Libanus (mythology)
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In Greek mythology, Libanus (Ancient Greek: Λίβανος, romanized: Libanos) is a character in a minor myth who was transformed into a small aromatic shrub. His brief myth survives in the works of Nicolaus Sophista, a Greek sophist and rhetor of the fifth century AD, and the Geoponica, a Byzantine Greek collection of agricultural lore, compiled during the tenth century in Constantinople for the Byzantine emperor Constantine VII Porphyrogenitus.
Mythology
The Syrian or Assyrian Libanus, who shared a name with a mountain range and the land both, was a young man who had been offered to the gods in a temple before he had even been born.[2] Some impious people, in jealousy, killed him.[3] Gaia, the goddess of the earth, honouring the other gods, transformed him into a plant that bore his name and was similarly dedicated to the gods, and people who offered incense to the gods were seen as more pious than those who offered gold.[4][5]
Interpretation
Two distinct plants are connected to Libanus's name; the first is the λίβανος (libanos), meaning incense and by extension the frankincense tree (boswellia sacra),[6] and the second the δενδρολίβανον (dendrolibanon, literally "tree Libanus") meaning rosemary.[7] The unidentified author of the Geoponica clarifies that the myth is indeed about the rosemary.[2] If the incense interpretation is taken into account, then Libanus's story can be compared with that of Leucothoe, a Persian princess who was transformed into a frankincense tree as well.[8]
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