Bow of Apollo- Greek ArtifactArtifact · Weapon

The Far-Striker's Weapon

Apollo was called Hekebolos — "the Far-Striker" — and his silver bow was the instrument of that name. Days after his birth on Delos, the infant god took up the bow and traveled to Delphi, where the great serpent Python guarded an ancient oracle of Gaia. The beast terrorized the surrounding valleys, but Apollo's silver arrows pierced its coils and it died writhing among the rocks. "Now rot here upon the soil that feeds man," Apollo told the corpse. He claimed the oracle and established the Pythian Games to mark the killing. The serpent's name passed to the priestess — the Pythia — who spoke Apollo's prophecies from that day forward.

Plague and Punishment

The bow brought plague as readily as single death. When Agamemnon refused to ransom Chryseis, the captive daughter of Apollo's priest Chryses, the old man prayed and his god answered. Apollo descended from Olympus "like the night," the shafts clanging at his shoulders as he strode toward the ships. He crouched beside the Greek camp and loosed arrows for nine days. The first struck mules and dogs, then men — the funeral pyres burned without ceasing until Agamemnon relented and returned the girl.

Apollo and his twin Artemis turned their bows together when their mother's honor was at stake. When Niobe boasted that her fourteen children made her greater than Leto, the twins answered with arrows — Apollo killing the seven sons, Artemis the seven daughters. Niobe wept until the gods turned her to stone, and still the rock on Mount Sipylus weeps. Apollo also struck down the giant Tityos for assaulting Leto, pinning him beneath the earth where two vultures tore at his liver for eternity.