On two occasions Apollo aroused the anger of his father, Zeus. The first time he had acted in consort with Hera, Poseidon, and other gods to dethrone Zeus, who had been unusually high-handed. Zeus was captured and bound to his couch, where the rebels threatened to kill him. However, the nymph Thetis brought Briareus, the fifty-headed monster, to guard Zeus, and this effectively quashed the rebellion. In vengeance Zeus hung Hera by her heels from Olympus, and he sent Apollo and Poseidon to a year's servitude under King Laomedon. And when Laomedon refused to pay them their rightful wages for building Troy and tending the royal oxen, Apollo visited Laomedon's kingdom with the plague and Poseidon sent a sea-monster to ravage the land.
The other time Apollo angered Zeus occurred when Zeus killed Apollo's son, Asclepius, for resurrecting a dead man. In retaliation Apollo killed Zeus's armorers, the Cyclopes. Zeus would have sent Apollo to Tartarus except that Leto pleaded for her son. Apollo was then given a year's servitude under King Admetus, for whom he performed great services.
After defeating Marsyas in a music contest Apollo had another contest with Pan, the goat-god. Apollo again gained the victory, emerging as the undisputed master musician.
Such a comely, youthful god was usually quite successful with nymphs and women. A randy bachelor, he seduced Phthia, Thalia, Coronis, Aria, Cyrene, and the nymph Dryope, having children by each. But some of his pursuits were failures. Marpessa eluded him. The nymph Daphne was changed into a laurel tree by Mother Earth before Apollo could ravish her. To console himself Apollo made a laurel wreath from her. When the Trojan princess Cassandra rejected him after he gave her the gift of divination, he turned the gift into a curse by making it so that no one would believe her prophecies.
