Apollo in Rome

Livy records Apollo's first state temple in Rome. In a plague year the Romans vowed a temple to Apollo for the health of the people (Ab Urbe Condita 4.25.3). The consul Julius later dedicated it while his colleague was away, and did not draw lots with him first. The colleague Quinctius protested to the senate without result (Ab Urbe Condita 4.29.6-7). The traditional dates are 433 BCE for the vow and 431 BCE for the dedication.

The god was already known on the site. Livy says that in 449 BCE the consuls called the senate to the Flaminian meadows, "where the temple of Apollo now stands, at that time already called the Apollinare" (Ab Urbe Condita 3.63.7). Livy later names the building as the temple of Apollo the physician, Apollo Medicus, when he lists the public works the censors divided among themselves (Ab Urbe Condita 40.51.2-6).

The Sibylline Books shaped his cult next. In 399 BCE a plague found no cause and no cure, so the senate had the Sibylline Books consulted (Ab Urbe Condita 5.13.5). The two priests held the first lectisternium in Rome, a banquet laid on couches for the gods. Apollo and Latona were honoured for eight days, with Hercules and Diana, Mercury and Neptune (Ab Urbe Condita 5.13.6). The rite was a Greek one, and Apollo led it.

His best-known Roman festival began in the Second Punic War. Livy says a seer named Marcius left two prophecies. The first foretold the disaster at Cannae. The second told the Romans to vow games to Apollo every year, so that the god would drive out the enemy (Ab Urbe Condita 25.12.5-10). The senate had the board of ten priests consult the books. It then ordered the games and a sacrifice in the Greek manner (Ab Urbe Condita 25.12.11-13). Apollo received a gilded ox and two white gilded goats. Latona received a gilded heifer (Ab Urbe Condita 25.12.13).

The praetor held the first Ludi Apollinares in the Circus Maximus in 212 BCE. The people watched wearing garlands, and the matrons offered prayers (Ab Urbe Condita 25.12.14-15). Livy adds that the games were vowed for victory, not for health as many believed (Ab Urbe Condita 25.12.15). A later plague led the praetor Licinius Varus to have a law passed that vowed the games for good on a fixed day (Ab Urbe Condita 27.23.5-7).

Virgil gives Apollo a Roman past. Aeneas reaches Cumae, where Apollo presides over the citadel and the Sibyl serves as priestess of Phoebus and Trivia (Aeneid 6.9-13; Aeneid 6.35-36). Aeneas vows a marble temple to Phoebus and Trivia, and festal days named after Phoebus. He also promises to place her oracles and lots in a sanctuary in his kingdom (Aeneid 6.69-74). Earlier in the poem the Trojans sail past Leucate, where Apollo is dreaded by sailors. They then celebrate Trojan games on the Actian shore (Aeneid 3.274-280). Aeneas thus meets the god at both places that Augustus later made his own.

Augustus made Apollo the god of his victory. On the shield of Aeneas, Augustus stands on the high stern at Actium with the senate and people. Above the battle, Actian Apollo draws his bow, and Egypt, India, Arabia and Saba all turn back (Aeneid 8.678-681; Aeneid 8.704-706). Venus, Minerva and Neptune are on the Roman side against the animal-headed gods of Egypt (Aeneid 8.698-700). Suetonius says Augustus founded Nicopolis to keep the victory in memory, held games there, and enlarged the ancient temple of Apollo (Divus Augustus 18.2).

The Palatine temple followed. Suetonius says Augustus built it on part of his own house that lightning had struck, which the soothsayers took as a sign of the god's wish. He added colonnades with Greek and Latin libraries and sometimes held meetings of the senate there (Divus Augustus 29.3). Augustus lists the temple with its porticoes among his buildings (Res Gestae 19). He also placed offerings from the spoils of war inside it (Res Gestae 21). He melted his own silver statues, and used the money for golden offerings in Apollo's temple (Res Gestae 24). A modern editor dates the dedication to 28 BCE.

The Sibylline oracles moved there as well. Augustus burned more than two thousand prophetic books but kept the Sibylline ones. He stored them in two gilded cases under the pedestal of the Palatine Apollo (Divus Augustus 31.1).

Horace's Carmen Saeculare sang the same partnership at the Secular Games of 17 BCE, a date known from other evidence. The poem says the Sibylline verses ordered the rite (Carmen Saeculare 5-8). It calls Apollo mild and gentle once he has laid down his arrow (Carmen Saeculare 33-36). It also asks the augur Phoebus, who heals weary limbs with a saving art, to favour Rome if he approves the altars on the Palatine (Carmen Saeculare 61-68). The chorus ends by praising Phoebus and Diana (Carmen Saeculare 73-76).

Suetonius reports two stories about Augustus and the god. In one, Atia slept in a temple of Apollo, a serpent visited her, and Augustus was regarded as the son of Apollo (Divus Augustus 94.4). In the other, a private banquet of the twelve gods had Augustus play Apollo. Critics then called him Apollo the Tormentor (Divus Augustus 70.1-2).

Ovid's Fasti gives Phoebus an oracle before the fall of the kings. After a snake seizes the entrails from an altar, the reply is that whoever first kisses his mother will win. Brutus kisses the earth, the setup for the revolt after Lucretia's death (Fasti 2.711-720).