Phoebus Apollo was the Greek god of day, who drove the great chariot of the sun across the sky from dawn to sunset. As the sun's rays pierce the air with darts of fire, so Apollo is an archer god carrying a quiver full of arrows. The old Homeric hymn calls him—

If we count up all the gifts which the sunlight brings us, we shall have a list of the offices of Apollo. He brought the spring and the summer, and ripened the grain for harvest. He warded off disease and healed the sick. One of his earliest adventures was to slay the serpent Python lurking in the caves of Mt. Parnassus. Like the legend of St. George and the Dragon, the story is an allegory of the triumph of light over darkness, health over disease, the power of good over the power of evil.

Apollo was also the patron of music, having received from Hermes the gift of the lyre. He was wont to play at the banquets of the gods, and the poet Shelley describes his music in these words:—

Poetry and the dance were also under Apollo's protection, and he was the leader of the nine muses.

His highest office was prophecy, and in all his temples the priestesses gave mystic revelations of the future. The most famous of these was at Delphi, built over an opening in the ground, whence a strange vapor rose. The priestess, a young woman called a pythia, from the python slain by Apollo, sat over this opening on a three-legged seat, or tripod, and answered the questions brought to her. Her sayings were in verses called oracles, supposed to be communicated to her by the god.

Now, as might be expected, the character of Apollo was as pure and transparent as the sunlight itself. He required clean hands and pure hearts of those who worshiped him. As the sunlight shines into the dark places of the earth, driving the shadows away, so Apollo hated all that was dark and evil in human life. He was not only the rewarder of good but the punisher of evil. In Shelley's "Hymn of Apollo" these words are put in the god's mouth:—

The head of Apollo in our illustration is from a famous full-length statue of the god known as the Apollo Belvedere. The name Belvedere, which is useful only to distinguish the statue from others of the same subject, comes from the fact that the marble once adorned a pavilion of the Vatican called the Belvedere.

The god stands with left arm extended holding, it is supposed, either a bow or a shield. A quiver of arrows is slung across his back, and a chlamys, or cloak, hangs over his left shoulder. His is the proud attitude of one who is defending some sacred trust. So he holds his head high and gazes steadily before him as if watching an arrow speed to its mark, or perhaps scanning the vanguard of an approaching army. The expression is not a little haughty, and one detects an almost disdainful curve of the lips as if the god regarded the enemy with scorn. The face is cut in an aristocratic mould, with fine sensitive lines which mark the lover of music and poetry. In fact, the refinement of his beauty has something of a feminine quality.

The carefully curled hair is gathered in a bow knot on the top of his head. It may indeed be supposed that the handsome young god was by no means unconscious of his charms, and took no little pains to display them to good advantage.

The Apollo, however, is a god worthy of our admiration for the noble purity of his countenance. Surely, all base thoughts and mean motives would be put to shame by this pure presence.

The poet Byron, whose "Childe Harold's Pilgrimage" describes many interesting sights in Greece and Italy, has written these lines about the Apollo Belvedere:—