Games of Venus: An Anthology of Greek and Roman Erotic Verse from Sappho to Ovid

by Peter Bing

Dionysus is said to have invented apple-growing. Apples are especially appropriate to erotic contexts (cf. Sappho 105a L-P, with note) and were often given as love-gifts (cf. Theocritus 3.10 and 11.10).