Apol´lo, son of Zeus (Jupiter) and Leto (Latona), who, being persecuted by the jealousy of Hera (Juno), after tedious wanderings and
nine days' labour, was delivered of him and his twin sister, Artĕmis (Diana), on the Island of Delos. Skilled in the use of the bow, he slew the serpent Python on the fifth day after his birth; afterwards, with his sister Artĕmis, he killed the children of Niobē. He aided Zeus in the war with the Titans and the giants. He destroyed the Cyclopes, because they forged the thunderbolts with which Zeus killed his son and favourite Asklepios (Æsculapius). According to some traditions he invented the lyre, though this is generally ascribed to Hermes (Mercury). The brightest creation of polytheism, Apollo is also the most complex, and many aspects of the people's life were reflected in his cult. He was originally the sun-god; and though in Homer he appears distinct from Helios (the sun), yet his real nature is hinted at even here by the epithet Phœbus, that is, the radiant or beaming. In later times the view was almost universal that Apollo and Helios were identical. From being the god of light and purity in a physical sense, he gradually became the god of moral and spiritual light and purity, the source of all intellectual, social, and political progress. He thus came to be regarded as the god of song and prophecy, the god that wards off and heals bodily suffering and disease, the institutor and guardian of civil and political order, and the founder of cities. His worship was introduced at Rome at an early period, probably in the time of the Tarquins. Among the ancient statues of Apollo that have come down to us, the most remarkable is the one called Apollo Belvedere, from the Belvedere Gallery in the Vatican at Rome. This statue was discovered at Frascati in 1455, and purchased by Pope Julian II, the founder of the Vatican museum. It is a copy of a Greek statue of the third century B.C., and dates probably from the reign of Nero.
Apollodo´rus, a Greek writer who flourished 140 B.C. Among the numerous works he wrote on various subjects, the only one extant is his Bibliothecē, which contains a concise account of the mythology of Greece down to the heroic age.
Apollo´nius of Perga, Greek mathematician, called the 'great geometer', flourished about 240 B.C., and was the author of many works, only one of which, a treatise on Conic Sections, partly in Greek and partly in an Arabic translation, is now extant.
Apollo´nius of Rhodes, a Greek rhetorician and poet, flourished about 230 B.C. Of his various works we have only the Argonautica, an epic poem of considerable merit, though perhaps written with too much care and labour. It deals with the story of the Argonautic expedition.
Apollo´nius of Ty´ana, in Cappadocia, a Pythagorean philosopher who was born in the beginning of the Christian era, early adopted the Pythagorean doctrines, abstaining from animal food and maintaining a rigid silence for five years. He travelled extensively in Asia, professed to be endowed with miraculous powers, such as prophecy and the raising of the dead, and was on this account set up by some as a rival to Christ. His ascetic life, wise discourses, and wonderful deeds obtained for him almost universal reverence, and temples, altars, and statues were erected to him. He died at Ephesus about the end of the first century. A narrative of his strange career, containing many fables, with, perhaps, a kernel of truth, was written by Philostratus about a century later.
Apollo´nius of Tyre, the hero of a tale which had an immense popularity in the Middle Ages and which indirectly furnished the plot of Shakespeare's Pericles, Prince of Tyre. The story, originally in Greek, first appeared in the third century after Christ.
Apoll´os, a Jew of Alexandria, who learned the doctrines of Christianity at Ephesus from Aquila and Priscilla, became a preacher of the gospel in Achaia and Corinth, and an assistant of Paul in his missionary work. Some have regarded him as the author of the Epistle to the Hebrews.
Apoll´yon ('the Destroyer'), a name used in Rev. ix, 11 for the angel of the bottomless pit.