Apollo the Bisexual

This week we are talking about the God of the Arts Apollo.

Apollo was a deity whose amorous escapades are split between men and women. 

Some of the most widely known stories of love between Gods and Mortals involve Apollo in some way. 

Apollo was involved with many of the Muses, often bequeathing remarkable artists and bards in the process. He was involved with many men, including Admetos of Thessaly whom he tried to save from death. His romance with Hyacinthos is among the most iconic stories from Antiquity. 

Yet Apollo never married anyone, instead choosing to follow his desires for both men and women throughout his entire life. 

Taken together, Apollo becomes an archetype for Bisexuality in the ancient world. 

Transcript

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Hello, everybody, and welcome to Lambda, the LGBT and Antiquity podcast, your home for all things LGBT in the ancient world. I'm your host, Dominica Raven, episode 7, Apollo the Bisexual. Apollo burned with love for a young man named Edmitos, a prince of Thessaly. Apollo comes down to earth disguised as a shepherd, becoming Apollo Nomios, the pastoral Apollo. Under his watchful eye, Edmitos' herds and flocks were fruitful beyond reasoning. Apollo tamed horses and induced milk production in unheard-of quantities. The two had a very close relationship for over a year. Edmitos knew that Apollo was a god in disguise the whole time, but his humility and piety were on display. During this year, Edmitos began courting Elchestes. Though Elchestus did love Edmitos, her father Pelaius was unwilling to let them get married. Pelaius is never shown as a respectable, moderate, and just king. In fact, he's often known for setting dangerous and difficult labors before different Greek heroes. Pelaius is the same corrupt and foolish king who would a few years later send Jason and the Argonauts to the far corners of the earth to find the golden fleece of Phrixos. Here, too, Polaius refuses to let them get married until Edmitos can yoke a lion and a wild boar to a war chariot. Dejected by this seemingly impossible task, Edmitos asked his lover Apollo for help. Apollo already knew and presents Edmitos with a chariot yoked to the wild animals. Edmitos and Elchestis ride triumphantly away from Pelaias' house on the silly-looking chariot. Though Apollo was heartbroken, he did not bear any ill-will against his lover. Sometime later Apollo asked the fates to release Edmitos from death. They agreed, but provided an ironic stipulation. Someone else had to die willingly in his place. When the day of his death came, it was his wife Elchestis who died in place of Edmitos. This destroyed Admitos. Though he had escaped his own death, he cries out, To misery was I born, wretch who I am, I envy the dead, I long for them to repose me in that house. Edmitos has survived death, but does not get to enjoy it. Apollo even tried to convince death to let Elchestus survive, but implacable death refused. Eventually Heracles takes pity on Edmetos. Heracles returns to Hades, he remembered the way after his labor of fetching Cerberus. He brings Elchestus out, but she keeps her veil down. Heracles offers her to Edmetos as a new replacement wife, but Edmetos confesses his love and his grief to Elchestus herself, and only then are they reunited. Apollo is ultimately happy for the couple, even as he departs the palace he loves so much. There are many famous stories of love between gods and mortals. The canon literally begins with Homer. The Iliad is strangely coy about this type of love, even though Achilles, Aeneas, Psarpedon, Brisus, Helen, the list goes on, are all direct children of a god and a mortal in union, and literally everybody else on the fields of Troy is either a grandson or a great-grandson of some god. However, during the Odyssey, Odysseus is taken in by the hospitable Phaeacians. They give him gifts and offer him a ride home, but before they depart, there is a party at the palace. During this party, some youths pick a fight with Odysseus, only for the aging hero to put them right back in their place. Then the Phaeacians show off their skill at dancing, casting a great glass ball up into the air. Then the bard Demodocus starts unabashedly singing pornography about a steamy love affair between Ares and Aphrodite, while the crookshanked cuckle Tephaestus sets a snare. The offspring of this union is Harmonia, who will be the wife of Cadmus the Dragonslayer. This is the first in a long line of narratives of God Mortal Love. Several of the most important, influential, and iconic narratives of gods and mortals involve the god Apollo. Apollo is an archer god who deals death from afar. He is a powerful male deity shown fighting at Troy, employed by Admitus, and beholding the whole world as a manifestation of the sun. Athena consistently appears as a mortal man to pass messages at the front, or as a young woman to make suggestions to young women, and that's all part of her nature, where Apollo is practically never shown crossing gendered boundaries or taking the form of a woman. Apollo is a god of music and art and song. He's the son of Zeus and the Titan Leto. An iconic story of Apollo as a god of the arts occurs when Hermes was first born. When Hermes was born, he constructed the very first lyre out of a turtle shell and then tried to steal Apollo's favorite cattle. Apollo found out immediately and confronted Hermes. But the god of song was absolutely entranced by this brand new instrument he had never heard before. So Apollo arranges to have Hermes take control of his bull whip, and a specific type of divination using magic rocks, in exchange for the lyre, and the two gods are close allies from that moment on. The lyre became an important manifestation of Apollo's role as a god of music and song and just general artistry and craftsmanship. In time he would have relationships with most of the muses. Each of the nine muses is a physical embodiment of the individual arts, so when Apollo and a muse have a child together, they're generally powerful singers or artists. Apollo once courted Calliope, the muse of epic poetry, and their children were Orpheus and Linos. Linus was a great lyric poet and tragic figure. He once trained a young Heracles himself in the art of the lyre. Heracles grew impatient and characteristically violent with his progress in the art. Eventually, while Linus is correcting and instructing, he makes a fatal error and strikes the great hero. As a result, Heracles strikes Linus over the head with his own lyre and murders him right there. The other child, Orpheus, needs no introduction. He was the greatest bard in all history, capable of charming the trees and animals and stones to dance with him up in the mountains. His skills were legendary to such a point that even when he goes to the underworld to grab back Eurydice, he actually plays his lyre to win Persephone's favor. But Apollo did not marry the muse Calliope. In fact, he had a relationship with her sister, Telea, the muse of comedy. Their child was named Coribas, and their descendants are called Corebantes. The Corebantes are integral players in the Samo Thracian mysteries. They would dance around in full armor, but acting more like wild animals or possessed men than anything else. These two stories are iconic episodes where Apollo has relations with one of the muses. Yet there are many more stories pairing Apollo and various muses. Even these stories have variations, such as the one where Linos was a child of Apollo and Orania, the muse of astronomy. Apollo is the leader of the muses, often shown in art as a chorus leader. Their relationship is significant because though Apollo loves all nine muses, he never married any of them. This is possibly because he knew he could never marry all nine at once. But beyond this, Apollo never actually married anybody. As we touched on before, marriage is a social and political business arrangement which neither required nor encouraged monogamy. Yet Apollo chose not to marry, electing instead to remain a bachelor forever. The implication is that where many deities have their official spouse and uncountable extramarital affairs, Apollo seems to represent something a little different. He was sometimes interested in men and sometimes in women. Taken together, this shows an excellent example of a deity who is attracted to both men and women, an archetypal bisexual figure. The love between Apollo and Hyacinthos is one of the best-known love stories between a god and a mortal from the ancient world. Hyacinthos is sometimes called a son of Cleo, the muse of history. Another common version is that Hyacinthus was actually the grandson of Lacedaemon, the eponymous progenitor of Lacedayamon, which is what the Greeks called the southeastern corner of the Peloponnesian peninsula, whose chief city-state was Sparta. Some modern scholars have argued that Hyacinthos was actually an archetype for the Spartan model of initiatory homosexuality practiced in their famous military. The Hyacinthia festival was an important coming-of-age rite for boys and girls in the highly militarized city. In any case, Hyacinthos was a beautiful youth who became Apollo's boyfriend. The two were seen hunting and romping in the Spartan countryside. It even became problematic when Apollo neglected his duties at the oracle at Delphi and no longer sang on his lyre. His days were wholly devoted to Hyacinthos, and a long intimacy fed his familiar, blazing passion. The two engaged in all the activities expected of young men, such as hunting for wild game in the forests with dogs and gets, and showing off their athletic accomplishments. The two lovers bathed together in the mountain streams, the gods sensuously rubbing his boyfriend's body with oil. It was generally a good time for Apollo in the arms of Hyacinthos, but of course, we are madly in love and everything is going great, just has to be the beginning of a Greek tragedy. One day, while the two played at an athletic competition with javelins and discuses, Apollo threw a discus an incredible distance across the plain. Laughing, Hyacinthos chases the discus. Now Zephyros, the West Wind, beholds the beautiful youth sprinting. He had also desired the beautiful Hyacinthos, though the lad rejected him for Apollo. When Zephyros saw him frolicking with Apollo, he became mad with jealousy. He caused the discus to rebound back into Hyacinthos, killing him immediately. Though Apollo is a great healer god, his arts are useless to bring someone back from the dead. Apollo grieves for his boyfriend. His own hands have killed Hyacinthus, and Apollo feels extremely guilty. The two couldn't live together any longer, leaving Apollo yearning for more time together. Apollo even wanted to bring Hyacinthos up to Olympus and make him immortal, like Aimedes, but that is impossible now. So Apollo performs a miracle. The boy's body changes into a white flower, which gets stained blue and purple with the blood of Hyacinthos. In incalculable grief, Apollo inscribes the letters Alpha and Iota, AI, on each flower petal. AI doesn't actually mean anything, but it is a common vocalization for grief. Ay, I is a common phrase in the Greek tragedies as a mournful cry after the real words have failed. So Hyacinthos has been changed from a human into a flower. So for all eternity, Apollo is comforted by his boyfriend as his constant companion. Even to this day, echoes of love emerge every spring, reminding us of the very first time a man loved another man. So Apollo was a bisexual individual. Being a deity, he was able to engage in his bisexuality in ways that might have been close to an average person. Apollo was able to engage in homosexuality without anybody ever really questioning his masculinity or his divinity. Apollo, much like Artemis, was allowed never to wed, without ever causing a problem within his extended familial network. For my part, I kind of wonder if this might have to do with their mother Leto not actually being married to Zeus. Zeus's proper wife was Hera, so those offspring are absolutely critical for the extended network. But in any case, these stories show visibly that Apollo was never stoically resigned to heteronormativity, nor was he rebelling against social expectations. He chose not to get married to a woman, but rather pursue different women throughout his life. He chose to pursue men, creating some of the most iconic love stories of all time. But above all, Apollo demonstrates clear love for each individual relationship. This is not quite possible in the human world. If you remember, Sappho has a husband and Hadrian has a wife. Humans were required to engage in a type of bisexuality, even if it was purely performative. But there are some beings who genuinely pursued affection from males and females because their desires were such. Thus, Apollo reflects an archetype of bisexuality. This is not bisexuality by compulsion, but a deity allowed to follow his desires. Next week we're going to explore Attis, a figure assigned male at birth, though they never really expressed any straightforward heteronormativity. Eventually, Attis travels to Phrygia, where they are transformed into a bride of the goddess Rea Kaibala. This story is a real contender for a representation of trans women finding an acceptable social space in an unyielding ancient world. See you next Monday. His hymns survived almost in their entirety. The story of Edmetos and Elchestus' courting is drawn from Hygienus Fabulae, sections 50 and 51, and from Apollodorus's Library, Book 1, section 104 through 106. The story of Elchestus taking Admitos' place in death is found in Euripides' play Elchestus. The tragedy was produced in 438 BC and won second place at the city Dionysia. This is the most famous version of the story. The reason Apollo had to become a servant for a mortal king in the first place had to deal with Apollo's own son Asclepios. Asclepios was a remarkable healer whose medical knowledge allowed him to break Zeus's laws and retrieve people from death. So Zeus eventually strikes Asclepios the healer with a lightning bolt. So in grief, Apollo replies by killing the Cyclops who made that lightning bolt. As punishment, Zeus makes Apollo serve Edmitos, with whom Apollo falls in love. This is the most famous version of the story, but in many versions, like Callimachus's hymn, there is no divine drama preceding the relationship between the two. The quotation is from Euripides' Elchestus, translated by R. Potter for Morley's Universal Library in 1887. It is now in the public domain and is available at the Internet Archive. The version of the story from the Euripides play ends with Heracles retrieving Elchestus from the underworld, but some other versions actually have Persephone sending her back directly. Technically speaking, nobody ever leaves Hades without Persephone's consent, so both versions can be true at the same time. Every hero at Troy is a direct descendant of one of the gods. Achilles is the son of Thetis, a goddess associated with the unfathomable depths of the sea. Aeneas's mother is Aphrodite, the goddess of love. Sarpedon's father is Zeus. Rhesi's mother is one of the muses, which one varies by the version, and Helen's father was Zeus, disguised as a swan. Odesseus himself is a grandson of Hermes on his mother's side and a great-grandson of Zeus on his father's side. The story of Apollo and Hermes comes from the Homeric hymn, number four, to Hermes, written at some point between the 7th and the 5th centuries BC. Both Linos and Orpheus have other versions of their ancestry. They're generally children of Calliope the Muse, but sometimes have different fathers, and sometimes aren't even closely related, but rather master, bard, and student. In any case, the version where their brothers, who are sons of Apollo and Calliope, comes from Apollodorus' library, book 1, section 14. The language indicates that though Calliope and Oegros begat the two, the father was actually Apollo. Linos' death by Hercules comes from Apollodorus' library, Book II, section 63 and 64. The story of Apollo and Talia bequeathing the Coribantes comes from Apollodorus' library, Book 1, Section 18. There are other versions of the story that say they're actually the children of Apollo and the mountain nymph named Raetia on Zamothrace, which is found in Strabo's geography, Book 10, chapter 3, section 20 through 22. Another version has them being the children of Rea Kaibalae and the mortal Eason on Zamothrace, which is a version found in Deodorus of Sicily's Library of History, Book 5, Section 48. The best known story of Hyacinthos comes from Ovid's Metamorphosis, Book 10, verses 162 through 219. Ovid was a Roman poet who lived between 43 BC and around 18 AD. The lineage of Hyacinthus as a child of the Muse Cleo comes from Apollodorus's library, Book 1, section 16 through 17. The lineage of Hyacinthus as a child of the Spartan royal line comes from Apollodorus' library, Book III, Section 116. The argument that the story of Hyacinthus reflects an initiatory homosexuality is drawn from Bernard Sargent's Homosexuality in Greek Myth, originally published in French in 1984, translated by Arthur Goldhammer in 1986. The story of Hyacinthos is in chapter 8, pages 84 through 97. The quote is from Ovid's Metamorphosis, Book 10, verse 173. The part of the story where Zephyros got jealous of Apollo was drawn from Lucian's Dialogues of the Gods, No. 16, which detailed a conversation between Hermes and Apollo shortly after Hyacinthos' death. Lucian was a Greek poet who lived around 120 through 180 AD. He was known to mix myth and satire in often humorous retellings of stories into a commentary on Roman life. Ovid makes no reference to the West Wind in his version. Much like Ganymedes from a couple weeks ago, Hyacinthos is often credited with being the first homosexual man in history. For example, Apollodorus's Library, Book I, Section 16. That's all for this episode. We'll see you next Monday.