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. [1]
Male lovers
Hyacinth
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.[2]
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.[3] No Greek cult devoted to Cyparissus has been identified.
Other young male lovers of Apollo
- Atymnius,[4] otherwise known as a beloved of Sarpedon
- Branchus (alternately, a son of Apollo)
- Carnus
- Clarus[5]
- Hippolytus of Sicyon (not the same as Hippolytus)[6]
- 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
- ↑ Apollo (Wikipedia)
- ↑ 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.
- ↑ Nonnus, Dionysiaca, 11. 258; 19. 181.
- ↑ Philostratus, Letters, 5. 3.
- ↑ Plutarch, Life of Numa, 4. 5.
- ↑ 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.
