Apollo as Shepherd and Herdsman. As god of herdsmen and shepherds, Apollo is known by the epithet “Nomius” (“of the pastures”). In this role he is most often portrayed in his service as the shepherd of Admetus, the king of Pherae in Thessaly.
Furious with Zeus (Jupiter) for killing his son Asclepius (Aesculapius), Apollo took revenge by slaying the Cyclopes who manufactured Zeus’s thunderbolts. As punishment, he was banished from Mount Olympus for a year and obliged to tend the herds of Admetus as the king’s mortal servant. A pious man, Admetus treated the god with respect and benevolence and won his friendship. Because of their amity, Apollo interceded when he learned that Admetus’s life was about to end, persuading the Fates to spare him in exchange for someone else. The bargain resulted in the sacrifice of Admetus’s wife, Alcestis, who willingly gave up her life for her husband.
In a popular postclassical confabulation of two myths, the tale of Apollo’s service to Admetus is combined with a legend told in the Homeric Hymn to Hermes, in which the infant Hermes (Mercury) steals fifty head of cattle from Apollo’s own herd. This conflation is common in fine art treatments depicting Hermes stealing off with the cattle while Apollo guards them.


Classical Sources. Homeric Hymns, first hymn “To Hermes.” Euripides, Alcestis iff. Ovid, Metamorphoses 2.677s., 6.122. Apollodorus, Biblioteca 1.8.2, 1.9.14-16, 3.10.2-4.

See also Alcestis; Hermes, Infancy.