Only Philemon and Baucis, a poor, elderly couple, offered them a hospitable welcome. As a reward they were forewarned of the impending flood sent to destroy the other inhabitants of their land. Two gods, Jupiter (Zeus) and his son Mercury (Hermes), decided to visit a town disguised as two mortal suppliants. The two gods went into a small town in Phrygia. They went to every home seeking shelter and hospitality. Each household rudely turned the gods away. Philemon was an old man of Phrygia who, together with his wife Baucis, was the only person to welcome Zeus and Hermes when they came to earth disguised as mortals. When, in disguise, they visit the valley in a terrible storm, a hundred times the gods are refused food and shelter; finally there is only one house left, the humble home of an elderly couple, Baucis and Philemon. They welcome the strangers warmly and generously share their meagre supplies. When Zeus and Hermes visited earth as men, only Philemon and Baucis offered them hospitality. As a reward they were saved from a punitive flood and were made priest and priestess to the gods. They died together and were turned into trees whose branches intertwined. Baucis and Philemon were an old married couple in the region of Tyana, which Ovid places in Phrygia, and the only ones in their town to welcome disguised gods Jupiter and Mercury, thus embodying the pious exercise of hospitality, the ritualized guest-friendship termed hospitium. Zeus and Hermes hear of a valley in Phrygia where the sacred laws of hospitality are no longer observed. In disguise, they visit the valley in a terrible storm and are turned away from a hundred homes. The only people to invite them in and offer them food are an elderly couple, Baukis and Philemon. Years later, Baucis and Philemon grew old together before the temple. At last, in the same moment, they were changed into two trees, an oak and a linden, their branches intertwined, standing beside the sacred place as faithfully as they had stood beside one another in life. Philemon and Baucis, in Greek mythology, a pious Phrygian couple who hospitably received Zeus and Hermes when their richer neighbours turned away the two gods, who were disguised as wayfarers. The temple is long gone; but beside the lake still grow two trees, an oak and a linden, their branches entwined as though they are embracing. And hanging from every bough and branch there are ribbons, offerings, gifts left by lovers.