Apollo Apollo Apollo (Attic, Ionic, and Homeric Greek: , "Apollōn" ( ) is one of the most important and complex of the Olympian deities in classical Greek and Roman religion and Greek and Roman mythology. The national divinity of the Greeks, Apollo has been variously recognized as a god of music, truth and prophecy, healing, the sun and light, plague, poetry, and more. Apollo is the son of Zeus and Leto, and has a twin sister, the chaste huntress Artemis. Seen as the most beautiful god and the ideal of the "kouros" (a beardless, athletic youth), Apollo is considered to be
Apollo with the noun "apellai" and suggested a Pre-Greek proto-form *"Apalun". Several instances of popular etymology are attested from ancient authors. Thus, the Greeks most often associated Apollo's name with the Greek verb ("apollymi"), "to destroy". Plato in "Cratylus" connects the name with ("apolysis"), "redemption", with ("apolousis"), "purification", and with ("[h]aploun"), "simple", in particular in reference to the Thessalian form of the name, , and finally with ("aeiballon"), "ever-shooting". Hesychius connects the name Apollo with the Doric ("apella"), which means "assembly", so that Apollo would be the god of political life, and he also gives the explanation ("sekos"), "fold", in which