In ancient literature A. is described as possessed of many and various pOwers, all of which, however, are seen on closer inspection to be intimately related to each other. He is spoken of: 1. The god of retributive justice, who, armed with bow and arrows, sends down his g:ittering shafts upon insolent offenders. In this character he appears in the opening of the Iliad. 2. As the instructor of bards, and the god of song or minstrelsy, play ing upon the phorminx or seven-stringed lyre, and singing for the diversion of the other deities when engaged in feasting. 3. As the god of prophetic inspiration, especially in his oracle at Delphi. 4. As the guardian deity of herds and flocks. 5. As the god of medicine, who affords help, and wards off evil. In this sense lie is represented as the father of Asclepius (tEsculapius), the god of the healing art. 6. As a founder of cities. According to Homer, lie assisted Neptune in building the walls of Troy. Cyrene, Naxos in Sicily, and other cities, venerated A. as their founder. By the later writers, A. was identified with Helios, the sun-god, though Homer describes the latter as a distinct deity. Several critics, however, have regarded Helios, or the sun-god, as the true original A.— an opinion which may be supported by many probabilities. The supposition that A. was identical with the Egyptian deity Horns was rejected by the learned O. Muller, who gen erally opposed all attempts to deduce Grecian from Egyptian mythology. According to Miller's theory, A. was a purely Doric deity, whose first residence was in Tempe, and who afterwards removed to Delphi, whence the fame of his oracle was spread abroad, and made him to be recognized as the national divinity of Greece. The introduction of
his worship into Attica appears to have been contemporaneous with the immigration of the Ionians, and that worship would seem to have spread over the Peloponnesus, imme diately after it was conquered by the Dorians. Much controversy has taken place, both with reference to the idea which lies at the root of the whole myth of the A. worship, and also as to whether this myth had its origin in the north of Greece or in Egypt. Even on the supposition that the original conception was derived from the latter source, it was to Greek art and philosophy that it owed its development into the ideal of humanity. The most celebrated oracles of A. were at Delphi, Alm in Pliocis, Ismenion in Thebes, Delos, Claros, near Colophon, and Patara in Lycia. Among the Romans, the worship of A. was practiced as early as 430 B.C., and prevailed especially under the emperors. But there can be no doubt that the Romans derived their conceptions of A. entirely from the Greeks. It was in honor of A. and his sister Diana that the ludi scrculares were cele brated every hundred years. The attributes of A. are the bow and quiver, the cithara and plectrum, the snake, shepherd's crook, tripod, laurel, raven, etc. ; less frequently, the grasshopper, cock, hawk, wolf, and olive-tree. In sculpture, he is generally repre sented with a face beautifully oval, high forehead, flowing hair, and slender figure.