ABSTRACT
Apollo’s history did not end with his second adoption in Rome, as Augustus’ personal deity after the battle of Actium (31 BCE), or with the myth that he had been born on a British island. During the Imperial Epoch, the god received worship in many sanctuaries throughout the Roman provinces. Many centuries before the city became the capital of Charlemagne’s renewed Roman Empire, Aachen in Germany had a famous healing sanctuary of Apollo Grannus: the emperor Caracalla, always in search of cures for his many ailments, spent some time there. At the other end of the Empire, the god had a splendid sanctuary in Daphne, a suburb of Antioch (Antakya) in Syria; it was famous for its colossal cult image made of gold and ivory (chryselephantine). Julian, the last pagan emperor, had the temple restored for his own visit to the city in the fall of 362 CE; following the lead of Augustus, he stylized himself as a new Apollo. The Antiochean cult had been brought by Greek settlers; the cult in Aachen continued the worship of an indigenous god who had been identified with Apollo. This was very common: all over the ancient world, local gods could be regarded as the native forms of Apollo, such as Phanebal in Ascalon, Reshef in Palmyra, Grannus in Gaul, or Maponos in Britain. The reasons varied: Phanebal “Messenger of Ba’al” was a young and warlike god, Reshef was the local variation of the Ugaritic and Phoenician plague god Reshep, and Grannus and Maponos presided over healing springs.
