Apollo was the Greek god of light and the sun. He hitched his horses to his chariot each day and carried the sun behind it through the sky.http://www.math.utk.edu/~vasili/va/GREECE/Greek_myth/olympian.html#Olympians He was also the god of healing and of music, playing the lyre that the god Hermes made for him.http://www.math.utk.edu/~vasili/va/GREECE/Greek_myth/olympian.html#Olympians He was the protector of the Oracle at Delphi, the woman at his temple in Delphi who could foretell the future. Like his twin sister Artemis, he was an archer, and his symbols included the crow, the dolphin and the laurel.http://www.wsu.edu/~delahoyd/greek.gods.html

Besides Artemis, the siblings of Apollo include Athena, Hephaestus, Hebe, Ares, Aphrodite, Dionysus and Hermes.http://www.math.utk.edu/~vasili/va/GREECE/Greek_myth/olympian.html#Olympians He is the son of Zeus and the Titan Leto, his uncles are Hades and Poseidon, and his aunts are Demeter and Hestia. Hera is his step-mother.http://www.wsu.edu/~delahoyd/greek.gods.html

Apollo is the owner of a herd of pure white cows, and in one myth his half-brother Hermes decides to play a trick on him with them.http://www.floresville.isd.tenet.edu/Elementary/fes/special/gtkidpages/greekmyths/hermes.htm Hermes ties brooms to their tails and herds them backwards away from their pasture, hiding them in a cave. Since he walked them backwards and the brooms on their tails cleared the ground of their hoof prints as they walked, there was no trail leading to them. Apollo is furious when he cannot find his cows and searches for them and their thief.http://hccl.byu.edu/faculty/HuntsmanE/ClCv241eh/Unit%201/11-Hermes.pdf He eventually finds them in the cave. Hermes has sacrificed two of the cows and used some of their intestines to fashion the lyre, which he ends up giving to Apollo as a means of making amends with him for the joke.http://hccl.byu.edu/faculty/HuntsmanE/ClCv241eh/Unit%201/11-Hermes.pdf