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:  In Greek and Roman mythology, Apollo  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.

When I was planning my website over ten years ago, I thought it would be wonderful to have the theme of Apollo running through the site.  Although I later strayed some from this theme, I still think it’s so important for people to know aboutApollo and how revered he was.   Please click on the lik below to read all about Apollo.  Enjoy!

http://healingmusicenterprises.com/Apollo.html