Votive Relief with Leto, Apollo, Artemis and Python

According to myth, Leto was a Titan who fell pregnant after having been seduced by the king of the gods, Zeus. As punishment, Zeus’s wife, Hera, decreed that she should not give birth anywhere that the sun shone. Travelling as an exile, she eventually reached the island of Delos where, shielded from the sun by Poseidon’s waves, she gave birth to the twin gods, Apollo and Artemis. Hera then sent a monstrous serpent, Python, to kill them.

This votive relief shows Python at right emerging from a cave. Leto flees to the left, carrying the infant Apollo, who turns back to fight Python with a bow and arrows, originally rendered in paint. Artemis follows behind on foot, also turning back to fire arrows at the monster. Below, an inscription: Dedicated by [...]yne and her husband, Agathon. The relief was probably set up in a sanctuary sacred to the Delian Triad, perhaps as thanks for a successful childbirth.