“Oh, I am Apollo, and I’m so cool! La-la-la, something that rhymes with cool!”
Actually I have no idea what he sang, but he announced that he would be the god of archery and song and poetry. He also announced that he would become the god of prophecy, and interpret the will of Zeus and the words of the Oracle for all the poor little mortal peons.
When his song was finished, the goddesses clapped politely, though they still thought the whole scene was a little weird. The island of Delos rejoiced that it had a new patron god. Delos put down roots and anchored itself in the sea so that it wouldn’t move around anymore. The island covered itself with golden flowers in honor of the golden god Apollo. If you visit Delos today, you can still see those fields of wildflowers stretching out among the ruins, though thankfully Apollo doesn’t play the trumpet there very often.
Apollo grew with super-speed. In about a week, he’d become a regular adult god, which meant he totally skipped school, got an honorary diploma, and stopped aging when he looked twenty-one years old. Then he stayed that way forever. Not a bad deal, if you ask me.
His first act was to avenge his mother for her pain and suffering while she was trying to find a place to give birth. Sadly, he couldn’t destroy Hera, since she was the queen of heaven and all, but when he heard about the giant snake Python who’d chased his mother out of Delphi, Apollo was enraged.
“Be right back,” he told Leto.
Apollo flew to Delphi (yes, he could fly) and called out Python.
“Yo, snake!”
Python opened his eyes. “What do you want?”
“To sing you a song about my awesomeness!”
“Oh, please. Just kill me now.”
“Okay!” Apollo drew his bow and shot the snake between the eyes. Then he sang a song about his awesomeness. He threw the snake’s body into a fissure below the cave, where it rotted eternally and spewed all kinds of cool odors.
Apollo took over the Oracle of Delphi. He welcomed back the priests and the pilgrims. Because the Oracle had once belonged to his grandmother, Phoebe, he was sometimes called Phoebus Apollo. The main priestess who told the future became known as the Pythia, after the snake Python. Or maybe she was called that because she spoke a bunch of rot. Anyway, she would get her prophecies straight from the god Apollo, and the lines would always be riddles or bad poetry, or both.
She dwelt in the cave where the snake had died. Usually she sat on a three-legged stool next to one of the big fissures that vented gross volcanic gas, which smelled of dead snakes. If you made an offering, the Pythia would tell your fortune or answer any question. That didn’t mean you would understand the answer. If you did understand it, you probably wouldn’t like it.
Apollo claimed his place among the Olympian gods, and even Hera didn’t dare object. He just looked so…godly.
He was as tall and muscular and bronze as a Baywatch lifeguard. He kept his blond hair long, but tied back in a man bun so it didn’t interfere with his archery. He sauntered around Olympus in his gleaming robes with his bow and arrow, winking at the ladies and high-fiving the dudes, or sometimes winking at the dudes and high-fiving the ladies. Apollo didn’t care. He figured everybody loved him.
He was great with poetry and music…or at least, some people liked it. Me, I’m more of a straight-ahead rock ’n’ roll kind of guy, but whatever. Apollo was always popular at parties, because he could entertain you with songs, tell your fortune, and even do cool trick shots with his bow, like intercepting a dozen Ping-Pong balls at once or shooting a wine cup off Dionysus’s head.
Apollo also became the god of shepherds and cowherds. Why? You got me. Obviously Apollo liked premium cuts of meat. He raised the finest cattle in the world. Everybody wanted to steal them, but Apollo kept them under constant guard. If anybody got near his sacred herd, they were likely to start World War C (for cow).
When Apollo got mad, he didn’t mess around. He could punish any mortal anywhere in the world simply by drawing his bow and firing. The arrow would arc through the sky and find its mark, no matter how far away. If Apollo was hanging out in Greece and some guy in Spain muttered, “Apollo is stupid!”…BAM! One dead Spanish guy. The arrow would be invisible, too—so the other mortals would never know what hit him.
In Ancient Greece, anytime somebody dropped dead unexpectedly, they assumed Apollo had struck him down—maybe as a punishment, maybe as a reward for one of the guy’s enemies.
Considering that, this is going to sound strange: Apollo was the god of healing. If you wanted Band-Aids or Advil, Apollo could help you out. But he also had power over plagues and epidemics. He could cure or kill off an entire army or a whole nation. If he got mad, he’d shoot a special arrow that exploded into a foul vapor and spread smallpox or black plague or anthrax. If a zombie apocalypse ever comes around, you’ll know who to blame.
Apollo was the god of so many different things, even the Greeks got confused. They’d be like, “Hmm, I forgot who the god of basket weaving is. Must be Apollo!”
Maybe that’s why, later on, the Greeks and Romans started calling Apollo the god of the sun. That was actually Helios’s job, but the mortals sort of forgot about Helios and decided to give Apollo the sun chariot instead. Since Apollo was all flashy and golden like the sun, it made sense.
In this book, though, let’s not think of him as the sun god. The dude’s got enough other stuff on his plate. Plus, the idea of Apollo driving the sun chariot freaks me out, ’cause you know he’d be talking on his cell phone most of the time with the radio cranked to max, the subwoofers rattling the whole chariot. He’d have his dark shades on and be checking out the ladies like, How you doing?
Anyway, his symbols were the bow and arrow—no surprise. Later, when the lyre (like a small harp) was invented, that was his symbol too.
The main thing to know about Apollo: never underestimate the guy. One day he might be the god of limericks and stupid earworm songs and first-aid classes. The next day he’s the god of chemical weapons and world-destroying plagues. And you thought Poseidon had a split personality.
Apollo wouldn’t kill you for no reason. He just didn’t need much of a reason.
Example: One time his mom, Leto, was coming to see him at Delphi. Along the way she got harassed by a giant named Tityos. I know. Terrible name, Tityos. Nothing I can do about that.
Anyway, Tityos was a nasty piece of work. He was one of Zeus’s most monstrous kids. His mom was your typical mortal princess, Elara; but when she was pregnant, Zeus had the brilliant idea of hiding her from Hera by sticking her in an underground cave. Something about the cave vapors made Elara’s unborn child grow ugly and so huge that his mom’s body simply couldn’t contain him. It’s a little disgusting, but…well, KA-BLAM! Elara died. However, the child kept growing until the entire cave became his incubation chamber. Then Gaea, good old Dirt Face herself, decided to be Tityos’s surrogate mom. She completed his training in the Dark Side. When Tityos finally emerged from the earth, he looked less like the son of Zeus and more like the son of Frankenstein’s monster.
Anyway, Hera got hold of him and figured she could use this giant to get her long-awaited revenge on Leto.
“Hey, Tityos,” Hera said to him one day.
“Blood!” Tityos screamed. “Meat and blood!”
“Yes,” Hera said. “Those are very nice. But how about a pretty wife for you too?”
“Meat!”
“Okay. Maybe later. A woman will be walking this way soon, heading to Delphi. She just loves it when big strong giants try to abduct her and drag her to their underground lair. Interested?”
Tityos scratched his massive head. “Blood?”
“Why, certainly.” Hera smiled. “If she resists, shed all the blood you want!”
Tityos agreed, so Hera gave him a cookie for good behavior and left him lying in wait on the road to Delphi. Soon Leto came along, and Tityos leap
ed out to grab her.
Thanks to her experience with Python, Leto had had a lot of practice running away from monsters, and this time she wasn’t pregnant. She dodged the giant and took off full-speed for Delphi.
“Hey, son?” she yelled. “A little help back here?”
Apollo heard his mother’s call. He grabbed his bow and fired. THWACK. Tityos bit the dirt with a golden arrow straight through his heart.
But that revenge was too quick for Apollo. He went down to see Hades in the Underworld and said, “This guy Tityos…I guess he still counts as a mortal demigod. Not sure. Anyway, if his spirit shows up, torture him for me. Something cool…like Zeus did with Prometheus. Except not with an eagle. Maybe vultures, or something.”
“Vultures, or something?” Hades asked.
“Yeah! Perfect!”
Hades must not have been feeling very creative, because he followed Apollo’s suggestion exactly. When the spirit of Tityos turned up, the giant was convicted of assaulting Leto. He was sent to the Fields of Punishment, where he was chained down, given a regenerating liver, and cut open so that vultures could feast on it forever. (I think Prometheus filed a copyright infringement suit later on.)
Another time, Apollo avenged an insult by committing mass murder. That seems fair, right? The queen of Thebes, a lady named Niobe, had fourteen kids—seven boys and seven girls. The children were all healthy and attractive and made good grades in school, so Niobe was always bragging about them. You’ve probably met moms like that. You say, “Yeah, I scored a goal in the soccer game last night.” And she says, “Oh, that’s nice. All fourteen of my children are the captains of their teams, and they make straight A’s and can play the violin.” And you just want to smack her.
Well, Niobe was that lady. One day the city of Thebes had a festival in honor of Leto. The priests were praising the Titan for being so beautiful and courageous and giving birth to not one but two amazing gods, Apollo and Artemis. As the prayers were going on and on, Queen Niobe couldn’t stand it anymore.
“Oh, that’s not so special!” she said to the audience. “I don’t think Leto’s any more beautiful or courageous than I am. Besides, she only had two children. I had fourteen amazing children!”
O-o-o-o-kay. Bad move.
Halfway across the world, Apollo and Artemis heard the insult and came flying with their bows at the ready.
They descended on Thebes and a wave of terror spread across the city. Everyone turned to stone except for the queen and her family.
“Proud of your kids?” Apollo bellowed. “Maybe we need to put things in perspective for you.”
He shot seven golden arrows and murdered all of Niobe’s sons on the spot. Artemis shot down all seven of the daughters. Niobe’s husband, the king, wailed in outrage, drew his sword, and charged at Apollo, so the god struck him down too.
Niobe’s heart was shattered. She fled to a mountain in Asia Minor—the country we call Turkey—and wept for years and years, until finally she turned to rock. The Greeks used to visit the spot on Mount Sipylus where a weathered sandstone figure of a woman stood, water seeping from its eyes. Maybe she’s still there.
As for her dead family, they weren’t buried for nine days. The bodies just lay in the streets of Thebes, attracting flies and getting grosser and more, um, python, while the rest of the townspeople were frozen as statues.
Finally, Zeus took pity on Thebes. He unfroze the people and allowed them to bury the royal family. Nobody in Thebes ever insulted Leto again, but I’m pretty sure Apollo and Artemis weren’t very popular there, either.
And still Apollo could find new and horrifying ways to punish people.
The most horrible thing he did was to the satyr Marsyas.
This goat-legged dude lived in Phrygia, over in Asia Minor, kind of near the spot where Niobe turned to stone. One day Marsyas was trotting along the riverbank, minding his own business, when he spotted a strange instrument lying in the grass. It happened to be the flute Athena had made—the very first one in the world. Maybe you remember that the other goddesses teased her about the way she looked when she played it, so she threw it off Olympus and swore that anyone who played it would suffer a terrible fate.
Well, poor Marsyas didn’t know that. It wasn’t like Athena had put a warning label on it. The satyr picked up the flute and began to play. Since it had been filled with the breath of a goddess, the flute sounded amazing. In no time, Marysas had mastered the fingering and was playing so beautifully, all the nature nymphs for miles around came to hear him.
Pretty soon he was signing autographs. He scored six number-one hits on Billboard. His YouTube channel attracted seven million followers, and his first album went platinum in Asia Minor.
Okay, maybe I’m exaggerating. But he got popular for his music. His fame spread.
Apollo didn’t like that. He only had five number-one hits on Billboard. He didn’t want some stupid satyr on the cover of Rolling Stone when it should have been him.
Apollo came down to Phrygia and floated invisibly above the crowd that had gathered to hear Marsyas play. The guy was good, no question. That made Apollo even angrier.
He waited and listened, knowing it was only a matter of time….
Soon enough, a starry-eyed nymph in the front row screamed, “Marsyas, you’re the new Apollo!”
The praise went right to Marsyas’s head. He winked at the nymph. “Thanks, babe. But seriously, whose music do you like better—Apollo’s, or mine?”
The crowd cheered wildly—until Apollo appeared on stage in a blaze of golden light. Everyone went absolutely silent.
“What a great question, Marsyas!” Apollo cried. “Was that a challenge? ’Cause it sounded like a challenge.”
“Uh…Lord Apollo…I didn’t—I wasn’t—”
“A music contest, you say?” Apollo grinned ear to ear. “I accept! We’ll let the crowd choose who is better, and just to make things interesting, the winner can do whatever he wants to the loser—demand any price, inflict any punishment! How does that strike you?”
Marsyas turned pale, but the crowd cheered and hollered in approval. Funny how quickly a flute concert can turn into a public execution.
Marsyas didn’t have much choice, so he played the best he could. His flute music brought tears to the nymphs’ eyes. The satyrs in the audience cried, held torches in the air, and bleated like baby goats.
Apollo followed with a song on his lyre (which had been invented by this time—more on that later). He strummed and sang and did a blazing extended solo. The girls in the front row fainted. The audience roared enthusiastically.
It was impossible to tell who had won the contest. Both musicians were equally talented.
“Well…” Apollo scratched his head. “Tiebreaker, then. Let’s see who can do the best trick playing.”
Marsyas blinked. “Trick playing?”
“Sure, you know. Fancy moves! Showmanship! Can you do this?”
Apollo put his lyre behind his head and played a tune without even looking at the strings. The crowd went nuts. Apollo windmilled his arms. He slid across the stage on his knees while shredding sixteenth notes, then hit the reverb button on his lyre and leaped into the mosh pit, ripping out a solo as the crowd pushed him back onto the stage.
The applause died down after about an hour. Apollo grinned at Marsyas. “Can you do that?”
“With a flute?” Marsyas cried. “Of course not! That’s not fair!”
“Then I win!” Apollo said. “I have just the punishment for you. See, Marsyas, you think you’re special, but you’re a fad. I’ll be famous forever. I’m immortal. You? All glitter, no gold. Scratch the surface, and you’re just another mortal satyr—flesh and blood. I’m going to prove that to the crowd.”
Marsyas backed up. His mouth tasted like python slime. “Lord Apollo, let me apologize for—”
??
?I’m going to flay you alive!” Apollo said cheerfully. “I’m going remove your skin, so we can all see what’s underneath!”
Grossed out yet?
Yeah. It was pretty horrible.
Marsyas suffered a grisly death just because he dared to make music as good as Apollo’s. The satyr’s body was buried in a cave near the site of the music contest, and his blood became a river that gushed down the side of the hill.
Apollo made the cover of Rolling Stone. From his smiling face, you’d never guess the guy sewed curtains out of satyr skin.
Final thing about Apollo: he was a confirmed bachelor and a real ladies’ man. Hey, a mass-murdering psychopath who plays the lyre? It doesn’t get much more charming than that!
According to some stories, he dated each of the Nine Muses—the goddesses who oversaw different kinds of art, like tragedy, comedy, docudrama, and whatever. Apollo couldn’t decide between them. They were all too lovely; so he vowed never to marry, just date around.
Only once was he tempted to break that promise. He fell in love and got his heart broken—and it was his own fault.
One afternoon Apollo happened to be walking through the palace at Mount Olympus when he ran across Eros, Aphrodite’s son. The hit man of love was sitting on a window ledge restringing his bow. The kid looked so young, his bow so tiny, that Apollo burst out laughing.
“Oh my gods!” Apollo wiped a tear from his eye. “You call that a bow? Those arrows look like darts. How can you hit anything?”
Eros was seething inside, but he managed a smile. “I do all right.”
“This is a bow, kid!” Apollo pulled out his own golden longbow, made by Hephaestus. “My enemies tremble when they see me coming. I can destroy anyone with a single arrow from any distance! You…well, I suppose you’d be a fearsome gerbil hunter.”
Apollo strode off, still laughing.
Eros gritted his teeth. He muttered to himself, “We’ll see about that, Mr. Big Shot. Maybe you can bring down your enemies, but I can bring down you.”