Sacred Grove at Daphne
Province Description
In 64 BCE, after his successes in Armenia, Pompey the Great added Syria to the list of annexed eastern provinces of the growing Roman Empire. The conquest of Syria had not been difficult, because the remnants of the once dominant Seleucid Empire had weakened following the defeats of king Antiochus III at Thermopylae in 191 and Magnesia in Asia shortly after. Ultimately, the Seleucids could not withstand the powers of the Nabatean kingdom to the south, the Hasmonean kingdom to the west, and the new threats of Roman hegemony. With the fall of the Seleucids, Rome inherited the majority of Alexander the Great's former conquests, and the Syrian desert would become a stage for Roman emperors to settle civil conflicts and win triumphs. Smaller Arab settlements sprang up across the region, re-inhabiting Seleucid sites and establishing new ones, and cities such as Palmyra grew in power by taking over the wealthy trade routes of the Nabateans in the second century CE. The Syrian city of Antioch, formerly Seleucia, would become one of the greatest cities of the Roman empire. Although Macedonian presence in the region introduced western styles in art and architecture before the arrival of the Romans, the cities remained Syrian in culture, population and character.
Covering the substantial central part of the Fertile Crescent, the province of Syria sat in an advantageous position between the mountain ranges of eastern Anatolia, the Mediterranean Sea, and the Arabian deserts, and it served as an area of expansion for the larger kingdoms around it. Important trans-Asian trade routes made Syria a key component in the Roman imperial economy, and large navigable rivers, such as the Euphrates and the Orontes, were exploited to connect the Persian Gulf with northern cities. The climate, although arid in the inland mountainous areas, was quite conducive to cultivation. River valleys in the mountain chains skirting the coast provided fertile terrain for agriculture, and the Orontes and Euphrates created well-watered plateaus in the steppe and desert regions of the southeast.
An irrigation system based around the qanat, an underground water channel, was used in Syria during the Roman period to water fields and gardens. Although qanats were likely introduced to the region via the earlier Achaemenid Persian dynasty, it was during the Roman and Byzantine periods that irrigation technology improved, and the majority of known qanats date to this time. The water could flow from these channels into canals, small reservoirs known today as birkas, or large wells. The ancient field systems of Syria have been well studied in areas such as the Hauran, a basalt region in the south. Cereals, olives and grapes were important crops, and were cultivated in either the broad fields on the lowland plains, or long, segmented plots on terraces in the rocky highlands. These terraced plots would have held fruit trees or vineyards.
Location
Location Description
Antioch on the Orontes was founded by the Macedonian general Seleucus I as the capital of his Syrian empire, following the breakup of Alexander's empire (ca. 300 BCE). He selected the site at the edge of the fertile Amuk Plain at the crossroads of important trade routes linking Syria with Palestine, the Mediterranean, and Asia Minor. Antioch was also the capital of the Roman province of Syria, annexed in 64 BCE. In the Augustan period Strabo (16.2.5) compares Antioch favorably to Alexandria in power and size. It was built along the banks of the River Orontes below the craggy heights of Mount Silpios. Because of its advantageous location, Antioch became a cultural, religious, and commercial center in the Roman period. The presence of an imperial residence, as well as buildings for the staging of athletic contests modeled after the Olympic Games, a sanctuary of Apollo, and thermal spa at Daphne, contributed to its renown in the ancient world.
Garden
Sacred Grove at Daphne
Keywords
Garden Description
Antioch was most famous for its public gardens, such as the sacred grove of Daphne in the precinct of Apollo. The sanctuary was described by Strabo as a "large, thickly shaded grove intersected by fountain streams in the midst of which there is an asylum precinct and a temple of Apollo and Artemis" (16.2.6). This impression is reinforced in the lecture given in 360 CE by Libanius who praises Daphne for "the number and thickness and height of the cypresses, the shady paths, the choruses of singing birds, the even breeze, the odors sweeter than spices, the stately aqueducts, the vines trained to form banqueting hall – these are the gardens of Alcinous…a veritable Sybaris" (Lib. Or. 11.236).
Of Hellenistic origin, the site was famous during the Roman period for its cypress (Cupressus sp.) grove (Libanius, Or. 11.234-243; Strabo, 16.2.6). There is art historical and textual evidence for the grove, but no archaeological excavations of the grove have been undertaken nor has the precinct been defined. According to Libanius, Seleucus dedicated Daphne to Apollo because he found one of the arrow heads that Apollo had shot off in anger after the transformation of Daphne into a laurel (Laurus nobilis) (Libanius, Or. 11.94-99). According to the myth, it was here that the eponymous nymph, daughter of Ge and river god Ladon, was pursued and overtaken by Apollo at which point she was transformed into the laurel (Greek daphne, Fig. 2). In his disappointment at losing the nymph, Apollo shot all of his arrows, among which was one with his name that fell into the earth. When Seleucus found this buried arrow, he honored the discovery by creating a sacred enclosure, planting a grove of cypress trees, and dedicating a temple of Apollo (Lib. Or. 11.94-99). The esteem in which the grove at Daphne was held is attested by Libanius who remarks that he will write the emperor himself when an official threatened to cut the cypresses (Lib. Or. I.262-3). Reportedly, Seleucus planted a cypress grove and constructed a temple at the site (Sozomen, Hist. eccl., 5.19). Malalas (204.9-16) writes that Herakles planted a cypress grove and that the Heraklia was located outside the grove near the temple of Athena. Philostratus, however, reports a different story about the grove: the Landon worshipped the laurel. A cypress grove surrounded the temple, and a single cypress sapling grew naturally in honor of Cyparissus, an Assyrian youth who also experienced a metamorphosis (Philostratus, V A, 1.16).
The purposeful evocation of a sacred landscape can be seen in the placement of the temple near the spring Castalia in which the oracle of Apollo was considered to reside. A representation of the journey from the springs of Daphne to Antioch along a tree-lined street is picturesquely depicted in the topographic border of the mosaic of Megalopsychia found in the mid-fifth century CE villa at Daphne (Yakto area) (Fig. 3). Water flows from a vase held by a nude female, identified by a Greek inscription as the personification "Kastalia," into a semi-circular colonnaded nymphaeum. Another stream of water flows from her into a reservoir with another nymph identified as "Pallas," but there is no sign of the sacred grove or the temple. In addition, the grove was the symbol for Daphne on a medieval copy of the Tabula Peutingeriana (4th century CE). Though archaeologists have not found any material traces of the revered grove at Daphne, there is archaeological evidence for the planting of groves at the Sanctuary of Apollo Hylates ("He of the woodlands") in Kourion, Cyprus, and elsewhere (see: cross-references here).
Dates
Hellenistic
Bibliography
- G. Downey, A History of Antioch in Syria from Seleucus to the Arab Conquest, Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1961
- J. Lassus, "La Mosaique de Yakto, " in eds. R. Stillwell, G.W. Elderkin, F.O. Waagé and D.B. Waagé, Antioch-on-the-Orontes I, Princeton: Department of Art and Archaeology, 1934, pp. 128-136
- D. Levi, Antioch Mosaic Pavements, Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1947, pp. 326-337, pl. 79-80
- E. Weber, Tabula Peutingeriana: Codex Vindobanensis 324, Graz: Akademische Druck- u. Verlagsanstalt, 1976, p. 18.