Greetings. I am Apollo, also known as Phoebus, twin brother of Artemis, son of Zeus and Leto, god of light, music, truth, archery, healing, and prophecy. I represent many other things, such as medicine and poetry. I am often depicted with my young, handsome face wreathed with a laurel crown, for I have carried laurel with me ever since my Cupid-inspired love, Daphne, was turned into a laurel tree by her father at her request. The crow and dolphin are just two of the many animals sacred to me.
When Hera learnt of Zeus’s affair with my mother, she forbade Leto from giving birth on any mainland or islands. My mother searched and found the floating island of Delos and gave birth to us there, and Zeus secured the island to the seafloor. This place is sacred to me. I am not always as kind-hearted as I would appear, however. Once, Marsyas the satyr dared to challenge me to a battle of music, and when I won, I had him flayed. When the Greeks dishonored my priest, Chryses, I sent a volley of plagued arrows down upon them. At one point, Niobe, who had seven sons and seven daughters, mocked my mother for having only two children, Artemis and me. I struck her and her sons down with my arrows of plague, while Artemis killed her daughters. I have had a long history, with many women involved, from Coronis of Lapiths to Leucothea, and many in between. While I may not be held in as high a position as my father or his brothers and sisters, I am an important, if vengeful, god.
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