Apollo (mythology)
Apollo (Attic, Ionic, and Homeric Greek: Ἀπόλλων, Apollōn (GEN Ἀπόλλωνος); Doric: Ἀπέλλων, Apellōn; Arcadocypriot: Ἀπείλων, Apeilōn; Aeolic: Ἄπλουν, Aploun; Latin: Apollō) is one of the most important and complex of the Olympian deities in classical Greek and Roman religion and Greek and Roman mythology.
Male lovers
Hyacinth or Hyacinthus was one of Apollo's male lovers. He was a Spartan prince, beautiful and athletic. The pair was practicing throwing the discus when a discus thrown by Apollo was blown off course by the jealous Zephyrus and struck Hyacinthus in the head, killing him instantly. Apollo is said to be filled with grief: out of Hyacinthus' blood, Apollo created a flower named after him as a memorial to his death, and his tears stained the flower petals with the interjection The Festival of Hyacinthus was a celebration of Sparta.
Cyparissus
In Greek mythology, Cyparissus or Kyparissos (Greek: Κυπάρισσος, "cypress") was a boy beloved by Apollo, or in some versions by other deities. In the best-known version of the story, the favorite companion of Cyparissus was a tamed stag, which he accidentally killed with his hunting javelin as it lay sleeping in the woods. The boy's grief was such that it transformed him into a cypress tree, a classical symbol of mourning. The myth is thus aetiological in explaining the relation of the tree to its cultural significance.[1]
Cyparissus was the son of Telephus, and his story is set in Chios. The subject is mainly known from Hellenized Latin literature and frescoes from Pompeii.[2] No Greek hero cult devoted to Cyparissus has been identified.
Other male lovers of Apollo include:
- Admetus[3][4]
- Atymnius,[5] otherwise known as a beloved of Sarpedon
- Branchus (alternately, a son of Apollo)
- Carnus
- Clarus[6]
- Hippolytus of Sicyon (not the same as Hippolytus)[4]
- Hymenaios[7]
- Iapis
- Leucates, who threw himself off a rock when Apollo attempted to carry him off[8]
- Phorbas (probably the son of Triopas)[9]
- Potnieus[10]
References
- ↑ Cyparissus (Wikipedia)
- ↑ Cedric G. Boulter and Julie L. Bentz, "Fifth-Century Attic Red Figure at Corinth," Hesperia 49.4 (October 1980), pp. 295-308. The authors present a possible identification of Cyparissus on a fragment of a Corinthian pot, No. 36, p. 306. The frescoes in the Pompeiian Fourth Style are discussed by Andreas Rumpf, "Kyparissos", Jahrbuch des Deutschen Archäologischen Instituts 63/64 (1948–49), pp. 83–90.
- ↑ Callimachus, Hymn to Apollo, 49.
- ↑ 4.0 4.1 Plutarch, Life of Numa, 4. 5.
- ↑ Nonnus, Dionysiaca, 11. 258; 19. 181.
- ↑ Philostratus, Letters, 5. 3.
- ↑ Antoninus Liberalis, Metamorphoses, 23.
- ↑ Servius on Aeneid, 3. 279.
- ↑ Plutarch, Life of Numa, 4. 5, cf. also Hyginus, Poetical Astronomy, 2. 14.
- ↑ Clement of Rome, Homilia, 5. 15.
