The Cleveland Apollo: Apollo Sauroktonos (Lizard-Slayer) or Apollo the Python-Slayer
c. 350–200 BCE
Medium
bronze, copper, and stone inlay
Dimensions
150 × 50.3 × 66.8 cm · base: 0.5 × 47.3 × 40.7 cm
Classification
Sculpture
Department
Greek and Roman Art
Museum
Cleveland Museum of Art
Credit
Severance and Greta Millikin Purchase Fund
Accession Number
2004.30
Tags
About this artwork
The Cleveland Apollo has been called both Lizard-Slayer (Sauroktonos) and Python-Slayer. The first name comes from the Roman author Pliny the Elder (23–79 CE), who noted in describing bronze works made by the Athenian sculptor Praxiteles (active around 370–330 BCE), “the youthful Apollo [is] known as the Sauroktonos because he is aiming an arrow at a lizard [Greek sauros] which is stealing toward him.” Scholars have long connected this description with artworks showing the young Greek god Apollo...