Apollo with python in Sanssouci Park

by Silva Wischeropp

21.10.2018 - 17:43

Apollo with python (god of poetry), sitting on rock with foot on killed python. Created by: Francois Gaspard Adam, 1752, 1.31 m high. Original by Francois Gaspard Adam, 1752, copy by Konscha Schostak (2004) Apollo is depicted with the python, a kind of monster, snake or dragon that he has just slain. Why this? Python is a creature of Gaia, mother of various such monsters. But Zeus and Hera were behind this story again: Zeus had a fling with the beautiful Leto and Hera naturally found out about it ... When the time was ripe for Leto to give birth, Hera, together with mother Gaia, had made sure that Leto could not find a place on earth where she could give birth in peace, and they had also sent the terrible python to destroy Leto. Hera had been prophesied that Leto's children with Zeus would be more beautiful, more powerful and more radiant than her own. When gods hate, they hate relentlessly...
But here Zeus' brother Poseidon intervened in a kindly way for once: he caused the island of Delos to rise from the sea, which gave Leto refuge and hid her from Hera's pursuers. Leto gave birth to twins, a boy and a girl - the gods Apollo and Artemis (Diana). And what did Apollo do first? He pursued and killed the python, when he was said to have been just 4 days old. His bow was absolutely accurate, but perhaps his sister Artemis helped him. The python had tried to escape in a crevice in the ground. In vain, even his prophesying power had not helped him. But now Apollo became the protector of prophecy, the arts and light and his sanctuary in Delphi developed into an important religious centre of ancient Greece.