Do you know what it’s like to get shot down by lightning while doing your daily duties riding the sun Lambo with the music blasting? The smell of ozone seeping from your hair as you plummet straight down to the ground. What would have happened if I had crashed? The earth would burn and turn into a desert just like when Helios’ son Pantheon crashed years ago. But I did not crash as I am the handsome Apollo. God of the sun, archery, medicine, music, poetry and everything awesome. Son of the gracious Leto and the most self-centred worst father in the world, Zeus. Now, why would I say this about my own father? Well for starters, he killed my son Asclepius for merely doing his job as a physician, and when I kill his Cyclopes in revenge he makes me a mortal slave to Admetus. What happened to an eye for an eye? Totally unfair! And that was only the first time he made me mortal. The second time Poseidon and I had to work as mortal slaves to Laomedon. Maybe this time was fair since we did try to overthrow him, but I didn’t even get paid for all my time taking care of those cattle! The final straw of indignation was the video of Zeus drunkenly relieving himself on a laurel tree I saw on YouTube. I will not stand this humiliation to my greatest love and have declared war with Zeus. Mortals view the battles and events of the war as effects of climate change. I have channelled all my anger, fury, and resentment for Zeus into the powers of the sun. I now burn hotter than ever, ready to fight, and have assembled a legendary ensemble of powers that have also been wronged by my father. Poseidon in particular has been very energetic sending hurricanes and earthquakes as we fight Zeus’ forces. I’ve even made an ally in the primordial goddess of the earth Gaia who has awaken with volcanic eruptions after having nightmares of Zeus throwing her children, the titans, into Tartarus for eternity. Just like CNN has prophesied, I will stand victorious and I will inspire people to sing haikus of my great conquest like
The sun blazes bright
Together with other Gods
Zeus go bye-bye-bye
Yes, that sounds good. I will put that as the caption to my Instagram post.
The War of the Sun God is an aetiological myth that attempts to explain the origins and occurrence of global warming on the earth. The narrative follows a monologue from Apollo, son of Zeus and Leto (Homer, Iliad 1.21-36), God of numerous aspects including prophecy, medicine, the sun, archery, and music (Orphic Hymns, The Hymns of Orpheus. 33-34). Being the current Sun God Apollo’s monologue starts with a rhetorical question about doing his daily duty riding his sun Lambo across the sky with mention of the Sun Titan Helios and his son Phaethon. Riding the sun Lambo is a further, more modern, personification of the rising and setting of the sun across the sky compared to the ancient version containing a sun chariot (with horses as horsepower in the Lambo). The sun chariot is normally associated with Helios, Son of the titans Hyperion and Thelia (Homer, Odyssey 13. 176; Pseudo-Apollodorus, Bibliotheca 1.8 - 9). His son, Phaeton’s story of crashing the sun chariot after asking his father to claim him and a favour to ride the chariot for a day is briefly spoken of in relation to Apollo’s initial opening event. Although it is not mentioned how Apollo got the job as the Sun God from Helios, one can infer from the story of Phaethon that afterwards, Helios could have retired in despair due to the loss of his son. Or perhaps Zeus fired him since Phaethon’s crash resulted in the burning of the Ethiopian people (cause of their dark complexion) and the desertification of the African continent (Pseudo-Hyginus, Fabulae 154).
Apollo’s monologue continues to mention the times he felt Zeus had wronged him. First was the instance of Asclepius. Asclepius was a son of Apollo (Orphic Hymns, The Hymns of Orpheus. 67) whom Apollo eventually held in high regard. Starting at a young age, he learned the ways of healing and became very skilled in medicine. Some narrations say that Zeus killed Asclepius with a bolt of lightning since he was afraid mankind would learn the art of medicine from Asclepius and help each other (Pseudo-Apollodorus, Bibliotheca 3. 121). Other narrations say that Zeus killed Asclepius since he was given Gorgon’s blood from Athena where the right side of the blood was used to raise the dead in exchange for gold (Pindar, Pythian Ode 3. 54). Further narrations blame a misunderstanding from Hades accusing Asclepius of stealing the dead since he could cure those severely ill who had no more hope (Diodorus Siculus, Library of History 4. 71. 3 ). Since Apollo was not strong enough to fight Zeus directly, he took his revenge on the children of the immortal Elder Cyclops whose parents had made Zeus his lightning bolt (Diodorus Siculus, Library of History 4. 71. 3 ). For this, Zeus made him serve king Admetus as a mortal before raising Ascelpus from the dead, making him a god of medicine, and forgiving Apollo (Pausanias, Description of Greece 2. 26. 1).
The second instance of Zeus wronging Apollo came when Apollo, Athena, Hera, and Posidean set in motion a plan in overthrowing Zeus since they thought him to be an unjust leader. Hera drugged Zeus to sleep and the gods bind him up. As Zeus awoke and the gods argued, Briareos, a hundred-handed fifty-headed giant came and untied the knots holding Zeus so he could get his lightning bolt and threatened to destroy the gods who deceived him (Homer, Iliad 1. 397). Frighten, the gods surrendered where Athena managed to get out of trouble, but Hera was sentenced to hang from the sky while Posideon and Apollo were made mortal servants for the King of Troy for a while (Valerius Flaccus, Argonautica 2. 82).
The third instance was the one that incited Apollo to start a war with Zeus. Here Zeus violates a laurel tree whilst drunk which can be seen as an analogy to the questionable actions drunk/high humans do at parties. This could transcend history, but with the internet, these acts are more easily seen and made almost impossible to erase. Apollo is particularly offended by this act since his greatest female love interest, Daphne, (Pausanias, Description of Greece 10. 7. 8) was transformed and represented by a laurel tree (Philostratus, Life of Apollonius of Tyana 1. 16). This catalyst brought about action from Apollo in the form of a brighter more powerful burning sun which the myth uses as an explanation to Earth’s climate warming up.
The events of global warming are explained through the side effects of various deities’ powers and battles in this war. Posiedon for example was the God of the sea, earthquakes, floods, and droughts (Hesiod, THE HOMERIC HYMNS, EPIC CYCLE, HOMERICA 22). The disasters that are increasing in frequency on Earth are attributed to his war efforts. Similarly, the volcanic eruptions are caused by Gaia the Goddess of the Earth (Hesiod, THE HOMERIC HYMNS, EPIC CYCLE, HOMERICA 116).
Apollo makes mention that he assembled powers that have been wrong by Zeus. Poseidon’s potential reasoning has already been detailed. Gaia may have once helped Zeus to overthrow the Titans (Hesiod, THE HOMERIC HYMNS, EPIC CYCLE, HOMERICA 617), but Zeus’ terrible treatment of them has made Gaia attempt to overthrow Zeus multiple times through the birth of the Giants and the monster Typhon from her activities with Tartarus (Pseudo-Apollodorus, Bibliotheca 1. 34 - 39). Presumably, Hera would also be on Apollo’s side since being the Goddess of Marriage, she was not very happy with all the times Zeus has cheated on her as seen by her wraith on Zeus’ children such as Heracles (Pseudo-Apollodorus, Bibliotheca 2. 62).
The final bit of ancient mythology in this narration is when Apollo mentions CNN had prophesied his victory. Here CNN likens a modern interpretation to one of Apollo’s ancient oracles, perhaps his greatest one the Oracle of Delphi where he defeated the serpent Python (Herodotus, Histories 1. 46). This may be because just as Oracles foresee/determine the future, news channels such as CNN have taken heat for speculating and/or calling out the winner of the United States’ Presidential election before the official results were released. While no explicit explanation was given in The War of the Sun God myth in relation to the apparent ease modern humans have with interacting with the gods, there are some plausible explanations. Perhaps the gods have changed their Code of Conduct allowing care-free interactions with modern society versus only letting a select few individuals meet them in heroic times (Hesiod, THE HOMERIC HYMNS, EPIC CYCLE, HOMERICA 205). Or perhaps there is some kind of supernatural phenomenon that obscures the true identity of gods to humans, similar to “The Mist” found in Rick Riordan’s popular Percy Jackson series (Riordan & Ross 30). This might cause humans to notice the gods as celebrities feuding over social media or prominent leaders of warring nations/countries. The War of the Sun God myth concludes with a fun haiku to readers, in homage to Apollo’s role as a God of music/poetry where it relates to the need to have interesting captions on social media posts in today’s society.
Works Cited
Diodorus Siculus. 1935. Library of History. Translated by Oldfather, C. H. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press.
Herodotus. 1920. Histories. Translated by Godley, A. D. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press.
Hesiod. 1914. THE HOMERIC HYMNS, EPIC CYCLE, HOMERICA. Translated by Evelyn-White, H. G. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press.
Homer. 1924. Iliad. Translated by Lattimore, R. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press.
Homer. 1919. Odyssey. Translated by Shewring, W.Oxford University Press.
Orphic Hymns. 1792. The Hymns of Orpheus. Translated by Taylor, Thomas. London: Bertram Dobell.
Pausanias. 1918. Description of Greece. Translated by Jones, W. H. S. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press.
Philostratus. 1912. Life of Apollonius of Tyana. Translated by Conybeare, F. C.Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press
Pindar. 1975. Pythian Ode. Translated by Conway, G. S. Everyman's Library.
Pseudo-Apollodorus. 1977. Bibliotheca. Translation by Freese, J. H.London: SPCK.
Pseudo-Hyginus. 1960. Fabulae. Translated by Grant, M. Lawrence, Kansas: University of Kansas Publications.
Riordan, Rick, and John Rocco. The Lightning Thief. Disney/Hyperion, 2018.
Valerius Flaccus. 1928. Argonautica. Translated by Mozley, J. H. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Havard University Press.