By Devin Casano

 

Ostensibly, The Homeric Hymn to Apollo — a collection of two poems composed around the sixth century B.C.E. (Scanlon) — records the tale of its eponymous deity’s birth and the inauguration of his sanctuary at Delphi. But upon deeper, theoretical scrutiny, the myth unfurls the rich sociocultural atmosphere that enveloped classical antiquity. For one, the myth and ritual theory purports that the hymn justifies several Apollonian rituals beyond merely explaining his origins; from a Freudian perspective, however, the myth can instead reflect the prohibited desire for Greco-Roman women to harness sexual jealousy and exert autonomy against their husbands.

Because ancient rituals were often nebulous in origin and longstanding in practice, the myth and ritual theory asserts that myths arose to accompany and justify them. Devised by Walter Burkert — a German scholar of Greek antiquity and mythology — this “myth and ritual theory” purports that myths are inseparable from and innately associated with ritual actions, rites, and practices. Myths, in other words, ascribe divine origins to the purely human behaviors that predate them; accordingly, the hymn can be read as an etiology of Apollonian rituals. For instance, whereas other lands denied Leto in her crisscrossing search for Apollo’s birthplace, Delos accepted her and became Apollo’s preeminent sanctuary. Subsequently, Delos became the site of ritual “boxing” and “dancing” contests (III.25–90; 135–155; Scanlon). Predominantly, this “Delian” portion of the hymn operates as the island’s founding myth; although Delos was already a religious sanctuary, the hymn uses Apollo’s birth to explain his historical tutelage with the Delians while affirming their ancestral claim to him, thus producing a story of collective heritage. Ritual Apollonian competitions are also justified via the hymn; when Greece was fragmented into countless poleis, artistic and athletic contests like those described on Delos fostered Panhellenic unity by attracting myriad competitors. Given this, it is plausible that the hymn may have evolved to explain the divine inspiration and continuity of these events. 

After traveling to Delphi, Apollo hopes to ordain an oracular temple whose authoritative prophecies will attract numerous worshippers from “Peloponnesus / And Europe and the islands” (III.179–184; 246–295). Taking the form of a dolphin, he then redirects a Cretan ship toward Delphi; upon the crew’s arrival, he commands them to be stewards of a temple that “great crowds will revere” (III.388–483). Obeying him, they beach their vessel, construct an altar, light a fire, pour libations, and pursue Apollo’s command to “guard [his] shrine and host the clans of mortals / Who gather here” (III.487–539). Repeatedly, Apollo emphasizes the sheer quantity of visitors who will visit his oracle — the Pythia — to ritualistically receive divine prophecies and affirm both their communal faith and cultural identity. Thus, the hymn first provides a divine explanation for the Pythia’s occult abilities and then justifies the historical pilgrimage of worshippers to Delphi and the ceremonial rites performed there (Allen and Sikes). To found Delphi, the hymn declares that Apollo slew the monstrous serpent Python and establishes Delphi atop her carcass (III.356–374). Thus, the hymn can also justify the Pythian Games — contests similar to those held on Delos but which specifically commemorated Apollo’s defeat of Python (Allen and Sikes).

In a similar vein to Burkert, famed neurologist and father of psychoanalytic theory Sigmund Freud developed his interpretation of myth — that is, Freudianism. According to this perspective, myths and, frankly, all religions serve to represent and express humanity’s internal, unconscious, and often societally suppressed desires (Freud, 222–223). The hymn’s narrative surrounding Hera can therefore be read as giving Greco-Roman women a venue to live out the dramatized expression of their unconscious, taboo desires. Furious at Zeus’ lustful impregnation of Leto with Apollo, Hera exercises the culturally prohibited desire for feminine sexual jealousy by meddling vengefully in Apollo’s birth. Following her itinerant journey to Delos, Leto labors while accompanied by every noble goddess but Hera; instead of attending, Hera deceitfully hinders Eileithyia — the goddess of childbirth — from assisting Leto, so she suffers an arduous, complicated, and painful delivery for “nine days and nine nights” (III.91–116). Inflamed by Zeus’ philandering, Hera first unleashes her wrath on Leto, not Zeus, in a bout of sexual jealousy; to Hera, Leto is a competitor for Zeus’ affection, so she excruciatingly prolongs Leto’s childbirth. Rather than purging her jealous desire, Hera gratifies it by impairing another woman.  

This sexual jealousy evolves into Hera’s scornful desire to defy her husband through the hymn’s interposed narrative about the monster Typhaon (III.305–309). Lamenting to the gods that Zeus violated their marriage by fathering Athena, Hera slanders Zeus as an “ingenious felon” and defiantly asserts that she will avoid their bed and “engineer” a child in retaliation (III.309–330). Irate, Hera implores the primitive gods Gaia and Ouranos and even the Titans in Tartarus to impregnate her with “a child apart / From Zeus” but “even stronger” than him; thereafter, she conceals her pregnancy and births Typhaon (III.331–354). Through her theatrical birthing of Typhaon — an immensely formidable monster — Hera autonomously challenges Zeus by exemplifying her position as his equal and demonstrates an unorthodox desire to overcome her husband. Conceived out of unbridled vengeance, Typhaon is the culmination of Hera’s subconscious, wrathful desire for defiance. Hera’s sexual jealousy and disloyal subversion of Zeus contravene the expectation for Greco-Roman women to be meek, subservient, chaste, and faithful to men. In a society that restrained female emotional expression and demanded the unwavering obedience of wives to husbands but not the reverse, Hera is an escape; within her intervention in Leto’s labor and spiteful creation of Typhaon is the dream of a feminine population clamoring to vicariously satisfy the desires that their culture forbade. 

Holistically, the hymn lends itself more effectively to the myth and ritual theory because it explicitly delineates the origins of several aforementioned Apollonian rituals. Each of these rituals conveys an intimate reverence of Apollo, cultivates social cohesion, and entails arcane, spiritual demands such as pilgrimages or performing sacred rites and contests. Perplexed by the cryptic nature of these ancestral albeit enigmatic rituals, ancient peoples devised this hymn to substantiate and rationalize their existence. 

Certainly, a Freudian analysis of the hymn is initially effective at disrupting social restraints on Greco-Roman femininity by expressing repressed psychological desires within a “safe space” (Segal); however, the dismal and desolate nature of Hera’s wrath can be seen as ultimately deterring expression within that space. Whereas Leto obeys Zeus and labors alongside an entourage of goddesses, Hera rebelliously births Typhaon alone and enraged. Moreover, Leto births a magnificent god, whereas Hera’s children are the frail god Hephaestus and Typhaon — a “savage pestilence for mankind” who “inflicted crimes on famous peoples” (III.316–318; 352–355). If the products of Hera’s defiant actions were lonesomeness and defective offspring, it seems unreasonable that a Greco-Roman woman would be inclined to indulge in them internally. 

From these analyses, it is evident that myths are far more than simple, fragmentary stories that have survived over millennia — they are vivid portraits of the cultural anxieties, power structures, and societal values that pervaded antiquity. On one hand, the Homeric Hymn to Apollo’s emphasis on Apollo’s birth and the establishment of his sanctuary reflects the ritualistic function of myth in legitimizing divine authority; meanwhile, a Freudian interpretation unveils deeper tensions surrounding gender roles, identity, and repression. By reading beyond the surface, we uncover how ancient societies used myth not only to explain the world but to navigate their own fears and aspirations, rendering these narratives enduringly significant.

 

Devin Casano (College ‘26) is a student at the University of Pennsylvania studying Political Science as well as Earth and Environmental Science.

 

Photo Caption Credits: Leto Giving Birth to Apollo and Diana on Delos, an engraving by Diana Scultori based on a painting by Giulio Romano, circa 1561–1565; courtesy of the National Gallery of Art.

 

Works Cited

Allen, Thomas W., and E. E. Sikes. Commentary on the Homeric Hymns. Macmillan Publishers, 1904. https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.04.0029%3Atext%3Dcomm%3Apoem%3D3&force=y. 

Freud, Sigmund. Formulations on the Two Principles of Mental Functioning. Collected Papers, Vol. IV. London: Hogarth Press, 1911. 

Ruden, Sarah (trans). Homeric Hymns. Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing Company, 2005. 

Scanlon, T. F. Homer, The Olympics, and the Heroic Ethos. Harvard University Center for Hellenic Studies: Classics@ Journal, https://classics-at.chs.harvard.edu/classics13-scanlon/#n.62. 

Segal, Robert Alan. Myth: A Very Short Introduction. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004.