Apollo the Great archer

Apollo armed with bow and arrows. Why?

"I will remember and not be unmindful of Apollo who shoots afar. As he goes through the house of Zeus, the gods tremble before him and all spring up from their seats when he draws near, as he bends his bright bow..."

"Leto...then...unstrings his bow, and closes his quiver, and takes his archery from his strong shoulders in her hands and hangs them on a golden peg against a pillar of his father's house..."

This is an excerpt from "Homeric hymn to Apollo".

So, ever wandered why Apollo was known as the "far shooting" and why "bow and arrow" were his main symbols? Like for instance, on this Marble Throne of Apollo, Roman, late 1st c. AD. 

BTW, whoever made this, knew who Apollo really was and wanted to show Apollo in his true shape (serpent, dragon), sitting on his throne. With his bow and arrows. You can find the full analysis of this object and the explanation why Apollo is the Serpent/Dragon in my post "Marble throne of Apollo"...

Anyway, I did wander, and I couldn't figure it out. Until yesterday. Let me explain: 

I knew that Apollo "was a god plague and pestilence" just like Nergal. I wrote about this in my post "Lord of flies", about Beelzebub, the lord of the flies, who was identified by Jews and Christians with Satan...In this article I showed that behind this nickname hides the old Mesopotamian God of Death, Nergal, The Destructive Sun of Jul/Aug, Leo, the time of droughts, flies and epidemics...

Leo, which was also the time of the year dedicated to Apollo. I talked about this in my post "Threshing floor of Apollo" about Halos, the sacred threshing floor of Apollo in Delphi. And about Apellaios, Jul/Aug, the sacred month of Apollo...

But I couldn't understand why Apollo "was a god who could bring...deadly plague with his arrows". I couldn't connect the plague and arrow(s) in any way.

And then I read this paper "The Best of the Olympians: The Character of Apollo in the Homeric Epics and Hymns"...

And in it there was a bit about how Apollo persuaded Cretans to go to Crisa and become priests in his temple. He first turned himself into a dolphin (important) and jumped on their ship. I talked about it in my post "Apollo and dolphins" about this  490 BC Etruscan hydria from Vulci, which shows Apollo in the centre, holding his lyre, seated on the Delphic tripod...with a dolphin to either side of the tripod...

But then we reed that: "There, from the ship the far-working lord Apollo leapt, seeming like a star at mid-day: many sparks flew from him, and the beam reached to heaven"...

The author of the paper says that "We may contrast this image, where Apollo is like a star at mid-day, with the similes that describe Achilles at the peak of his antagonism toward this god at the end of the Iliad..."

"Where the beam from the flame emitted from his head reaches the sky, and where an image of asterism later compares the hero to the brightest star in the night sky, a baneful signifier of Troy’s eventual destruction and perhaps his own..."

"It is the most brilliant light, but it produces a deadly sign and brings much fever to wretched mortals." 

Wow. Apollo was actually directly linked to Sirius?

Now remember that I proposed that Apollo was actually Nergal,  the Mesopotamian god of war, pestilence and death, the personification of the destructive sun's heat in Leo, Jul/Aug?

I explained why Apollo was so terrible, and why everyone was so scared shitless when he was around, in my post "Lions of Delos" about the lions from the 600 BC Temple of Apollo from Delos and about why Apollo was linked to lions, and Leo, Jul/Aug...

Guess which star rises with the sun in Leo, Jul/Aug? Sirius...The morning star in Leo. Hence Inanna/Ishtar (personification of Sirius), also known as the lioness of heaven, standing on a lion, with sun above the lion, in Leo... I talked about it in my post "Inanna and Sukaletuda"...

Interestingly, in Mesopotamia, Sirius was seen as an arrow and the surrounding stars were seen as a bow...And they were stars of Jun/Jul/Aug...

I already talked about this in my post "The brightest star" about the link between Sirius and Inanna...

So Jul/Aug, the time of the year ruled by Nergal/Apollo, is the time when Sirius (bow and arrow) rises with the sun. Now I know why Ishtar, the lady that rides on lions, is armed with bow and arrows...BTW, Jul/Aug was also start of date harvest...Hence palm tree...

I talked about palms and lions in my post "Cylinder seal with a monster", about this Elamite seal (Iran), ca. 11th–9th century BC. 

See the Shamash cross above the lion? That is the sun cross. I talked about this in my post "The cross of Shamash"...

But why did Mesopotamians see Sirius as arrow? Remember my post "Invisible archer"? If arrows are shooting down from the night sky, there must be an [invisible] archer shooting them from up there...  

This article was about Orion and Orionids meteorite shower. Orionids shoot down on earth during Sep/Oct/Nov. But there is another meteroite shower that rains light arows down on earth in Jul/Aug. Perseid Meteor shower...

And guess when this meteor shower is most intense? When the most light arrows are being shot down on earth? Right before dawn. You can even see them at dawn, together with Sirius and the sun...Destructive sun of Leo, Nergal, Apollo...

And guess what coincides with the time when the far shooting Apollo is rising in the east, with his "bow and arrow" (Sirius) while his golden arrows rain down on earth? The pestilence season...As I explained in my post about the lord of the flies...

Interesting, right? So this is why Apollo was the feared archer whose arrows brought plague...

Also, remember this? Artemis was also armed with bow and arrows...

Also Artemis, of the original, archaic type, before people forgot her real meaning, from the Artemis temple in Corfu...She is the twin sister of the sun god, Apollo 🙂 

Gorgon...Interesting name...🙂 In Slavic languages it means "The burning one"...Check my post "Ognjena Marija", About the special incarnation of virgin (goddess) Mary, Burning Mary, which is celebrated in...Jul/Aug...

Ko razume shvatiće...🙂

Will write more about this soon...

That's it. To read more about ancient animal and plant calendar markers, start here…Then check my twitter threads I still didn't convert to blog post...I am way way behind...