The Louvre's website for this sculpture (
visit link) informs us:
"Créé vers 350-340 av. J.-C., l'Apollon Sauroctone ("tueur de lézard") est l'une des oeuvres les plus accomplies du sculpteur athénien Praxitèle. Fidèle à l'héritage classique, le sujet est cependant novateur et le style audacieux : Apollon est représenté comme un adolescent prêt à attraper le lézard qui grimpe le long de l'arbre. Le groupe, maintes fois copié à l'époque romaine, évoque les vertus purificatrices du dieu et rappelle, sur un mode apaisé, sa lutte contre le serpent Python.
Un Apollon "tueur de lézard"
Cette statue en marbre est entrée au Louvre peu après 1807, à la suite de l'achat de la collection du prince Camille Borghèse par Napoléon Ier. Elle est considérée comme la meilleure copie romaine de l'Apollon Sauroctone (du terme grec qui signifie "tueur de lézard"), une œuvre en bronze attribuée par Pline l'Ancien au sculpteur athénien Praxitèle (Histoire naturelle, XXXIV, 69-70). L'original, aujourd'hui perdu, aurait été créé vers le milieu du IVe siècle av. J.-C. Apollon est représenté sous les traits d'un tout jeune homme absorbé dans le jeu puéril de la chasse au lézard. L'adolescent, le regard absent, menace l'animal d'une flèche qu'il tenait dans sa main droite ; de l'autre, il s'apprête à attraper le petit reptile qui grimpe à ses côtés, le long d'un tronc d'arbre contre lequel le jeune dieu s'appuie nonchalamment.
which Google translates as:
"Created around 350-340 BC. AD, the Apollo Sauroctonus ("killer lizard") is one of the most accomplished works of the Athenian sculptor Praxiteles. Faithful to the classical heritage, the subject is, however, innovative and bold: Apollo is represented as a teenager ready to catch a lizard climbing up the tree. The group, often-copied in Roman times, evokes the purifying virtues of God and remember, on a calm fashion, his fight against the serpent Python.
An Apollo "lizard killer"
The marble statue in the Louvre came shortly after 1807, following the purchase of the collection of Prince Camillo Borghese by Napoleon. It is considered the best Roman copy of Sauroctonus Apollo (the Greek word meaning "lizard killer"), a bronze work by Pliny the Elder attributed to the Athenian sculptor Praxiteles (Natural History, XXXIV, 69-70) . The original, now lost, was created in the mid-fourth century BC. BC Apollo is depicted as a young man absorbed in the childish game of hunting the lizard. The teenager, looking away, threatening the animal with an arrow which he held in his right hand on the other, he is about to catch the little reptile that climbs at his side, along a tree trunk against which the young god casually leans.
as for the Apollo crater, Wikipedia (
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"Apollo is an enormous impact crater located in the southern hemisphere on the far side of the Moon. This formation dwarfs the large crater Oppenheimer that is located next to the western rim. The crater Barringer lies across the northern wall. To the southeast is the crater Anders, and Kleymenov is just to the east of the rim.
Apollo is a double-ringed walled plain whose inner ring is roughly half the diameter of the outer wall. Both the outer wall and the interior have been heavily worn and eroded by subsequent impacts, so that significant parts of the outer and inner walls now consist of irregular and incised sections of mountainous arcs.
The interior floor is covered in a multitude of craters of various sizes. Several of the more notable craters have received names. The IAU used the eponyms of people associated with the Apollo program when designating some of these formations."