As the patron of Delphi ( Pythian Apollo ), Apollo was an oracular god — the prophetic deity of the Delphic Oracle.

Medicine and healing are associated with Apollo, whether through the god himself or mediated through his son Asclepius, yet Apollo was also seen as a god who could bring ill-health and deadly plague.

However, while Apollo has a great number of appellations in Greek myth, only a few occur in Latin literature, chief among them Phoebus ( ; Φοίβος, Phoibos, literally " radiant "), which was very commonly used by both the Greeks and Romans in Apollo's role as the god of light.

As sun-god and god of light, Apollo was also known by the epithets Aegletes ( ; Αἰγλήτης, Aiglētēs, from αἴγλη, " light of the sun "), Helius ( ; Ἥλιος, Helios, literally " sun "), Phanaeus ( ; Φαναῖος, Phanaios, literally " giving or bringing light "), and Lyceus ( ; Λύκειος, Lukeios, from Proto-Greek * λύκη, " light ").

In association with his birthplace, Mount Cynthus on the island of Delos, Apollo was called Cynthius ( ; Κύνθιος, Kunthios, literally " Cynthian "), Cynthogenes ( ; Κύνθογενης, Kunthogenēs, literally " born of Cynthus "), and Delius ( ; Δήλιος, Delios, literally " Delian ").

Apollo was worshipped as Actiacus ( ; Ἄκτιακός, Aktiakos, literally " Actian "), Delphinius ( ; Δελφίνιος, Delphinios, literally " Delphic "), and Pythius ( ; Πύθιος, Puthios, from Πυθώ, Pūthō, the area around Delphi ), after Actium ( Ἄκτιον ) and Delphi ( Δελφοί ) respectively, two of his principal places of worship.

Acesius was the epithet of Apollo worshipped in Elis, where he had a temple in the agora.

A temple was dedicated to Apollo Medicus at Rome, probably next to the temple of Bellona.

As a god of archery, Apollo was known as Aphetor ( ; Ἀφήτωρ, Aphētōr, from ὰφίημι, " to let loose ") or Aphetorus ( ; Ἀφητόρος, Aphētoros, of the same origin ), Argyrotoxus ( ; Ἀργυρότοξος, Argurotoxos, literally " with silver bow "), Hecaërgus ( ; Ἑκάεργος, Hekaergos, literally " far-shooting "), and Hecebolus ( ; Ἑκηβόλος, Hekēbolos, literally " far-shooting ").

Apollo was called Ismenius ( ; Ἰσμηνιός, Ismēnios, literally " of Ismenus ") after Ismenus, the son of Amphion and Niobe, whom he struck with an arrow.

Apollo was worshipped throughout the Roman Empire.

Apollo was worshipped at Mauvières ( Indre ).

This epithet was given to Apollo in parts of Gaul, Northern Italy and Noricum ( part of modern Austria ).

Apollo Belenus was a healing and sun god.

Grannus was a healing spring god, later equated with Apollo.

An epithet for Apollo at Alesia, where he was worshipped as god of healing and, possibly, of physicians.

Apollo Virotutis was worshipped, among other places, at Fins d ' Annecy ( Haute-Savoie ) and at Jublains ( Maine-et-Loire ).

At Delphi, Apollo was venerated as the slayer of Pytho.

For the Greeks, Apollo was all the Gods in one and through the centuries he acquired different functions which could originate from different gods.

The magicians were also called " seer-doctors " ( ιατρομάντεις ), and they used an ecstatic prophetic art which was used exactly by the god Apollo at the oracles.

It was in this way that Apollo had become recognised as the god of music.

Apollo Delphinios was a sea-god especially worshiped in Crete and in the islands, and his name indicates his connection with Delphi and the holy serpent Delphyne ( womb ).

We don't know his original name, but it seems that he was absorbed by the more powerful Apollo, who stood by the " Mistress of the animals ", becoming her brother.

The Hieron ( Sanctuary ) of Apollo adjacent to the Sacred Lake, was the place where the god was said to have been born.

Mythographers agree that Artemis was born first and then assisted with the birth of Apollo, or that Artemis was born one day before Apollo, on the island of Ortygia and that she helped Leto cross the sea to Delos the next day to give birth to Apollo.

The palm tree was also sacred to Apollo because he had been born under one in Delos.

The myths also differ as to whether Artemis was born first, or Apollo.

Most stories depict Artemis as born first, becoming her mother's mid-wife upon the birth of her brother Apollo.

* Paximadia island ( Agia Galini, Rethymno ) where the god Apollo and the goddess Artemis were born.

According to mythology, Diana was born with her twin brother Apollo on the island of Delos, daughter of Jupiter and Latona.

Either way, Artemis was born first and then assisted with the birth of Apollo.

Another variation states that Artemis was born one day before Apollo, on the island of Ortygia and that she helped Leto cross the sea to Delos the next day to give birth to Apollo.

Kevin Norwood Bacon ( born July 8, 1958 ) is an American film and theater actor whose notable roles include Animal House, Diner, Footloose, Flatliners, Wild Things, A Few Good Men, JFK, The River Wild, Murder in the First, Apollo 13, Hollow Man, Stir of Echoes, Trapped, Mystic River, The Woodsman, Friday the 13th, Death Sentence, Frost / Nixon, X-Men: First Class and Tremors.

Instead Artemis, having been born first, assisted with the birth of Apollo.

Another version, in the Homeric Hymn to Delian Apollo and in an Orphic hymn, states that Artemis was born before Apollo, on the island of Ortygia, and that she helped Leto cross the sea to Delos the next day to give birth there to Apollo.

Ceos, where Bacchylides was born and raised, had long had a history of poetical and musical culture, especially in its association with Delos, the focal point of the Cyclades and the principal sanctuary of the Ionian race, where the people of Ceos annually sent choirs to celebrate festivals of Apollo.

Though Paris was indeed born before nightfall, he was spared by Priam ; Hecuba, too, was unable to kill the child, despite the urging of the priestess of Apollo, one Herophile.

Edwin Eugene " Buzz " Aldrin, Jr. ( born January 20, 1930 ) is a retired American astronaut who was the lunar module pilot on Apollo 11, the first manned lunar landing in history.

In Latin texts, on the other hand, Joseph Fontenrose declared himself unable to find any conflation of Apollo with Sol among the Augustan poets of the 1st century, not even in the conjurations of Aeneas and Latinus in Aeneid XII ( 161 – 215 ).

Homer pictures Apollo on the side of the Trojans, fighting against the Achaeans, during the Trojan War.

Admetus treated Apollo well, and, in return, the god conferred great benefits on Admetus.

Zeus made her choose between them, and she chose Idas on the grounds that Apollo, being immortal, would tire of her when she grew old.

Apollo granted the request by turning him into the Cypress named after him, which was said to be a sad tree because the sap forms droplets like tears on the trunk.

Callimachus sang that Apollo rode on the back of a swan to the land of the Hyperboreans during the winter months.

Sacrifices and prayers on the Palatine to Apollo and Diana formed the culmination of the Secular Games, held in 17 BCE to celebrate the dawn of a new era.

Gold stater of the Seleucid king Antiochus I Soter ( reigned 281 – 261 BCE ) showing on the reverse a nude Apollo holding his key attributes: two arrows and leaning on a bow.

As god of colonization, Apollo gave oracular guidance on colonies, especially during the height of colonization, 750 – 550 BCE.

The earliest examples of life-sized statues of Apollo, may be two figures from the Ionic sanctuary on the island of Delos.

Apollo as a handsome beardless young man, is often depicted with a kithara ( as Apollo Citharoedus ) or bow in his hand, or reclining on a tree ( the Apollo Lykeios and Apollo Sauroctonos types ).

The life-size so-called " Adonis " found in 1780 on the site of a villa suburbana near the Via Labicana in the Roman suburb of Centocelle is identified as an Apollo by modern scholars.

First conceived during the Presidency of Dwight D. Eisenhower as a three-man spacecraft to follow the one-man Project Mercury which put the first Americans in space, Apollo was later dedicated to President John F. Kennedy's national goal of " landing a man on the Moon and returning him safely to the Earth " by the end of the 1960s, which he proposed in a May 25, 1961 address to Congress.

The first manned flight of Apollo was in 1968 and it succeeded in landing the first humans on Earth's Moon in 1969 through 1972.

Kennedy's goal was accomplished on the Apollo 11 mission when astronauts Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin landed their Lunar Module ( LM ) on the Moon on July 20, 1969 and walked on its surface while Michael Collins remained in lunar orbit in the command spacecraft, and all three landed safely on Earth on July 24.