1.
At Aphaea, between Byblos and Baalbek, at the head of the Adonis, where Adon was buried and Baalat died of grief. Down to the fifth century a bright light appearing in the sky near the temple summoned the worshippers at set times, and an artificial pond gave omens; offerings were thrown into it, which sank if the goddess was favourable or floated if she was adverse (Zosimus i, 58; cf. Socrates 1, 18). The site is eloquently described by Frazer, i, 28, and pictured in Perrot-Chipiez, Hist. de l’Art iii, fig. 18, opposite p. 56; for the rock-sculptures in the neighbourhood, to one of which the description of the goddess in Macrobius (Saturn. 1, 21, 5) refers, see Baudissin, p. 78 and pls. i-iii, and for the ruins of the temple, destroyed under Constantine but possibly rebuilt under Talia Rouvier, Bulletin Archéologique, 1900, 169 sqq. Lucian’s amusing reticence is by way of parody on Herodotus, |’ and derives its point from the fact that his reader, knowing: the reputation of the place (Euseb. Vit. Constant. 3, 55), is’ all agog to hear about it.
