Apollo

Roman mythology, Apollo (Ancient Greek Ἀπόλλων, Apσllōn; or Ἀπέλλων, Apellōn), the ideal of the kouros, was the archer-god of medicine and healing, light, truth, archery and also a bringer of death-dealing plague; as the leader of the Muses (Apollon Musagetes) and director of their choir, he is a god of music and poetry. Hymns sung to Apollo were called Paeans.

As the patron of Delphi ("Pythian Apollo") Apollo was an oracular god; in Classical times he took the place of Helios as god of the sun. Apollo was also considered to have dominion over colonists, over medicine, mediated through his son Asclepius, and was the patron defender of herds and flocks.

Apollo is the son of Zeus and Leto, and the twin brother of the chaste huntress Artemis, who took the place of Selene as goddess of the moon. As the prophetic deity of the Delphic oracle, Apollo was one of the most important and many-sided of the Olympian deities. Apollo is known in Greek-influenced Etruscan mythology as Apulu. In Roman mythology he is known as Apollo and increasingly, especially during the third century BC, as Apollo Helios he became identified with Sol, the Sun. In Hellenistic times, Apollo became conflated with Helios, god of the sun, and his sister similarly equated with Selene, goddess of the moon. However, Apollo and Helios remained separate beings in literary and mythological texts.