Apollo.

By Ev Cochrane.


In The Birth of Tragedy, Friedrich Nietzsche developed the aesthetic dialectic of the Apollinian and the Dionysian, concepts which were to become a permanent part of our culture. For Nietzsche the Apollinian force symbolized all that was light, harmonious, and orderly, the form-giving force apparent in the best of Greek architecture and sculpture.  The Dionysian force, in contrast, represented that which was dark and wild; epitomized best, perhaps, by the reckless abandon and mystic ecstasy of the Dionysian rites described in Euripedes' Bacchae.

The modern conception of Apollo - including scholarly research into the origins of the god's cult - has been much influenced by Nietzsche's analysis. Witness the following assessment of Apollo's cult by W.K. Guthrie in The Greeks and Their Gods: "He is the very embodiment of the Hellenic spirit".  Everything that marks off the Greek outlook from that of other peoples, and in particular from the barbarians who surrounded them - beauty of every sort, whether of art, music, poetry or youth, sanity and moderation - are all summed
up in Apollo.(1)

From the previous quote one would assume that Apollo generally bore a positive reputation among the ancient Greeks.  The further back in time that one traces the cult of Apollo, however, a completely different picture begins to emerge: that of a god devoted to bringing pestilence and plague, delighting in the ravages of war.  It is the origins of this darker Apollo which we will attempt to trace in this paper.

The Archaic Apollo
That the Iliad generally depicts Apollo in an unfavorable light is well-known; after all, the poet makes Apollo the leading god of the Trojans.  Homer's Apollo is preeminently a god of plague and pestilence, and one of the poet's favorite epithets of Apollo - hekebolos - 'the far-shooter', apparently refers to Apollo's propensity for causing plague with his 'arrows'.  The following passage from the Iliad is representative of the archaic Apollo, being in fact the first Apollonian epiphany in Greek literature: "Down he strode, wroth at heart, bearing on his shoulders his bow and covered quiver.  The arrows rattled on the shoulders of the angry god as he moved; and his coming was like the night.  Then he sat down apart from the ships and let fly a shaft; terrible was the twang of his silver bow.  The mules he assailed first and the swift dogs, but thereafter on the men themselves he let fly his stinging arrows, and smote; and ever did the pyres of the dead burn thick.(1)

It is the plague-bringing Apollo, in fact, whom Homer blames for the outbreak of the Trojan War.2 Apollo's darker nature can also be glimpsed from a curious passage contained in the Homeric Hymn to Apollo, hinting of that god's assault upon Olympus.  There Apollo is said to have once caused the gods to tremble and jump from their seats amidst a volley of arrows: "I will remember and not be unmindful of Apollo who shoots afar.  As he goes through the house of Zeus, the gods tremble before him and all spring up from their seats when he draws near, as he bends his bright bow.(3)

There is also a tradition, preserved by Aeschylus, of Apollo having been exiled from heaven, presumably because of his offences against the gods.(4)

As our earliest Greek author, Homer's testimony is especially valuable in reconstructing Apollo's original nature and cult. And while the nature of Apollo's crimes are only hinted at by Homer and Aeschylus, it is clear
nonetheless that the archaic Apollo was not the god of light and order described by the later Greek poets.

From Whence Apollo?
Of Apollo's origins Guthrie has observed: "His original nature cannot be discussed with profit, since it is too deeply wrapped in obscurity."(1)  The depth of the mystery is indicated by the inability of scholars to agree upon the meaning of his name.  With Aeschylus, several scholars propose a derivation from apollonai, a Greek word meaning 'destroyer'. Such a derivation would appear perfectly appropriate for the god of war, pestilence, and plague described by Homer, Aeschylus, and Sophocles.

Yet since Apollo has traditionally been understood as a god of light and culture such a derivation hardly seemed satisfactory.  W. Max Muller, for example, a leader of the solar school of mythology and firm believer in the solar nature of Apollo, observed: "The ancients derived Apollon from apollonai in the sense of destroyer... Phonetically there is nothing to be said against it.  But we cannot decide on an etymology by means of phonetic laws only.  The meaning also has a right to be considered.  Now we have no right to say that from the beginning Apollon was a destructive god.(2)

With this declaration the clear testimony of Homer and Aeschylus was thrust aside, and Muller proceeded to derive Apollo from a Sanskrit form *Apa-ver-yan, meaning 'opener', a reference to the sun's role in opening the gates of heaven.(3)  Needless to say, it would be difficult to find a single supporter of Muller's derivation today.

Other scholars point to a relationship between Apollo and the archaic word apellai, signifying an assembly of some sort.  Burkert recently championed this view: "The name in the earlier, pre-Homeric form is scarcely to be separated from the institution of the apellai, annual gatherings of the tribal or phratry organization such as are attested in Delphi and Laconia, and which, from the month name Apellaios, can be inferred for the entire Dorian-northwest Greek area.(1)

Scholars are also divided on the question of Apollo's original homeland.  The two leading theories are those which trace Apollo's cult to the North and to Asia Minor.  The proponents of the northern hypothesis cite as a decisive clue the intimate relation of Apollo to the Hyperboreans, the latter being a mysterious race believed to stem from somewhere in the North.  From these hypothetical Hyperborean origins, scholars assume a transmission of Apollo's cult to mainland Greece via one of the early migrations, that of the Dorians for example.(2)

Those who seek the god's original homeland in the Near East, on the other hand, can point to the antiquity and prevalence of Apollo's cult in Asia Minor.(3)  Apollo was especially revered in Lycia and Caria, for example, sites of the famous temples at Didyma and Klaros.(4)  Indeed if one were looking for parallels to the Iliadic god of pestilence the ancient Near East would seem a good place to start, where the following Semitic gods - Reseph, Erra, and Nergal - bear a striking resemblance to Homer's Apollo.

Reseph, like Apollo, was notorious for his 'plague-bringing' arrows, and in early Syrian and Egyptian iconography he is depicted with quiver and arrows (as was Apollo in Greek art).(1)  Familiar from the Biblical passages in which he appears as a divine attendant of the Hebrew god (Habakkuk 3: 5 for example), Reseph is believed to have originated in Syria, but ultimately his cult made its way from Mari to Egypt, where it prospered during the 18th and 19th dynasties. Later, in the wake of the frequent voyages of the Phoenician seafarers, Reseph's cult became established throughout the Mediterranean area, but especially in Cyprus, Carthage, and Spain.  Upon the island of Cyprus, in fact, where evidence of Reseph's one-time prominence is plentiful, severalearly inscriptions identify Reseph with Apollo.(2)

Why the early Greeks identified Reseph with Apollo is an intriguing question, the answer to which is central towards recovering a portrait of the archaic Apollo.  Several reasons seem apparent: The most obvious, as we have seen, is Reseph's intimate association with pestilence and plague.  This in itself would have inspired the Greeks to suspect a relation between the two archer-gods.  There are also indications, moreover, that Reseph played the role of dragon-slayer in Ugaritic myth, much like Apollo in the Delphic myth of the Python.  In the Ugaritic Text 1001, for example, Reseph appears as the defender of Baal during the latter's battle with a giant dragon.  It is Reseph's arrows which finally dispatch the monster, apparently rescuing Baal and the heavenly kingdom in the process (this Ugaritic text is frequently cited as an early prototype of Hab. 3: 3-15, where Yahweh fights the sea.  And it is in Hab. 3 that Reseph appears as Yahweh's ally).(3)

In other Ugaritic texts, Reseph is identified with the Akkadian Nergal, the pestilence god par excellance of the Mesopotamian region.(4) This identification appears perfectly logical and is widely attested.  Several scholars, in fact, have suggested that Reseph originally split off from Nergal, rashpu being one of the latter's epithets.(5)  Here it is interesting to note that Nergal's relationship to Anu, the king of the god's, is similar to that of Reseph and Baal, or Reseph and Yahweh; namely, that of a war-like ally.(6)  And as was the case with Reseph there are also indications that Nergal was a dragon-slayer, one text mentioning his combat with the demon Asakku.(7).

That Nergal also bore an astral identification - with the planet Mars- has long been known; thus Jastrow summarizes the ancient conception of Nergal as follows: "The various names assigned to him, almost without exception, emphasize the forbidding phase of his nature, and the myths associated with him deal with destruction, pestilence, and death...

In Babylonian astrology, he is identified with the planet Mars, and the omen-literature shows that Mars in ancient days, as still at the present time, was regarded as the planet unlucky above all others.(8)

That the same planetary association would appear to characterize Reseph in several Ugaritic texts has only recently been discovered. Thus, in a discussion of an Ugaritic text allegedly concerned with an ancient eclipse of the sun (Gordon, No. 143), Sawyer and Stephenson have identified Reseph with the planet Mars.(9)  Reseph's association with Mars, should it hold up, raises the question of a possible relationship of the red planet with Apollo.

Mars
In light of the identification of these Oriental gods of pestilence with the planet Mars, it is significant to note that Apollo's close resemblance to the Latin god Mars has long been acknowledged.  W. Roscher documented in the last century, for example, that both Apollo and Mars were fundamentally gods of plague and pestilence, with strong associations with war.10  Roscher pointed to numerous features shared in common by the two gods, including the following:

(1) each was associated with celebrated oracles;
(2) each was intimately associated with trees and tree-worship;
(3) each was propitiated with peculiar ring-dances featuring armed warriors.

Some of the earliest testimony with regard to the cult of Mars associates that god with the functions of fertility and healing, prompting several scholars to see in Mars a god of fertility.(11)  The association of a god of pestilence with the welfare of the crops is puzzling at first sight, but as Albright observed long ago, it actually makes good sense: "The god who brought death through disease was also best fitted to heal the ills which he had inflicted.(12)

The same prophylactic features are also found in the cult of Apollo.  Like the Latin Mars, Apollo was invoked to ward off the blight of the crops.(13)  Farnell summarizes the Greek's conception of Apollo as follows: "In the belief of the Homeric age, and probably long before, it was Apollo who sent pestilence and who removed it, and to whom thanksgiving for deliverance from the scourge was sung.(14)

The ancient Near East, once again, produced numerous examples of this ambivalent god-type.  The Babylonian Nergal, for example, was at once the source of  pestilence and its eradicator, prompting several scholars to speak of the god's Janus-character.(15) The Akkadian Erra possessed similar powers, as did Reseph in Egyptian and Ugaritic religion.(16)

An ancient form of this god of pestilence, according to Michael Astour, was the Amorite Maras. Astour observes that: "Maras is the name of a god who inflicts diseases, but who, accordingly, also has the power of curing them.(17) Astour relates the name Maras to the Akkadian marsu and Ugaritic mars, words meaning 'disease'.  We, however, would not be surprised if there was some etymological connection between the Amoritic Maras and the Latin name Mars.

The Mouse God
Besides sharing a propensity for causing pestilence, Mars and Apollo shared at least one epithet.  The name Isminthians is one of the Latin god's earliest attested epithets, reflecting that god's relation to pestilence and plague. According to the leading scholars, Mars Isminthians is that god who sends, but also averts, plagues of mice (smintheus is an ancient Cretan word meaning 'mouse').(18)

The very same epithet, however, was applied to Apollo in Asia Minor.(19)  The fact that the cult of Apollo Smintheus has not been found on mainland Greece, but only upon the outlying islands of Crete and Rhodes, sites of archaic Greek colonies situated between mainland Greece and Asia Minor, is yet another indication that Apollo's cult originally came to Greece from the Near East.(20)

The Wolf God
An unusual feature of Latin Mars' cult is the identification of the god with a wolf.  This motive is attested very early and would appear to be central to the Latin mythology surrounding Mars.(21)

As Apollo Lykeios, the ancient Greeks apparently understood Apollo as a wolf-god (lykeios is from a Greek stem meaning 'wolf').(22)  Wolves were sacrificed to Apollo at Argos and elsewhere on the Greek peninsula (this in spite of the fact that wolves were extremely rare animals in Greek cult), and in Argive ritual a wolf was pitted in combat against a bull, this latter rite said to symbolize Apollo's combat with Poseidon.(23)

Greek scholars have observed that Apollo's lupine-characteristics trace to the most primitive stage of his cult; an explanation of the significance of Apollo Lykeios has not been forthcoming, however (several scholars have speculated that the wolf represents Apollo's darker and destructive aspect).(24)

The Solar Hypothesis
Roscher's otherwise solid research into the origins of Apollo's cult was ultimately undermined by his hypothesis that Apollo and Mars were originally solar gods, a hypothesis much in vogue at the time.  In the century since Roscher's work first appeared, however, the solar hypothesis has received a great deal of criticism.

There now appears to be a general consensus that under the influence of the solar school too many ancient gods were indiscriminately identified with the sun.(25)

Aside from the rather dubious testimony of Macrobius (he had a marked tendency to identify nearly every ancient god with the sun), there is little evidence that the Latin war-god bore any relation to the sun.  Certainly it is difficult to imagine circumstances under which the sun - source of all light, warmth, and fructifying power - might come to be envisaged as a dark power responsible for plague and pestilence.

[My note -the sun also causes fermentation and decay, so not so hard to imagine the sun having a malevolent aspect.]

Greek scholars, meanwhile, have found that Apollo's association with the sun comes comparatively late in Greek religion.

Astour's opinion is representative of the latest scholarship: "Apollo usurped Helios' place quite late; in the Odyssey, in the Homeric Hymn to Demeter and other older works, Apollo has no relation to the sun."(26)

Criticisms of the solar school notwithstanding, many of Roscher's arguments have great merit, particularly with regard to the supposition that some great natural force must lie behind the cults of Mars and Apollo.  Indeed, the strongest argument for identifying Mars as a solar god is provided by philology, one meaning of the root mar being 'to shine'.(27)  This etymology, however, need not refer to the sun - it would apply equally well to a planet.

[My note -Mar has a link with the colour red, admah from Hebrew, possibly meaning red-earth (refering to red clay that becomes Adam) . In Tibetan Ma  means red as in Migma, the word for mars meaning red-eye. This word is also the Tibetan name for wednesday.]

That the worship of Apollo and Mars might have been grounded in ancient traditions associated with the planet Mars seems never to have been suspected. (28) Yet this is clearly the most reasonable hypothesis given the planetary identifications of Latin Mars, Babylonian Nergal, and Ugaritic Reseph.

The planetary origin of the cults of Mars and Apollo can resolve many of the most difficult questions surrounding the worship of these gods, while suggesting clues towards deciphering others.  Thus we have seen that it was the planet Mars which was specifically associated with plague and pestilence by Babylonian astronomers. Consider also the lupine form shared by Apollo and Mars.  Here too the Babylonian astronomical records report that the wolf was preeminently the animal associated with the planet Mars, known by these ancient sky-watchers as the 'wolf-star'.(29)  This Babylonian tradition was apparently taken over by the later Greek astrologers, who likewise deemed Mars the planet of the wolf.(30)

It is also of interest here to note Macrobius' observation that in Egypt both Apollo and the wolf had an astral significance.(31)  Remembering the fact that Egypt was one of the leading centers of the worship of Reseph (identified with Apollo), and given the Babylonian and Greek traditions with respect to the wolf and the planet Mars, it is conceivable that Macrobius' statement preserves a fuzzy recollection of Apollo's Martian past.

Support for the hypothesis that Apollo's cult was planetary in origin can also be obtained from a comparison of Apollonian traditions with those surrounding Ares and Heracles, two other Greek gods identified with the planet Mars.

Ares
In Greek astronomy the planet Mars was ascribed to the god Ares, the Greek god traditionally identified with the Latin god Mars.  In Homer, Aeschylus, and other early Greek writers, Ares is primarily a god of plague, pestilence and war, and as such Ares forms a striking parallel to Apollo.  The following passage from Sophocles' Oedipus Rex, describing the pestilence which ravaged Thebes in the wake of the death of its king, is indicative of Ares' reputation: "Muffle the wildfire Ares, warring with copper-hot fever.(32)

According to Herodotus, who cites the ancient practices of the Scythians, Ares was originally represented by a sword.(33)   This forms a striking parallel to the ancient Latin practice of representing Mars by a lance.(34)  The Latin custom, in turn, recalls the fact that in early Babylonian symbology a sword was specifically associated with Nergal, called simply namsaru, the 'sword'.(35)

A Homeric epithet of Apollo, interestingly enough, was Chrysaor, 'he of the Golden Sword'.(36)   Plutarch also makes reference to a sacred sword of Apollo.(37)  While it is understandable that a war-god would be associated with the accouterments of war, one suspects that the sword of Apollo may have a more profound symbolic significance.

The sacrificial rites of Ares and Apollo also share several features in common.  Both were offered the wolf as a sacrifice, for example.(38)

Pindar, reflecting upon the Hyperborean worship of Apollo, observes that among that race hecatombs of asses were offered to Apollo.(39)  Asses, like wolves, were a rare animal in Greek cult.  Strabo, however, records the existence of ass-sacrifice among the Carmanian culture, where they were offered Ares.(40)

Apollo and Ares share several mythological deeds in common as well.  In the traditional account of the tragic demise of Adonis, for example, Ares is said to have become enraged over that god's erotic hold on Aphrodite. Desiring to possess the goddess himself, Ares assumed the form of a boar and gored Adonis to death .(41)  This same deed is elsewhere ascribed to Apollo, however.(42)   Nor is this the only time that the mythological careers of these two gods overlap.(43)

Apollo and Heracles
The cults of Apollo and Heracles can be shown to coincide on several significant details.  According to Servius, in ancient times pillars were erected in honor of Heracles.(44)  Herodotus, Strabo, and Pausanias likewise preserve traditions of pillars associated with Heracles.(45)

Pillars were also among the earliest images of Apollo. As Apollo Agyieus the god became synonymous with the supporting pillar.  Farnell observes that this characteristic of Apollo's cult traces: "to the most primitive stage of that cult when pillar and altar and divinity were not clearly distinguished, the same name Agyieus being given to the god and the column or the altar stone.(46)

The Attic Greeks positioned these cone-shaped Agyieus pillars in front of their houses where they served as doorkeepers.(47)   It was this feature of Apollo's religion which led Nilsson to identify the Hittite Apulunas as the Near Eastern prototype of the Greek god: "Among other gods there is mentioned one whose name is read Apulunas.  He is a god of the gates.  If this be so, then the oriental origin of Apollo, which has often been asserted but which has also been vehemently contested, is proved beyond doubt.  This Oriental Apollo was the protector of the gates; so was the Apollo of classical Greece.(48)

Here it is significant to note that Heracles was likewise represented as doorkeeper by the ancient Greeks.(49)   Moreover, a similar vocation was assigned to Reseph in Ugaritic tradition, the latter being described as  tgr, 'gatekeeper' of the sun.(50)

The World Pillar
The intimate association of Heracles and Apollo with pillars and pillar worship has led several scholars to compare such traditions to the widespread mythical theme of a World Pillar.  Cook, for example, makes the following surmise: "It might be maintained that the Agyieus pillar was essentially a universe-column, and that Agyieus himself, 'Lord of the Way' (agyia), was originally lord of the road from earth to heaven.  The term agyia is actually used of the soul-path by Pindar."(51)

Brundage, in his analysis of the mythology surrounding Heracles, makes of the hero a pillar-god, citing Heracles' ancient identification with the Tyrian pillar-god Melqart, together with the well-known myth in which Heracles replaced Atlas as bearer of the heavens: "The tree which Atlas guarded there was a golden tree; Heracles then assumed Atlas' burden -as would become a pillar god - of upholding the heavens.(52)

It is difficult to find fault with the reasoning of Cook and Brundage.  In the years since Cook and Brundage published their conclusions, however, a good deal has been learned of the celestial origins of the traditions of the World Pillar.  In 'The Spring of Ares' I discussed the latest evidence.(53)  There it was demonstrated that the planet Mars figures prominently in ancient traditions of the World Pillar.  In A Dictionary of Symbols Cirlot expressed a similar opinion: "The Tree of Life, when it rises no higher than the mountain of Mars ... is regarded as a pillar supporting heaven.(54)

Cirlot, Eliade, and other scholars investigating these traditions have shown that the World Pillar can take the form of a mountain, tree, or spring spanning heaven.55

Here it is intriguing to note the widespread association of Heracles with sacred springs.  Thus, Farnell cites Aristides and Athenaeus to the effect that for some reason natural springs and fountains were specially consecrated to the great hero.(56)

Greek myth preserves the same motive when mention is made of a sacred spring associated with the name of Heracles located directly beneath the ancient palace of Hippolytus, a legendary king of Troezen.(57)  This tradition forms an exact parallel to the Theban tradition of Ares' spring being immediately beneath the celebrated palace of Kadmos.(58)   That Heracles was so closely associated with hot springs came as a surprise to modern scholars.(59)

That Apollo was also associated with hot springs is most significant.  Thus in Argos Apollo bore the epithet Thermios, which Farnell translates as 'god of hot springs'.(60)

Apollo's association with springs, like his connection to pillars, provides further support for identifying the Greek god with the planet Mars, and suggests that much of the god's cult should be reinterpreted in light of
Apollo's relation to the World Pillar, however such a pillar is to be understood from a physical/astronomical standpoint.  Apollo's relationship to the mysterious Hyperboreans is a case in point.  As classical scholars have long known, the word Hyperborean can be interpreted as meaning either 'above the mountain' or above the wind'.  The reference is clearly to some heavenly region to the North.61  Yet as Eliade and Talbott have documented, the World Pillar was generally associated with the North Pole, from whence came the North Wind.(62)   Apollo's intimate relation to the Elysium-like land of the Hyperboreans - far from being a clue to the god's geographical homeland -should thus be seen as yet another indication of Apollo's planetary nature.

Conclusion
Certainly it must be admitted that there is an impressive constellation of mythological motives shared between the Greek Apollo and Latin Mars, between Apollo and Reseph (Nergal), and between Apollo and Heracles.  It is our opinion that this agreement stems from the common planetary origin of the respective gods.  How and why the planet Mars came to figure so prominently in ancient religion will be developed more fully in part two of this series, on the mythological career of Heracles.  There the recent cataclysmic theories of Immanuel Velikovsky and David Talbott will be brought to bear on the problem of placing the ancient worship of the planet Mars on a factual basis.

References:
1 W. K. C. Guthrie, The Greeks and Their Gods (Boston,1966)  p. 73.  J.
Harrison, Themis (Cambridge, 1927), p. 443 offers a similar opinion: "Apollo
has more in him of the Sun and the day, of order and light and reason."

1 Iliad I: 44ff.

2 Iliad I: 8-10.

3 Hesiod, The Homeric Hymns, and Homerica (Cambridge, 1970), p. 325.

4 Suppliants 214; see also  L. Farnell, The Cults of the Greek States (New
Rochelle, 1977),            Vol. IV,  p. 141.

1 Guthrie, op cit., p. 86.

2 quoted in R. Brown, Semitic Influence in Hellenic Mythology (Clifton, 1966),
p. 17.

3 ibid., p. 17.

1 W. Burkert, Greek Religion (Oxford, 1985), p. 144.

2 Guthrie, op cit., p. 74.

3 G. S. Kirk, The Nature of Greek Myths (New York, 1974), p. 257; Farnell, op
cit., p. 313.

4 Guthrie, op cit., pp. 84-85.

1 W. Fulco, The Canaanite God Resep (New Haven, 1976), p. 50.

2 ibid., p. 52.

3 J. Day, "New Light on the Mythological Background of the Allusion to Reseph
in Habukkuk III 5," Vetus Testamentum, 29 (1977), pp. 353-354.

4 J. Sawyer & F. Stephenson, "Literary and Astronomical Evidence for a Total
Eclipse of the Sun Observed in Ancient Ugarit on 3 May 1375 B. C. ," BSOAS 33
(1970), p. 471.

5 H. Thompson, Mekal (Leiden, 1970), p. 119.

6 ibid., p. 126.

7 ibid., p. 118.

8 M. Jastrow, Religious Belief in Babylonia and Assyria (New York, 1911), p.
108.

9 Sawyer & Stephenson, op cit., p. 471.

10 W. Roscher, Apollon und Mars (Leipzig, 1873), pp. 51-68.  For a similar
opinion, see G. Hermansen, Studien uber den italischen and den romischen Mars
(Kopenhagen, 1940), p. 15.

11 This was the opinion of Preller, for example.  See W. Roscher,
Ausfuhrliches Lexicon der Griechische und Romischen Mythologie (Hildesheim,
1965), p. 2437.

12 Albright quoted in M. Astour, Hellenosemitica (Leiden, 1967), p. 313.

13 Roscher, Apollon und Mars, op cit., pp. 51-64.

14 Farnell, op cit., p. 233.

15 J. Curtis, "An Investigation of the Mount of Olives in the Judeo-Christian
Tradition," HUCA 28 (1957), p.  151.

16 Fulco, op cit., pp. 12, 24.

17 Astour, op cit., pp. 273-274.

18 H. Wagenvoort, Studies in Roman Literature, Culture and Religion (New York,
1978), p. 219.

19 ibid., p. 219.  See also R.F. Willetts, Cretan Cults and Festivals, (New
York, 1962), p. 269.

20 Farnell, op cit., p. 116.

21 Roscher's Lexikon, op cit., p. 2430.

22 Farnell, op cit., p. 114-117.

23 ibid., pp. 114-115, and 255.

24 ibid., p. 117.

25 G. Larson, Myth in Indo-European Antiquity (Berkeley, 1974), pp. 3-4.  In
fairness to Roscher it should be pointed out that he was able to point to
several ancient authorities, including Macrobius, who identified the Latin
Mars as the solar orb.  Roscher, op cit., p. 2436.

26Astour, op cit., p. 286.  See also  K. Kerenyi, Apollo (Dallas, 1983), p.
52; Guthrie, op cit., p. 74, and Farnell, op cit., p. 137.

27Roscher's Lexikon, op cit., p. 2437.

28 That Apollo might have been related to the planet Mars was proposed by M.
Theodorakis, "Apollo of the Wolf, the Mouse and the Serpent," Kronos 9: 3
(Summer, 1984).  I arrived at the same conclusion, independently of
Theodorakis, in 1981.

29 P. Gossman, Planetarium Babylonicum (Rome, 1950), p. 65.

30 A. B. Cook, Zeus (New York, 1970), Vol I, p. 626.

31 Macrobius, The Saturnalia, ed. by P. Davies (New York, 1969), p. 121.  See
also Farnell, op cit., p. 115.

32 Sophocles, Oedipus the King (New York, 1958), p. 30.

33 Herodotus 4: 60-65.

34 Roscher's Lexikon, op cit., p. 2422.

35 E. von Weiher, Der babylonische Gott Nergal (Berlin, 1971), p. 41.

36 Kerenyi, op cit., p. 39.

37 Plutarch, 'The Obsolescence of Oracles', in Plutarch's Moralia, ed. by F.
C. Babbitt (Cambridge, 1962), p. 473.  See also A. B. Cook, op cit., Vol. 2,
p. 570.

38 Farnell, op cit., p. 400.

39 Pindar, Pythian Odes 10: 29.

40 Guthrie, op cit., p. 75.

41 R. Graves, The Greek Myths (New York, 1970), Vol. 1, p. 70.

42 ibid., p. 70.

43 Both were also credited with the paternity of Ascelpios.  Astour, op cit.,
p. 310.

44 Servius Aen. 8: 275 and 11: 262; here Servius is presumably referring to
the ritual practices surrounding the Tyrian god Melkart, known as the
Phoenician Heracles.  See also Cook, op cit., p. 422- 423.

45 Herodotus 2: 44; Strabo 171; Pausanias 9: 24: 3

46 Farnell, op cit., p. 149.

47 ibid., pp. 135, 259.

48 Guthrie, op cit., p. 86.

49Pausanias, Description of Greece, 9: 27: 6.  See also L. Farnell, Greek Hero
Cults and Ideas of Immortality (Oxford, 1921), p. 126.

50 Fulco, op cit., p. 44.  See also Sawyer and Stephenson, op cit., p. 471.

51 Cook, op cit., p. 166.

52 B. C. Brundage, "Herakles the Levantine: A Comprehensive View," JNES 17
(1958), p.                            231.

53 E. Cochrane, "The Spring of Ares," Kronos XI: 3 (Summer, 1986).

54 J. Cirlot, A Dictionary of Symbols (New York, 1962), p. 330.

55 See also M. Eliade, Myths, Rites, and Symbols (New York, 1975), p. 380.

56 Farnell, op cit., pp. 114, 150.

57 ibid., p. 114.

58 Euripedes, Phoen. 658-661; see also Cochrane, op cit., p. 15.

59 See Kirk, who regards the association between Heracles and hot springs as
entirely arbitrary in nature.  Kirk, op cit., p. 50.

60 Farnell, Cults, op cit., pp. 130-131.

61 Guthrie, op cit., pp. 75-76.

62 D. Talbott, The Saturn Myth (New York, 1980), pp. 217-221.


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