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Apollo Belvedere.
“And the cold marble leapt to life a god.”

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“‘Bright haired Apollo,’ thou who ever art

A blessing to the world—whose mighty heart

Forever pours out love and light and life.”

—Pike.

STORY.
A PYTHIAN GOD.

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The slime with which the earth was covered by the waters of the flood, caused so excessive a fertility as to produce every variety of life, both good and bad. An enormous serpent, called Python, crept forth and lurking in the caves of Mt. Parnassus, became the terror of the people.

Apollo encountered this reptile, and, after a fearful battle, slew him with his arrows. In commemoration of this conquest he instituted the Pythian games, in which the victor in feats of strength, swiftness of foot or in the chariot race, was crowned with a wreath of beech leaves.

INTERPRETATION.

Apollo’s conflict with the serpent, Python, is a symbol of the victory of light and warmth over darkness and cold. He used his bright beams (arrows) against the demon of darkness (Python). His shafts slay men as does sun-stroke. Andrew Lang relates a strange coincidence of a German scholar, Otfried Muller, who had always opposed Apollo’s claim to being a sun-god. He was killed by a sun-stroke at Delphi. The god thus avenged himself in his ancient home.

“The sunbeams are my shafts

With which I kill

Deceit, that loves the night

And fears the day.

All men who do, or even

Imagine ill

Fly me.”

—Shelley.

ART.

This statue is given the highest place of honor in Europe’s most celebrated sculpture gallery, the Belvedere of the Vatican. It was discovered in 1503, amid the ruins of Antium and was purchased by Pope Julius II., who removed it to Rome.

It is for the modern world one of the most popular statues of the ancient world. Though it has been much studied and admired there has been a question as to its exact meaning. Collignon says that the object in the hand is a fragment of the Ægis with the Medusa head with which Apollo routed his enemies. Others think from the position and the quiver strap across the breast that the god is represented immediately after his victory over the Python.