Note 70 — Chapter XIII · THE RELATION OF THE STOIC PHILOSOPHY TO RELIGION.

The name Apollo is explained by Cleanthes, in Macrob. Sat. i. 17, ὡς ἀπ’ ἄλλων καὶ ἄλλων τόπων τὰς ἀνατολὰς ποιουμένου; by Chrysippus, as derived from α privative and πολὺς, ὡς οὐχὶ τῶν πολλῶν καὶ φαύλων αὐσιῶν τοῦ πυρὸς ὄντα. The latter explanation is quoted by Plotin. v. 5, 6, p. 525, as Pythagorean, and Chrysippus may have taken it from Pythagoras, or the later Pythagoreans from Chrysippus. Cicero, in imitation, makes his Stoic derive sol from solus. The epithet of Apollo, Loxias, is referred by Cleanthes to the ἕλικες λοξαὶ of the sun’s course, or the ἀκτῖνες λοξαὶ of the sun; and by Œnopides, to the λοξὸς κύκλος (the ecliptic). The epithet Λύκιος is explained by Cleanthes, quod veluti lupi pecora rapiunt, ita ipse quoque humorem eripit radiis; Antipater, ἀπὸ τοῦ λευκαίνεσθαι πάντα φωτίζοντος ἡλίου. In the same author Macrobius found the derivation of πύθιος from πύθειν (because the sun’s heat produces decay). Other explanations of these as well as of other epithets of Apollo, of the name of Artemis and her epithets, of the attributes and symbols of these Gods, are to be found in abundance in Cornutus, c. 32, 34, and in Macrobius, l.c., who probably got most of them from Stoic sources. ↑