All about bay leaf > A symbol through the ages

Bay or laurel has always been associated with the god Apollo, but do you know why? Apollo fell madly in love with Daphne, but the gods had other plans. Daphne begged her father to find a way to escape him. Seeing her distress, he transformed her into a bay tree - the Greek Dàphnê meaning "bay." Not giving up, Apollo decreed that from then on the bay would be his tree, and devoted it to triumphs, songs and poems. "Since you cannot be my wife, you will at least be my tree. Bay, you will always adorn my hair, my zither, my quiver," he exclaimed.

In Ancient Rome, the triumphal crown formed of two bay branches was given to victorious Roman generals led in triumph through the Via Sacra, the sacred way.

In this period, poets, genuises and the victors in games were crowned with laurel, which is why they were known as "laureates."

Later the association of bay with Apollo fell to his son Asclepius, Greek god of medicine. Thus, in the Middle Ages, doctors and learned men were honored after long years of study and mastery of their art at a cermony in which they were crowned with laurel branches still containing their berries, which were woven into a wreath - hence the term "baccalaureate," (bacca laurea meaning bay berry).

Bay leaves remained for a long time a sign of the highest distinction. Julius Caesar and later other emperors around the world were depicted crowned with laurel leaves in pure imperial Roman tradition, from the German Kaisers to the Russian Czars. 

Bay leavs are also a symbol of immortality since the tree does not lose its leaves in winter so that they can be collected year-round. Like the olive branch, the bay branch also symbolizes peace.