Alexicacus

Apollo Alexicacus (Ancient Greek: Ἀλεξίκακος), the "averter of evil", was an epithet given by the Ancient Greeks to several deities, such as Zeus,[1] and Apollo, who was worshiped under this name by the Athenians, because he was believed to have stopped the plague which raged at Athens in the time of the Peloponnesian War.[2] It was also applied to Heracles.[3][4]

There is a statue of Apollo in the Museo delle Terme in Rome, a Roman copy of a Greek original, that is thought to be a copy of the statue of Apollo Alexicacus by Calamis that stood in the Ceramicus of Athens.[5][6]

References

Citations

  1. Orph. De Lapid. Prooem. i.
  2. Pausanias. Description of Greece, i. 3. ~ 3, viii. 41. ~ 5.
  3. Lactantius, v. 3.
  4. Schmitz, Leonhard (1867). "Alexicacus". In William Smith. Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology 1. Boston: Little, Brown and Company. p. 128.
  5. American Journal of Archaeology (1907). "Archaeological Discussions, 1907 -- Greece". American Journal of Archaeology (Norwood: Norwood Press) 11 (4): 459. Retrieved 2012-11-19.
  6. Weller, Charles Heald (1913). Athens and Its Monuments. Macmillan Publishers. p. 94.

Sources

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