Apollo in Greek and Roman Mythology | Delphi Oracle, Artemis, and Cassandra Relationships Explained

Arrows are falling silently through the night in the middle of the Greek camp. At first, mules and dogs collapse, and as time passes, more and more people also begin to fall where they stand. The god who sent these arrows is Apollo.

This god, who governs archery, music, and prophecy all at once, is often depicted holding a lyre in one hand and a bow in the other. Yet to truly understand him, a single scene of unleashing a plague is not enough. From the moment of his birth to the founding of Delphi, and even the curse entangling Cassandra, a complete picture only emerges when you trace these stories from different eras one by one.

Son of Zeus and Leto, Born Alongside Artemis

Apollo is the god born of Zeus and Leto. One figure is always mentioned at his side: his twin sister, Artemis.

The Homeric Hymns do not separate the two siblings. As they sing of Apollo establishing himself as a god endowed with many abilities—archery, music, and prophecy—they also convey Artemis standing beside him as his sibling. The fact that the two gods are portrayed side by side from the very beginning serves as the starting point for understanding the many roles Apollo would later take on.

Confronting Python and Founding Delphi

In the latter part of the hymn, Apollo comes face to face with a single place. It was a fearsome being guarding a land called Pytho—the monster Python.

Apollo chooses to confront it directly rather than flee. The result was Apollo's victory, and on the very spot where he defeated Python, he established a sacred sanctuary and rites. This is the place that would later become Delphi, where people came seeking oracles.

UNESCO today introduces Delphi as a World Heritage site that embraces both the oracle of Apollo and archaeological remains. However, it is worth distinguishing that this description refers to the remains that exist today and their value—it is not evidence that the battle with Python told in the hymn actually took place.

The god who established the oracle at Delphi reappears much later, on the battlefield of the Trojan War, wearing a completely different face.

The Plague That Descended on the Greek Camp

Moving to Book 1 of the Iliad, Apollo appears not as the god who founded the oracle, but as a god responding to the prayer of one who serves him. When his priest Chryses offers an earnest prayer, Apollo accepts it just as it was offered.

The response he chose was not mercy but calamity. Apollo shot arrows toward the Greek camp and spread a plague, and these arrows spread starting from the mules and dogs to the people themselves.

The prayer of a single priest thus led to a result that shook an entire army. This scene clearly reveals that the god who symbolized music and prophecy is also a being capable of inflicting punishment this heavy.

Cassandra Calls Upon Apollo Before Agamemnon's Palace

The relationship between Apollo and Cassandra is confirmed in yet another setting, different from the two previous stories. Not in the Homeric Hymns or the Iliad, but in the tragedy Agamemnon written by Aeschylus.

In this work, Cassandra herself says that prophecy and a curse are intertwined between herself and Apollo. It means that the ability to see the future and the plight of having no one believe her words are bound together as one.

Though it concerns the same god, this relationship is a layer with a different tone from the Apollo depicted in the hymns or the epic. So if you read Apollo through only a single source, the differences among these three stories may actually become blurred. To properly understand this god—who was born, founded Delphi, unleashed a plague on the battlefield, and is called upon again as a curse before Cassandra—it is best to always keep track of which work each story comes from.

Characters Leading to the Next Stories

You can continue reading about how Cassandra, entangled with Apollo through prophecy and curse, meets her end in the myth of Cassandra. If you are curious about what kind of god Zeus, the father who bore him, is, you can explore the myth of Zeus.

The story of Delphi itself, the place Apollo founded after defeating Python, is covered in more detail in the story of Delphi. The story of Hermes, the brother who quarreled with Apollo and then reconciled, continues in the myth of Hermes.