DAPHNE, a grove, temple, and oracle of Apollo, about five miles from Antioch in Syria, and one of the most renowned and sumptuous places of devotion in the whole Pagan world. In the words of Gibbon,—"The perpetual resort of pilgrims and spectators insensibly formed in the neighbourhood of the temple the stately and populous village of Daphne, which emulated the splendour without acquiring the title of a provincial city. The temple and village were deeply bosomed in a thick grove of laurels and cypresses, which reached as far as a circumference of ten miles, and formed in the most sultry summers a cool and impenetrable shade. A thousand streams of the purest waters issuing from every hill preserved the verdure of the earth and the temperature of the air; the senses were gratified with harmonious sounds and aromatic odours, and the peaceful grove was consecrated to health and joy, to luxury and love." Daphne first became famous in the reign of Seleucus Nicator, who designed it. Under the Romans its reputation was not suffered to decline till the days of the Apostate Julian. When that emperor visited the place, he complained that, instead of hecatombs of fat oxen sacrificed by the tribes of a wealthy city to their tutelary deity, he found only a single goose provided at the expense of a priest, the pale and solitary inhabitant of this decayed tem-
Daphne-
phoria
Daphnebird.
ple. In the reign of Zeno, Daphne became a third-rate provincial town. For a very detailed history of Daphne, see Gibbon's History of the Decline and Fall, chap. xxiii. No remains that can with certainty be pronounced those of the ancient village and grove have been discovered.