The legend of Hero and Leander appears in Ovid's Heroides, (18, 19). Leander, a young man from Abydos on the shores of the Hellespont, fell in love with Hero, a priestess of Aphrodite. Every night he would swim across the water, guided by Hero's torch on the opposite shore, to meet her. One night, during a storm, Leander drowned, and Hero in her anguish threw herself into the sea and was drowned too.