Page:Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology (1870) - Volume 1.djvu/250

232 justly remarks, that it would be a strange phenomenon if this identity should have fallen into oblivion for several centuries, and then have been revived. This objection is indeed strong, but not insurmountable if we recollect the tendency of the Greeks to change a peculiar attribute of a god into a separate divinity; and this process, in regard to Helios and Apollo, seems to have taken place previous to the time of Homer. Müller's view of Apollo, which is at least very ingenious, is briefly this. The original and essential feature in the character of Apollo is that of "the averter of evil" ; he is originally a divinity peculiar to the Doric race; and the most ancient seats of his worship are the Thessalian Tempe and Delphi. From thence it was transplanted to Crete, the inhabitants of which spread it over the coasts of Asia Minor and parts of the continent of Greece, such as Boeotia and Attica. In the latter country it was introduced during the immigration of the Ionians, whence the god became the of the Athenians. The conquest of Peloponnesus by the Dorians raised Apollo to the rank of the principal divinity in the peninsula. The was originally a local divinity of the shepherds of Arcadia, who was transformed into and identified with the Dorian Apollo during the process in which the latter became the national divinity of the Peloponnesians. In the same manner as in this instance the god assumed the character of a god of herds and flocks, his character was changed and modified in other parts of Greece also : with the Hyperboreans he was the god of prophecy, and with the Cretans the god with bow and darts. In Egypt he was made to form a part of their astronomical system, which was afterwards introduced into Greece, where it became the prevalent opinion of the learned.

But whatever we may think of this and other modes of explaining the origin and nature of Apollo, one point is certain and attested by thousands of facts, that Apollo and his worship, his festivals and oracles, had more influence upon the Greeks than any other god. It may safily be asserted, that the Greeks would never have become what they were, without the worship of Apollo : in him the brightest side of the Grecian mind is reflected. Respecting his festivals, see ''Dict. of Ant. s. v., Thargelia'', and others.

In the religion of the early Romans there is no trace of the worship of Apollo. The Romans became acquainted with this divinity through the Greeks, and adopted all their notions and ideas about him from the latter people. There is no doubt that the Romans knew of his worship among the Greeks at a very early time, and tradition says that they consulted his oracle at Delphi even before the expulsion of the kings. But the first time that we hear of the worship of Apollo at Rome is in the year 430, when, for the purpose of averting a plague, a temple was raised to him, and soon after dedicated by the consul, C. Julius. (Liv. iv. 25, 29.) A second temple was built to him in the year 350. One of these two (it is not certain which) stood outside the porta Capena. During the second Punic war, in 212, the ludi Apollinares were instituted in honour of Apollo. (Liv. xxv. 12; Macrob. Sat. i. 17; Dict. of Ant. s. v. Ludi Apollinares; comp. Ludi Saeculares.) The worship of this divinity, however, did not form a very prominent part in the religion of the Romans till the time of Augustus, who, after the battle of Actium, not only dedicated to him a portion of the spoils, but built or embellished his temple at Actium, and founded a new one at Rome on the Palatine, and instituted quinquennial games at Actium. (Suet. Aug. 31, 52; Dict. of Ant. s. v. ; Hartung, die Religion der Römer, ii. p. 205.)

Apollo, the national divinity of the Greeks, was of course represented in all the ways which the plastic arts were capable of. As the ideas of the god became gradually and more and more fully developed, so his representations in works of art rose from a rude wooden image to the perfect ideal of youthful manliness, so that he appeared to the ancients in the light of a twin brother of Aphrodite. (Plin. H. N. xxxvi. 4. § 10.) The most beautiful and celebrated among the extant representations of Apollo are the Apollo of Belvedere at Rome, which was discovered in 1503 at Rettuno (Mus. Pio-Clem. i. 14, 15), and the Apollino at Florence. (Hirt, Mythol. Bilderbuch, i. p. 29, &c.) In the Apollo of Belvedere, the god is represented with commanding but serene majesty; sublime intellect and physical beauty are combined in it in the most wonderful manner. The forehead is higher than in other ancient figures, and on it there is a pair of locks, while the rest of his hair flows freely down on his neck. The limbs are well proportioned and harmonious, the muscles are not worked out too strongly, and at the hips the figure is rather thin in proportion to the breast. (Buttmann, Mythologus, i. p. 1-22; G. Hermann, Dissertatio de Apolline et Diana, 2 parts, Leipzig, 1836 and 1837 ; Müller, Dorians, book ii.)

 APOLLO'CRATES, the elder son of Dionysius, the Younger, was left by his father in command of the island and citadel of Syracuse, but was compelled by famine to surrender them to Dion, about 354. He was allowed to sail away to join his father in Italy. (Plut. Dion, 37, &c., 56; Strab. vi. p.259; Nepos, Dion, 5 ; Aelian, V. H. ii. 41.) Athenaeus speaks (vi. pp. 435, f., 436, a.) of Apollocrates as the son of the elder Dionysius; but this must be a mistake, unless we suppose with Kühn (ad Ael. l.c.), that there were two persons of this name, one a son of the elder and the other of the younger Dionysius.

 APOLLODO'RUS 1. Of  in Attica, son of Pasion, the celebrated banker, who died  370, when his son Apollodorus was twenty-four years of age. (Dem. pro Phorm. p. 951.) His mother, who married Phormion, a freedman of Pasion, after her husband's death, lived ten years longer, and after her death in 360, Phormion became the guardian of her younger son, Pasicles. Several years later ( 350), Apollodorus brought an action against Phormion, for whom Demosthenes wrote a defence, the oration for Phormion, which is still extant. In this year, Apollodorus was archon eponymus at Athens. (Diod. xvi. 46.) When Apollodorus afterwards attacked the witnesses who had supported Phormion, Demosthenes wrote for Apollodorius the two orations still extant . (Aeschin. de Fals. Leg. p. 50; Plut. Demosth. 15.) Apollodorus had many and very important law-suits, in most of which Demosthenes wrote the speeches for him (Clinton, Fast. Hell. ii. p. 440, &c. 3d. ed.) []; the latest of them is that against Neaera, in which Apollodorus is the pleader, and which may perhaps