Apollo, God of Music and Medicine

When I first started my website, www.HealingMusicEnterprises.com, way back in 1999, one of my first thoughts was to have a theme that would say music and medicine, music as medicine, music for healing, and sound as healing, wordlessly. I thought first of Apollo who was the Greek god of Music and of Medicine, among other things.

My first webmaster created a masterful image of Apollo and created an entry to the site, through Apollo. That was 10 years ago now and things have changed, but I still think it is important and interesting to know about Apollo!

According to Wikipedia,Apollo

2nd century AD Roman statue of Apollo depicting the god's attributes—the lyre and the snake Python
God of music, poetry and oracles
Parents Zeus and Leto
Siblings Artemis
Children Asclepius, Troilus, Aristaeus
Roman equivalent Apollo
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Ancient Roman religion



Main doctrines
Polytheism & numen
Mythology
Imperial cult · Festivals

Practices
Temples · Funerals
Votive offerings · Animal sacrifice

Twelve major deities
Apollo · Ceres · Diana · Juno
Jupiter · Mars · Mercury · Minerva
Neptune · Venus · Vesta · Vulcan


Other major deities
Divus Augustus · Divus Julius · Fortuna
The Lares · Quirinus · Pluto · Sol Invictus

Lesser deities
Adranus · Averrunci · Averruncus
Bellona · Bona Dea · Bromius
Caelus · Castor and Pollux · Clitunno
Cupid · Dis Pater · Faunus · Glycon
Inuus · Lupercus

Texts
Sibylline Books · Sibylline oracles
Aeneid · Metamorphoses
The Golden Ass

See also
Decline and persecution
Nova Roma
Greek polytheism

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In Greek and Roman mythology, Apollo (in Greek, Ἀπόλλων—Apóllōn or Ἀπέλλων—Apellōn), is one of the most important and many-sided of the Olympian deities. The ideal of the kouros (a beardless youth), Apollo has been variously recognized as a god of light and the sun; truth and prophecy; archery; medicine and healing; music, poetry, and the arts; and more. Apollo is the son of Zeus and Leto, and has a twin sister, the chaste huntress Artemis. Apollo is known in Greek-influenced Etruscan mythology as Apulu. Apollo was worshipped in both ancient Greek and Roman religion, as well as in the modern Hellenic neopaganism.

As the patron of Delphi (Pythian Apollo), Apollo was an oracular god — the prophetic deity of the Delphic Oracle. Medicine and healing were associated with Apollo, whether through the god himself or mediated through his son Asclepius. Apollo was also seen as a god who could bring ill-health and deadly plague as well as one who had the ability to cure. Amongst the god's custodial charges, Apollo became associated with dominion over colonists, and as the patron defender of herds and flocks. As the leader of the Muses (Apollon Musagetes) and director of their choir, Apollo functioned as the patron god of music and poetry. Hermes created the lyre for him, and the instrument became a common attribute of Apollo. Hymns sung to Apollo were called paeans.

In Hellenistic times, especially during the third century BCE, as Apollo Helios he became identified among Greeks with Helios, god of the sun, and his sister Artemis similarly equated with Selene, goddess of the moon.[1] In Latin texts, however, Joseph Fontenrose declared himself unable to find any conflation of Apollo with Sol among the Augustan poets of the first century, not even in the conjurations of Aeneas and Latinus in Aeneid XII (161–215).[2] Apollo and Helios/Sol remained separate beings in literary and mythological texts until the third century CE.

Hope you'll find this as interesting as I do!