More pervasive than all other influences in the romance is the literary. Theocritus colors the whole story. There are a few reminiscences of Bion[258] and Moschus,[259] but it was the Sicilian goatherd par excellence who instructed Longus as he did Lamo in his story.[260] Calderini shows the various traces of the inspiration which Longus received from the Alexandrian idyl. There is a continuous alternation of descriptions of nature with descriptions of emotion all composed with a certain serenity and restraint. The pain is not too violent; the descriptions of nature are not too detailed or pedantic. There are many special similar motives: the descriptions of paintings and statues; the fear and the protection of Pan and the Nymphs; the vengeance of Eros on those who scorn him; the young lovers who frequent the gymnasia and the palestra; love which is born on the day of a festival; the woe of love; the violent, brutal love of a scorned shepherd; the patron who lives at a distance.[261] The pastoral name Daphnis is taken from the ideal shepherd of Theocritus and Vergil. Pastoral setting and pastoral narrative have the flavor of Theocritus. Episodes are identical: Chloe plaits a tiny cage for a grasshopper as did the young lad carved on the bowl of ivy-wood.[262] Daphnis and Chloe as they sit kissing each other on the hill see a fisherman’s boat passing on the sea and listen to his song.[263] So in Theocritus lovers on the land embracing look out at the far distant sea.[264] But above all, Longus saw as Theocritus did that in the lives of herdsmen lay true romance, and while Theocritus sang his short lays, closely affiliated with the mimes in their use of the comic, Longus lifted the love of goatherd and shepherd to the realm of pure fiction by idealization and tenderness. His originality was in making young love grow with the seasons to maturity. The name of his heroine, Chloe, a young green shoot, is symbolic of this growing life.[265] His awareness of his unique contribution to romance perhaps appears in his title: _The Lesbian Pastorals of Daphnis and Chloe_. Sappho too was known and cherished by Longus. There is a possible reminiscence in the description of Daphnis turning paler than grass in its season.[266] There is a sure reminiscence of Sappho’s hyacinth on the mountains crushed by the feet of the passing shepherds in Lamo’s pity for his flowers trodden down by a marauder.[267] And to Sappho Longus owes the climax of Daphnis’ wooing at the end of Book III when he pulls “the sweet apple which reddens upon the topmost bough,” saved by Fortune for a shepherd in love, and putting it in Chloe’s bosom makes it a symbol of her beauty and his prize.[268]