Glen wrote in reply to
> > Apollo was also a magician deity.
>
> Hmmm, also a healer. Was he a magician because he was a healer...
or was he
> a healer because he was a magician? Apollo's animal is also the
mouse (cf.
> Greek "Apollo Smintheus" and Indic Agni's transformation into a
mouse). The
> mouse is linked with fire and possibly derives from old steppe
mythologies.
> I think that the mouse is an IE symbolism for fire. So, I doubt
that Apollo
> can back the serpent-to-dog hypothesis very well.
The mouse was an automatic attraction to the first granaries, and the
serpent followed the mouse. It contains an interesting reference to
the conflict between Gaia's Python and Apollo over Delphi. It seems
that there was a mouse or rat God associated with disease (and thus
by association with healing) throughout Khattic Anatolia. Early on
he became associated with Aplu, an alternative name for the West
Anatolian Weather God, who wore a laurel wreath and held a laurel
staff and twig. Aplu seems to have been a title given to Tarhunt or
Teshub, derived ultimately from Akkadian sources (eg Ashur-Aplu-Iddin
was a king of Assyria who had great trading connections with
Anatolia). He is associated with the Canaanite Esmun, another mouse
god of sickness (and therefore invoked for healing). His solar
atributes came late he stole from Helios. It seems that as he came
west from Anatolia he came through the area associated with Artemis
who was associated already with the moon, and this, by opposition led
to his solar aspect.
Aplu became both the Etruscan and Greek Apollo.
>
> >Now, a mostly unrelated tangent off that last sub-point- Apollo
was a
> >twin, born by a wolf-like mother. The origin of his cult is often
> >thought to lie around Lycia. What other wolf-born twins do we know
> >of? Hmm...
>
> Well, maybe not wolf-born so much as sun-born, the horse being a
symbolism
> of the sun, hence Horse Twins (Ashvins)
Apollo was not wolf born. His mother Ledo coupled with swans not
wolves. Leto, has been associated with the Ugaritic
Canaanite "'Lat", who was persued by Yam, in guise of a serpent.
This myth seems to have been adopted from Phoenicians in post
Mycenaean times. The Mycenaean "Paean" later became an epithet of
the Anatolian Aplu.
Regards
John