3. Although we have thus dwelt upon the gloomy side of Apollo’s character, it must not be supposed that he was considered in the light of a malevolent and destroying power. Thus Pindar declares that of all the gods “he is the most friendly to men.”(1240) His titles, also, as connected with different temples, serve to remove that impression. Thus he was called the Healer at Elis,(1241) the Assister at Phigaleia,(1242) the Defender, the Averter of Evil,(1243) at Athens, and in many oracles.(1244) Although some of these names were perhaps not introduced until the Peloponnesian war, and the restriction of his avenging power to physical evil is first perceptible in Pindar and the tragedians,(1245) yet the idea of the healing and protecting power of Apollo must have been of remote antiquity. Under all these names Apollo does not so much appear bestowing positive good as assuaging and warding off evil; and in this character he was invoked (according to an oracle) to send health and good fortune.(1246)
4. The preceding arguments may perhaps receive confirmation from a description of the god PÆAN (Παιήων) in Homer. The name clearly betokens a healing deity, and though the poet indeed speaks of him as a separate individual, and the physician of Olympus,(1247) yet this division appears to have been merely poetical, without any reference to actual worship; since from very early times the pæan had, in the Pythian temple,(1248) been appointed to be sung in honour of Apollo.(1249) The song, like other hymns, derived its name from that of the god to whom it was sung. The god was first called pæan, then the hymn, and lastly the singers themselves.(1250) Now we know that the pæan was originally sung at the cessation of a plague, and after a victory, and generally, when any evil was averted, it was performed as a purification from the pollution.(1251) The chant was loud and joyous, as celebrating the victory of the preserving and healing deity.(1252) Besides the pæans of victory,(1253) however, there were others which were sung at the beginning of battle;(1254) and there was a tradition that the chorus of Delphian virgins had chanted “_Io Pæan_” at the contest of Apollo with the Python.(1255) The pæan of victory varied according to the different tribes; all Dorians, viz., Spartans, Argives, Corinthians, and Syracusans, had the same.(1256) This use of the pæan, as a song of rejoicing for victory, sufficiently explains its double meaning; it bore a mournful sense in reference to the battle, and a joyous sense in reference to the victory. Apollo, under this name, was therefore either considered as a destroying (from παίω), or as a protecting and healing deity, who frees the mind from care and sorrow;(1257) and accordingly the tragedians, by an analogical application of the word, also called Death, to whom both these attributes belonged, by the title of Pæan.(1258) And thus this double character of Apollo, by virtue of which he was equally formidable as a foe, and welcome as an ally,(1259) was authorized by the ambiguity of his name.