Introduction His stories celebrate his prowess as a distinctive: the long hair is gathered hunter and lover. At the hands of the at the back of the head and drawn up This over-lifesized statue of the god Latin author Ovid, he became a into a knot with trailing ends tied Apollo (his Latin and Greek names are virtually identical) takes its epithet from humorous subject as well above the forehead. Looped over the the Belvedere Gallery of the Vatican (Metamorphoses I.457 ff.: Apollo and right shoulder and under the left arm Museum in Rome where he once stood. Daphne; she turned into a laurel or is a belt or baldric that supports the The figure has been known since the bay tree and her leaves thereafter quiver of arrows behind Apollo's 16th c. C.E., but his precise findspot is became his personal symbol and a right shoulder. The figure wears uncertain (probably Rome itself). Long sign of victory). sandals (notice too the ankle ring). considered to be a marble copy of a This type footwear, known to Greek bronze original by Leochares Iconography and Style scholars as the pseudo-krepides, is a (ca. 330 B.C.), most scholars now The Belvedere statue depicts the distinctively Roman shoe (Morrow believe he is a Roman re-creation or handsome young god as a hunter. His 1985: 114), one of the reasons our adaptation in Greek style and date him to figure is unlikely to copy a Greek A.D. 130-140, around the time of the pose is dynamic: he strides forward emperor Hadrian (ruled 117-138). on his right leg with the left trailing statue. The "soft" carving of the skin Vatican Museum, Museo Pio Clementino, slightly. (A tree trunk carved with a and musculature suggests that Apollo Cortile Ottagono no. 1015. Marble. H. snake behind the right buttock helps is less athletic than the Hermes from 2.24 m. (7 ft. 4 in.). support the figure, especially at Olympia in our collection, but his ankle-level, the weakest point of any aura of languid grace was much Mythological Background admired prior to the later 20th c. marble statue). The right arm,

Apollo was one of the most popular extended along his side, lacks the Context and Interpretation of Classical gods, and he appears forearm and hand (holding a laurel frequently in both Greek and Roman branch originally?). The left arm (its Because of the way Apollo turns and literature and art. He was the son of hand also missing) was extended appears to move out into open Zeus (Latin Jupiter) and a minor nearly horizontal away from the space, our eyes anticipate seeing goddess, Leto (Latona); his twin body, perhaps to grasp a bow, now other figures: perhaps an animal as sister was Artemis (Diana). His major also missing. Regardless of the the object of a hunt, or even a human sanctuaries, at Delphi in mainland attribute, the extension of the arm figure. Thus, Apollo may once have Greece and on the island of Delos in into space is a tour de force of the been part of a larger group of figures the Aegean Sea, were famous, and stonecarver's craft, not least because that has not survived. were visited often by tourists - just as it also supports the weight of a cloak For more information... they are today. Worshippers could around the neck and along the left also consult an oracle in each arm; its curving folds are Learn about Roman sculpture in location. As a youthful god and a unsupported between shoulder and CLSX/HA 527 &537: ROMAN favored son of Zeus, he was patron wrist. Viewed from the front, the ARCHAEOLOGY & ART (credit of young men and male beauty and turn of Apollo's head to his left side for Classics or Art History the civilized order of the city and shows off his strikingly 'classical' For more about myths of Apollo, take civic institutions like art and music. profile to best advantage. The other CLSX 148: CLASSICAL traits of the figure are equally MYTHOLOGY. Select Bibliography

Amelung, W. 1903. Die Sculpturen des vaticanischen Museums, II (Berlin) 256-69, no. 92, pl. 12. Bieber, M. 1961. The Sculpture of the Hellenistic Age, rev. ed. (New York) 63, figs. 199-200. Daltrop, G. 1975-76. "Zur Überlieferung und WILCOX Restaurierung des Apollo vom Beledere," Rendiconti della Pontificia Accademia Romana COLLECTION di Archeologia 48: 127-40. Daltrop, G., 1978. "Zum Attribut in der of rechten Hand des Apollo vom Belvedere," in Greece and Italy in the Classical World Classical (Acta of the XI International Congress of Antiquities Classical Archaeology, London) 224-25. Deubner, O.R. 1979. "Der Gott mit dem Bogen: das Problem des Apollo im Department of Classics Belvedere," Jahrbuch des Deutsches University of Kansas Archäologisches Institut 94: 223-44. Galli, G., "Relazione. I Musei e le Gallerie Pontificie nell'ann0 1924-1925," Rendiconti della Pontificia Accademia romana di Archeologia 3 (1924-25) 473-74, ills. 3-4. Helbig, W. 1963. Führer durch die öffentlichen Sammlungen klassischer Altertümer in Rom: Die Päpstlichen Sammlungen im Vatikan und Apollo from the West Pediment, Temple of Lateran, I. 4th ed. (Tübingen) no. 226. Zeus at Olympia (ca. 460 B.C.). Apollo Hornblower, S., and Spawforth, A. (eds.) pushes a centaur off his altar while the 1996. The Oxford Classical Dictionary Study Pamphlet #4 centaur assaults a woman (head missing). (Oxford) 122-23. [abbreviated OCD] Note how the Centaur's head supports LIMC II.1.183-464 (Apollo). [LIMC = Lexicon Apollo's arm. cast: Iconographicum Mythologiae Classicae, a

comprehensive myth and art encyclopedia:

a copy is available in the reference section APOLLO BELVEDERE

of Spencer Art & Architecture Library at

KU] Morrow, K.D. 1985. Greek Footwear and the Dating of Sculpture (Madison) 106 pl. 96, For more information about the © Paul Rehak 114. Wilcox Collection and Department The Vatican Collections. The Papacy and Art January 2004 (Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1982) 63- of Classics, please visit our websites: rev. 10.2016 64, 62 col. fig. http://www.wilcox.ku.edu http://www.classics.ku.edu