weapon

Bow of Apollo

By Elizabeth Stein for Mythos Atlas. About the author. Editorial notes are grounded in the site's cited sources and can be challenged through the contact page.

Description

Far-shooter

Iliad 1 opens with Apollo's arrows: nine days of plague in the Achaean camp after Agamemnon refuses Chryses. The Homeric Hymn to Apollo and later lyric give him the silver bow as twin to Artemis. Hephaestus as bowyer is a decorative later note; Homer needs no forge-scene. The arrows are disease and sudden death as much as sport-archery. Delian and Pythian cult honor the archer; they do not display a unique named bow in a treasury. Hekebolos, far-shooter, is the god's work.

Primary Sources

“Down from the peaks of Olympus he strode, angry at heart, with his bow and covered quiver on his shoulders. The arrows rattled on the shoulders of the angry god.”
Homer, Iliad 1(c. 8th century BCE)

Powers & Abilities

Perfect AccuracyPlague ArrowsHealing LightLong-range Destruction