Python (mythology)

Apollo kills the python
( Virgil Solis ).

The python ( Greek  Πύθων ) is a dragon in Greek mythology who guarded the oracle of Delphi and was killed by Apollo .

myth

Pietro Francavilla : Apollo defeats Python.
Walters Art Museum , Baltimore.

In the oldest version of the myth, the Homeric Hymn , Apollo kills a female dragon ( δράκαινα ), which Hera had installed as guardian for her son Typhaon . In this version, the name of the dragon is not python, rather the name is derived from the corpse that is rotting under the rays of the sun ( πύθεσθαι pýthesthai ). Similar to Ovid , where the python was created from the rotting mud and slime that was left after the waters of the Deucalionic Flood were lost. He is killed by the Apollo identified with the sun "with a thousand arrows". "Putrefaction" is therefore the root for the name of the oracle, the epithet of the god and the title of the priestess, the Pythia .

Delphyne is mentioned as the name of the monster . Later the name of the place became the name of the snake. In a sober version of Strabo , Tityos and Python called "The Dragon" are simply two violent criminals who are shot by Apollon. Quite the opposite of this, it is told that Apollo had to undergo ritual purification and atonement, which only those who are guilty of a crime have to do.

According to Ovid and Hyginus Mythographus , Python is a son of Gaia , the mother of numerous monsters in Greek mythology. It is he who originally gave the oracles on Parnassus , but it is also he who, on the orders of Hera, persecutes Leto , the lover of Zeus and future mother of Apollon and Artemis. The deed of Apollo (and Artemis in some reports) is justified by the fact that Python returned to Parnassus after failing to find the pregnant Leto. According to Hyginus, the just 4 days old Apollo shot the python in revenge for the persecution of the mother. After this act, Apollo founded the Pythian Games in memory of Python . According to Plutarch, the Delphic festival Septerion also goes back to the killing of the python. Apollon is said to have buried the python under the omphalos or to have covered the pythia's tripod with the dragon's skin and kept his bones in it. The bowl of the tripod traditionally served as a container for the white and black stones that were used in the Losoracle.

According to the library of Apollodorus , Themis , the goddess of justice, originally gave the oracle on Parnassus and Python was the guardian of the sacred precinct, who wanted to deny Apollo entry and was therefore shot.

swell

• Ovid Metamorphoses 1, 416-451.
• Hyginus Mythographus Fabulae 140

literature

• Joseph Eddy Fontenrose : Python. A study of Delphic myth and its origins. University of California Press, Berkeley 1959
• Hans von Geisau : Python (1). In: Paulys Realencyclopadie der classischen Antiquity Science (RE). Volume XXIV, Stuttgart 1963, Col. 609 f.
• L. Kahl:  Python . In: Lexicon Iconographicum Mythologiae Classicae (LIMC). Volume VII, Zurich / Munich 1994, pp. 609-610.

Web links

Commons : Python (Mythology)  - collection of images, videos and audio files

• Dragon Python in the Theoi Project

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Homeric Hymn 3 to Apollon 300 ff., 356–374
2. ↑ Apollonios of Rhodes Argonautika 2.706; Nonnos of Panopolis , Dionysiacs 13.28.
3. ↑ Strabon, Geographika 9,3,12, similar to Pausania's description of Greece 10,6,5.
4. ↑ Pausanias 2,7,7; 2.30.3.
5. ↑ Plutarch, quaestiones Graecae 293c.
6. ↑ Marcus Terentius Varro , de lingua Latina 7.17.
7. ↑ Maurus Servius Honoratius , commentarius in Vergilii Aeneida 6,347; 3.92; 3.360.
8. ↑ Marion Giebel : The Oracle of Delphi. Reclam, Stuttgart 2001, p. 14f
9. ↑ Libraries of Apollodorus 1.22.