Ante-Nicene Fathers/Volume IV/Commodianus/The Instructions of Commodianus/Chapter 12

XI.&#8212;Apollo the Soothsaying and False.

Ye make Apollo a player on the cithara, and divine.&#160; Born at first of Maia, in the isle of Delos, subsequently, for offered wages, a builder, obeying the king Laomedon, he reared the walls of the Trojans.&#160; And he established himself, and ye are seduced into thinking him a god, in whose bones the love of Cassandra burned, whom the virgin craftily sported with, and, though a divine being, he is deceived.&#160; By his office of augur he was able to know the double-hearted one.&#160; Moreover rejected, he, though divine, departed thence.&#160; Him the virgin burnt up with her beauty, whom he ought to have burnt up; while she ought first of all to have loved the god who thus lustfully began to love Daphne, and still follows her up, wishing to violate the maid.&#160; The fool loves in vain.&#160; Nor can he obtain her by running.&#160; Surely, if he were a god, he would come up with her through the air.&#160; She first came under the roof, and the divine being remained outside.&#160; The race of men deceive you, for they were of a sad way of life.&#160; Moreover, he is said to have fed the cattle of Admetus.&#160; While in imposed sports he threw the quoit into the air, he could not restrain it as it fell, and it killed his friend.&#160; That was the last day of his companion Hyacinthus.&#160; Had he been divine, he would have foreknown the death of his friend.