The myth of Adonis was localised and his rites celebrated with muchsolemnity at two places in Western Asia. One of these was Byblus onthe coast of Syria, the other was Paphos in Cyprus. Both were greatseats of the worship of Aphrodite, or rather of her Semiticcounterpart, Astarte; and of both, if we accept the legends,Cinyras, the father of Adonis, was king. Of the two cities Bybluswas the more ancient; indeed it claimed to be the oldest city inPhoenicia, and to have been founded in the early ages of the worldby the great god El, whom Greeks and Romans identified with Cronusand Saturn respectively. However that may have been, in historicaltimes it ranked as a holy place, the religious capital of thecountry, the Mecca or Jerusalem of the Phoenicians. The city stood on a height beside ​the sea, and contained a great sanctuary ofAstarte, where in the midst of a spacious open court, surrounded bycloisters and approached from below by staircases, rose a tall coneor obelisk, the holy image of the goddess. In this sanctuary therites of Adonis were celebrated. Indeed the whole city was sacred tohim, and the river Nahr Ibrahim, which falls into the sea a littleto the south of Byblus, bore in antiquity the name of Adonis. Thiswas the kingdom of Cinyras. From the earliest to the latest timesthe city appears to have been ruled by kings, assisted perhaps by asenate or council of elders.

The last king of Byblus bore the ancient name of Cinyras, and wasbeheaded by Pompey the Great for his tyrannous excesses. Hislegendary namesake Cinyras is said to have founded a sanctuary ofAphrodite, that is, of Astarte, at a place on Mount Lebanon, distanta day's journey from the capital. The spot was probably Aphaca, atthe source of the river Adonis, half-way between Byblus and Baalbec;for at Aphaca there was a famous grove and sanctuary of Astartewhich Constantine destroyed on account of the flagitious characterof the worship. The site of the temple has been discovered by moderntravellers near the miserable village which still bears the name ofAfka at the head of the wild, romantic, wooded gorge of the Adonis.The hamlet stands among groves of noble walnut-trees on the brink ofthe lyn. A little way off the river rushes from a cavern at the footof a mighty amphitheatre of towering cliffs to plunge in a series ofcascades into the awful depths of the glen. The deeper it descends,the ranker and denser grows the vegetation, which, sprouting fromthe crannies and fissures of the rocks, spreads a green veil overthe roaring or murmuring stream in the tremendous chasm below. Thereis something delicious, almost intoxicating, in the freshness ofthese tumbling waters, in the sweetness and purity of the mountainair, in the vivid green of the vegetation. The temple, of which somemassive hewn blocks and a fine column of Syenite granite still markthe site, occupied a terrace facing the source of the river andcommanding a magnificent prospect. Across the foam and the roar ofthe waterfalls you look up to the cavern and away to the top of thesublime precipices above. So lofty is the cliff that the goats whichcreep along its ledges to browse on the bushes appear like ants tothe spectator hundreds of feet below. Seaward the view is especiallyimpressive when the sun floods the profound gorge with golden light,revealing all the fantastic buttresses and rounded towers of itsmountain rampart, and falling softly on the varied green of thewoods which clothe its depths. It was here that, according to thelegend, Adonis met Aphrodite for the first or the last time, andhere his mangled body was buried. A fairer scene could hardly beimagined for a story of tragic love and death. Yet, sequestered asthe valley is and must always have been, it is not wholly deserted.A convent or a village may be observed here and there standing outagainst the sky on the top of some beetling crag, or clinging to theface of a nearly perpendicular cliff high above the foam and the din of the river; and at evening the lights that ​twinkle through thegloom betray the presence of human habitations on slopes which mightseem inaccessible to man. In antiquity the whole of the lovely valeappears to have been dedicated to Adonis, and to this day it ishaunted by his memory; for the heights which shut it in are crestedat various points by ruined monuments of his worship, some of themoverhanging dreadful abysses, down which it turns the head dizzy tolook and see the eagles wheeling about their nests far below. Onesuch monument exists at Ghineh. The face of a great rock, above aroughly hewn recess, is here carved with figures of Adonis andAphrodite. He is portrayed with spear in rest, awaiting the attackof a bear, while she is seated in an attitude of sorrow. Hergrief-stricken figure may well be the mourning Aphrodite of theLebanon described by Macrobius, and the recess in the rock isperhaps her lover's tomb. Every year, in the belief of hisworshippers, Adonis was wounded to death on the mountains, and everyyear the face of nature itself was dyed with his sacred blood. Soyear by year the Syrian damsels lamented his untimely fate, whilethe red anemone, his flower, bloomed among the cedars of Lebanon,and the river ran red to the sea, fringing the winding shores of theblue Mediterranean, whenever the wind set inshore, with a sinuousband of crimson.