Apollo

Gods and Heroes of the Ancient World

Fritz Graf

Apollo is a comprehensive study of the Greek god in all his aspects, from the first attestations of his myth and worship to his reception in modern European and American culture. Fritz Graf uses literary texts, inscriptions, and archaeological finds to develop the complex image of a young god who was central to Greek culture, both in the way the Greeks themselves percieved him and as later ages looked at the Greeks.

Apollo was the god of what the Greeks called mousikë, a combination of song, lyre music, and dance. He was the god of divination: as Zeus' favorite son, he had direct access to the mind of Zeus and was willing to reveal this knowledge to humans. He was the god of healing: as a healer he arrived in Rome and from there in the Western provinces of the Roman Empire. He was the god of the young male citizen and through them the protector of all citizens of a Greek city-state. He has ties to the Ancient Near East, but he is no Eastern god brought to Greece; he became important in Etruria, Italy, and the Roman West.

Literature, art, philosophy, and astrology preserved and transformed the god in the Middle Ages and the Modern Age: he became a god of poetry, the god of the planet sun, finally a symbol of pure rationality and order in opposition to the chaotic god Dionysos.

For students of Greek religion and culture, of myth and legend, and in the fields of art and literature, Apollo is an informative and enlightening introduction to this powerful figure from the past.

Fritz Graf is Professor of Greek and Latin, and Director of the Center for Epigraphical Studies at the Ohio State University. His research interests include the religions of the Greek and Roman world. His publications include Greek Mythology; An Introduction (1993), Magic in the Ancient World (1997), and with Sarah Iles Johnston, Ritual Texts for the Afterlife: Orpheus and the Bacchic Gold Tablets (Routledge, 2006).

This book can be purchased at www.Routledge.com.
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