Daphne the slopes of Mount Cnacadion near the Spartan frontier, had her own sacred laurel trees. At Eretria the identity of an excavated 7th- and 6th-century BCE temple to "Apollo Daphnephoros", "Apollo, laurel-bearer", or "carrying off Daphne", a "place where the citizens are to take the oath", is identified in inscriptions. Daphne Daphne (; , meaning "laurel") a minor figure in Greek mythology, is a naiad, a variety of female nymph associated with fountains, wells, springs, streams, brooks and other bodies of freshwater. She is said by ancient sources variously to have been a daughter of the river god Peneus and
Acantha Acantha Acantha (Ancient Greek: Ἀκάνθα, English translation: "thorny") is often claimed to be a minor character in Greek mythology whose metamorphosis was the origin of the "Acanthus" plant. The tale goes that Acantha was a nymph loved by the god Apollo. Acantha however rebuffed Apollo's advances and scratched his face. As a result, Apollo transformed her into the Acanthus, a plant with spiny leaves. The story has, over the years, been retold in books, encyclopedias, and journals. Compilers have, however, often omitted reference to classical sources. For instance the first edition of John Lemprière's "Bibliotheca Classica", an early encyclopaedia of