Daphnis and Chloe.

    Foundlings brought up by shepherds on the island of Lesbos, Daphnis and Chloe are the subjects of a pastoral romance by the Greek writer Longus. In the tale, the two fall in love and eventually marry, but not without a series of adventures and surprises, including Chloe’s abduction by pirates, from whom she is rescued by Pan. Eros plays his usual willful part in the romance, in which he is known as the Winged Boy.
     Longus is credited with creating the pastoral romance, and his Daphnis and Chloe was the most admired of all ancient fiction. He himself is, and was even during his lifetime, an elusive, little-known figure; Daphnis and Chloe could have been written between the second and fourth centuries ce. A popular story in postclassical art and literature, Longus’s tale appealed especially to artists of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, when the pastoral style was at its height.