Dish with Apollo and Daphne

This dish serves as important evidence towards the mixture of Greek and Buddhist culture through the form of art and craftsmanship. With the figures on the dish representing the Greek mythological characters Apollo and Daphne, these characters being represented on a dish found in Pakistan may seem bizarre, however, the cultural exchange present in this area is a result of the Alexandrian conquests which led to a spread of foreign mythology as seen in this dish.

The Story of Apollo and Daphne

The story of these two characters is important in understanding why people in Gandhara took such an interest in them to create this object. One important aspect of interest is in another cultures’ idea of love, in this mythological tale, Cupid acts as an outside force to bring people together and in this case break them apart.

Cupid strikes Apollo with an arrow made of gold and Daphne with one made of lead, causing Apollo to fall into deep love with Daphne and for her to form a distaste for him.¹

One can understand how interesting of a concept this would be to an outside listener or reader, the evidence that there was an interest in these stories comes in the creation of objects such as this dish. The idea that important human emotions such as love and loss are central to this story perhaps give us some insight on why these characters in particular were chosen as the focus of this piece, since it is something that everyone can relate to.

Interesting Pattern on the Edge of the Dish

As you can see along the edge of the dish there is this ‘wavelike’ pattern going around the entire outside which are quite familiar in Greek artistic creations. This water inspired pattern may also pay homage to the father of Daphne; Pineios a god of the rivers.

Many other aspects of this object such as the characters’ clothes, positions and surroundings bring lots of questions as to how these Greek mythological stories were understood by people in Gandhara.

While the mystery of some of the finer details on the object remain, the important themes can still be extracted from the piece, Greek influence is present in the object and the idea of certain mysteries makes the object even more interesting.

Love and Understanding it

The depiction of these characters in the context of love demonstrates cultural understanding and commonalities, as the ideas of love extend across the world and how it is demonstrated on this dish provides evidence of this common global understanding. Greco-Buddhism and the mythology represented within it carries this global perspective and emphasises its importance even in the Second Century, demonstrating that the world really was not as separated as it has been assumed by the historiography in the past.

Bibliography

• ‘Dish with Apollo and Daphne’, metropolitan musuem of art.

• Hibbart, Howard. 2026. “Apollo and Daphne

  Sculpture by Bernini.”, encyclopedia britannica. 2026.

• Nethercut, William R. 1979. “Daphne and Apollo: A Dynamic Encounter.” The Classical Journal 74 (4): 333–47. https://doi.org/10.2307/3297143.