Alexikakos (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 worshipped 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]
Notes
- ↑ Orph. De Lapid. Prooem. i.
- ↑ Pausanias, 1.3.3 & 8.41.5
- ↑ Lactantius, 5.3.
- ↑ Schmitz, Leonhard (1867). "Alexicacus". In William Smith (ed.). Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology. Vol. 1. Boston: Little, Brown and Company. p. 128.
- ↑ American Journal of Archaeology (1907). "Archaeological Discussions, 1907 -- Greece". American Journal of Archaeology. Norwood: Norwood Press. 11 (4): 459. JSTOR 496927.
- ↑ Weller, Charles Heald (1913). Athens and Its Monuments. Macmillan Publishers. pp. 94.
References
- Pausanias, Description of Greece with an English Translation by W.H.S. Jones, Litt.D., and H.A. Ormerod, M.A., in 4 Volumes. Cambridge, MA, Harvard University Press; London, William Heinemann Ltd. 1918. ISBN 0-674-99328-4. Online version at the Perseus Digital Library
- Pausanias, Graeciae Descriptio. 3 vols. Leipzig, Teubner. 1903. Greek text available at the Perseus Digital Library.
This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Smith, William, ed. (1870). "Alexicacus". Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology.