Long-haired
• beardless youth
• bows & arrows
• tripod (oracle)
• lyre (from Hermes)
• laurel crown
Areas of Apollo’s Influence
• “he who shoots from afar”
• Archery (but not hunting)
• Plague
• Medicine and healing
• Prophecy and oracles
• Music (played on lyre)
• Poetry (bard of Olympus)
• Reason
• Light (“Phoebus”)
• sometimes associated/ conflated
with the sun god Helius
Homeric Hymns to Apollo
• Homeric Hymn to Delian Apollo
• Birth: Leto’s arrangement with Delos (joyful)
• Goddesses in attendance to Leto
• Need for Eileithyia
• Prophet: long-haired Phoebus with lyre and bow
• Worship: Ionians go to Delos for contests and
celebration of Apollo
• Ionians: Athens, islands, coast of modern-day Turkey
• Delos becomes major meeting point of the mid-
Aegean thanks to Apollo’s Shrine
• Delian League (post-Persian War; 478 BCE)
• Becomes Athens’ treasury
Homeric Hymns to Apollo
• Joined with Hymn to Pythian Apollo
• Establishment of Apollo’s temple at Delphi
• Discouraged by spring Telphousa
• Backstory:
• Hera’s birth of Hephaistos
• Hera’s birth of Typhaon (Typhon/Typhoeus)
• Apollo slays Pytho on slope of Mt. Parnassus
• Compare to Marduk slaying snakes of Tiamat
• Compare to Zeus slaying Typhaon (Typhoeus)
• Apollo establishes altar at spring Telphousa
• Appears as a dolphin to Cretans, leads them to
Delphi to be stewards of his temple
On Slope of Mt. Parnassus
Homeric Hymns to Apollo
• Hymn elucidates what mortals can expect from
Apollo
• Gifts and hardships
• Song, music, celebration
• Protection, including healing
• Explains names, origins, and characteristics of Apollo
• Hymn elaborates on mortals
• Mindless, helpless lives that never find a cure for death
• no guard against old age
• Dismal half-wits, who go looking for misery, anxiety,
and hardship
• Warning to stewards:
• If any word or act is stupid or criminal (the way with
humans) then other men will come to be your rulers
Pan-Hellenic Oracle of
Apollo at Delphi
Most significant religious center in Greece
• Delphic oracle: Regarded highly
by ALL Greeks
• Center of the world, marked by the
omphalos (the navel)
• Fed to Cronus (“baby Zeus”), later
vomited
Sophrosyne: restraint, moderation
“Know thyself.” “Nothing in excess.”
• Inscribed on the Temple
Cosmopolitan oracular shrine
Apollo’s Oracle: The Pythia
• Apollo spoke through a priestess, the Pythia
• Seated on tripod in temple
• Breathed vapors from the earth and was possessed
by the god
• She would answer (often obscurely) any question put to
her
• Should I marry Dione? Should I move to Sparta?
• Should I invade Persia? “You will destroy a great
empire.” (Croesus’ own!)
• How do we save Athens from the Persians? “The
wooden walls.” (Themistocles understood navy)
• Who is the wisest of men? “Socrates”
Healer Apollo

Father of Asclepius
Mortal Coronis pregnant
• She cheats on Apollo
• Apollo asks Artemis to kill Coronis
• Asks Hermes to remove infant Asclepius
Chiron the centaur raises Asclepius
• Taught healing arts
Asclepius presided over Epidaurus
• Most renowned healing sanctuary in Greece
Hygieia (his wife or daughter) = health/hygiene
Apollo’s (other) Failed Romances

• Cassandra, given prophetic powers in exchange for


sex, but then she denied the sex, became the Trojan
prophet whose words no one believes

• Sibyl of Cumae: Given “as many years as grains of


sand she could scoop up in her hands,” but she
refused the sex, still got the years (but not the youth)
Apollo and Daphne
• Daphne (a river nymph)
flees from Apollo
• Her father (the river god
Peneus) changes her into
laurel tree
• Laurel becomes Apollo’s
sacred plant (etiological:
laurel in Greek = daphne)
• Laurel crowns are given to
victors and poets
• i.e., poet laureates

Bernini (1625)
Apollo as an Aristocratic Ideal
• Knowledge of mysterious
things
• Oracular prophecy, healing
• Skills in impressive arts
• Archery, music, poetry
• Young & vigorous in his
manhood
• Came to embody the Greek
Ideal
• Order against disorder
• Reason against unreason
Hermes, Trickster God
• Son of Zeus and Maia, oldest of the Pleiades
• Daughters of Atlas and sea-nymph Pleione
• Born on Mt. Kyllene, in Arcadia: many shrines to Hermes
• Name = “he of the stone heap” [=herma]
• From the stone cairns used to mark trails
• Protector of travelers (hence also thieves, merchants,
shepherds, heralds, orators, tricksters, etc.)
• Guides souls to the Underworld: “psychopompos”
• Primary messenger of the Olympians
• “luck-bringing messenger”
Attributes of Hermes
• Traveler’s hat (cap)
• Winged sandals
• Caduceus
• 2 copulating snakes
intertwined
• Often winged
• the emblem of the
herald/messenger
• given by the healer
Apollo
Hermes: psychopompos, traveler
Hermes: herms
• Herm: a column with
a head and a phallus
• Erect phallus
venerated as symbol
of Hermes
• Human man
(beardless youth or
bearded adult)
• Derived from piles of
rocks: “Hermes’ hills”
The Function of herms
• Fertility of goats, sheep, and swine
• Eumaeus, the swineherd in Odyssey, prays to
Hermes before every meal
• Protection: use of phallus as an apotropaic
(capable of warding off the evil eye)
• Herms at doors and gates of temples, houses,
cities, bedrooms
• Used to mark boundaries:
• Milestones
• To mark boundaries
• To mark graves
The Homeric Hymn to Hermes
Cattle-rustler and dream-commander
• Celebrates Hermes’ trickery, even as a new-born babe
• He invents the lyre, his sandals, the kindling of fire
• He steals 50 cattle (Apollo’s!), skinned and roasted two!
• Plans to live a rich life with the immortals
• Hermes and Apollo
• Apollo tracks down Hermes; Hermes act like infant
• They go to Zeus, who tells them to work together
• Hermes plays lyre; Apollo craves it: fun, love, sweet sleep
• They swear friendship
• Hermes won’t steal from Apollo; Hermes to oversee trading
• Hermes gives Apollo the lyre
• Apollo gives Hermes a whip (& the 50 cows) and a splendid
staff
• Hymn presents Hermes as a brilliant liar, sympathetic to his
creativity
• Benevolent, funny, “Flash flamboyant deeds”
From Tortoise
To Lyre
Io
Zeus
Hera
Cow
Argus
Hermes

Io and Zeus, Pompeii fresco, 79 CE


Renée-Antoine Houasse, Mercury and Argus (1688)

Argeïphontes
Jacob Jordaens, Mercury and Argus (1635-1640)

Rise in
popularity of
Ovid’s
Metamorphoses

Illustrated print
editions of the
text and
paintings

17th century
cultural debate
Peter Paul Rubens, Mercury and Argus (1636-1638)

The Quarrel of the Ancients and the Moderns


Especially in France, but throughout western Europe
“Moderns” saw in Ovid a kindred spirit: A new way of telling the “ancient” stories
Self-conscious, elaborate, not “Classical” (not restrained)
Velázquez, Hermes and Argus (1659)

Choice of Hermes, in particular:


A rejection of self-restraint
An affirmation of trade and commerce

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