The ideal of the kouros ( a beardless, athletic youth ), Apollo has been variously recognized as a god of light and the sun, truth and prophecy, healing, plague, music, poetry, and more.

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.

As the leader of the Muses ( Apollon Musegetes ) and director of their choir, Apollo functioned as the patron god of music and poetry.

In Hellenistic times, especially during the 3rd century BCE, as Apollo Helios he became identified among Greeks with Helios, Titan god of the sun, and his sister Artemis similarly equated with Selene, Titan goddess of the moon.

Hesychius connects the name Apollo with the Doric απέλλα ( apella ), which means " assembly ", so that Apollo would be the god of political life, and he also gives the explanation σηκός ( sekos ), " fold ", in which case Apollo would be the god of flocks and herds.

Apollo, like other Greek deities, had a number of epithets applied to him, reflecting the variety of roles, duties, and aspects ascribed to the god.

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 ").

As god of the sun, the Romans referred to Apollo as Sol ( ; literally " sun " in Latin ).

In his role as god of prophecy and truth, Apollo had the epithets Manticus ( ; Μαντικός, Mantikos, literally " prophetic "), Leschenorius ( ; Λεσχηνόριος, Leskhēnorios, from λεσχήνωρ, " converser "), and Loxias ( ; Λοξίας, Loxias, from λέγειν, " to say ").

As god of music and arts, Apollo had the epithet Musagetes ( ; Doric Μουσαγέτας, Mousāgetās ) or Musegetes ( ; Μουσηγέτης, Mousēgetēs, from Μούσα, " Muse ", and ἡγέτης, " leader ").

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 Belenus was a healing and sun god.

Apollo Cunomaglus may have been a god of healing.

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

The Greeks gave to him the name αγυιεύς agyieus as the protector god of public places and houses who wards off evil, and his symbol was a tapered stone or column.

Sargon the king prostrated himself before ( the god ) Dagan ( and ) made supplication to him ; ( and ) he ( Dagan ) gave him the upper land, namely Mari, Yarmuti, ( and ) Ebla, up to the Cedar Forest ( and ) up to the Silver Mountain ".

However, the god in Delphi gave the Heracleidae an oracle that it was better to bury Alcmene in Megara.

Callimachus then tells how Artemis visited Pan, the god of the forest, who gave her seven bitches and six dogs.

His third marriage was to Deianira, for whom he had to fight the river god Achelous ( upon Achelous ' death, Heracles removed one of his horns and gave it to some nymphs who turned it into the cornucopia.

This, along with the general public's increasing lack of familiarity of Greek mythology at the time led to the figure of Pan becoming generalised as a ' horned god ', and applying connotations to the character, such as benevolence that were not evident in the original Greek myths which in turn gave rise to the popular acceptance of Murray's hypothetical horned god of the witches.

Most accounts agree that she found the barren floating island of Delos, still bearing its archaic name of Asterios, which was neither mainland nor a real island, and gave birth there, promising the island wealth from the worshippers who would flock to the obscure birthplace of the splendid god who was to come.

This gave rise to the standard Roman depiction of the river as a powerfully built reclining river god, also named Tiberinus, with streams of water flowing from his hair and beard.

He was a beneficent god who gave life and sustenance, but he was also feared for his ability to send hail, thunder and lightning, and for being the lord of the powerful element of water.

The Bible describes Yahweh as the god who delivered Israel from Egypt and gave the Ten Commandments and says that Yahweh revealed himself to Israel as the who would not permit his people to make idols or worship other gods " I am Yahweh, that is My name ; I will not give My glory to another, or My praise to idols.

According to the book of Acts, contained in the Christian New Testament, when the Apostle Paul visited Athens, he saw an altar with an inscription dedicated to that god, and, when invited to speak to the Athenian elite at the Areopagus gave the following speech:

Leto, the Hyperborean goddess, after nine days and nine nights of labour on the island of Delos ( Pelasgian for hill, related to tell ) " gave birth to the great god of the antique light " ( Pseudo-Apollodorus, Bibliotheca, I.

This device gave origin to the phrase " deus ex machina " (" god out of a machine "), that is, the surprise intervention of an unforeseen external factor that changes the outcome of an event.

Though the Greek myth of Semele was localized in Thebes, the fragmentary Homeric Hymn to Dionysus makes the place where Zeus gave a second birth to the god a distant one, and mythically vague:

In the Prose Edda, Snorri Sturluson gave this information in Gylfaginning but in a list of kennings in Skáldskaparmál equates Gymir with the god and giant Ægir, citing a verse by Hofgarða-Refr Gestsson where the kenning in question probably simply substitutes one giant-name for another.

We are justified in assuming that in an earlier and more barbarous age it was the universal practice in ancient Italy, wherever the worship of Saturn prevailed, to choose a man who played the part and enjoyed all the traditionary privileges of Saturn for a season, and then died, whether by his own or another's hand, whether by the knife or the fire or on the gallows-tree, in the character of the good god who gave his life for the world.

She gave birth to a son on the island and named him Anius ( as if from " to suffer "); she then put him on the altar of Apollo and prayed to the god that the baby be saved if it was his.

It produced the hermaphroditic god Phanes, who gave birth to the first generation of gods and is the ultimate creator of the cosmos.

The god killed Eurytus for his presumption, and Eurytus ' bow was passed to Iphitus, who later gave the bow to his friend Odysseus.

Plato in his dialogue The Statesman tells a " famous tale " that " the sun and the stars once rose in the west, and set in the east, and that the god reversed their motion, and gave them that which they now have as a testimony to the right of Atreus.

This second Psamathe was the daughter of Crotopus, king of Argos, who, fearing her father, gave her infant son Linus to shepherds to be raised ; after reaching adulthood, he was torn apart by the sheperd's dogs, and Psamathe was killed by her father, who would not believe that she had had intercourse with a god rather than a mortal.

In this state of madness, they were eager to honor the god, and Leucippe, who was chosen by lot to offer a sacrifice to Dionysus, gave up her own son Hippasus, whom the sisters tore to pieces.

However, Rhea Silvia conceived and gave birth to the twins Romulus and Remus, claiming that the god Mars had discovered her in the forest and seduced her.

In archaic Greece he was the prophet, the oracular god who in older times was connected with " healing ".

Stones played an important part in the cult of the god, especially in the oracular shrine of Delphi ( Omphalos ).

There were rivers of Lethe and Mnemosyne at the oracular shrine of Trophonius in Boeotia, from which worshippers would drink before making oracular consultations with the god.

They, comparing the oracular response with this occurrence, decided that this was the person whom the god told them the wagon would bring.

Mopsus, a celebrated seer and diviner, was the son of Manto, daughter of the mythic seer Tiresias, and of Rhacius of Caria or of Apollo himself, the oracular god.

Trophonius ( the Latinate spelling ) or Trophonios ( the transliterated Greek spelling of ) was a Greek hero or daimon or god — it was never certain which one — with a rich mythological tradition and an oracular cult at Lebadaea in Boeotia.

It has been argued that the name of / PRA-JĀ-pati / (' progeny-potentate ') is etymologically equivalent to that of the oracular god at Kolophōn ( according to Makrobios ), namely / PRŌto-GONos /.

* Alexander the False Prophet-the successful travelling prophet of Asclepius and his oracular serpent god

Endovelicus was a god of healing and also had oracular functions.

Dhul Khalasa or Dhu ' l-Halasa is an oracular god of pre-Islamic South Arabia.