Latinus

Latinus in Council, print by Wenceslas Hollar, 1607-1677

Latinus (Latin: Lătīnŭs) was a figure in both Greek and Roman mythology.

Greek mythology

In Hesiod's Theogony,^[1] Latinus was the son of Odysseus and Circe who ruled the Tyrsenoi, presumably the Etruscans, with his brothers Ardeas and Telegonus. Latinus is also referred to, by much later authors, as the son of Pandora and brother of Graecus^[2] although according to Hesiod, Graecus had three brothers, Hellen, Magnitas and Macedon with the former being the father of Doros, Xouthos and Aeolos. Their mother Pandora was the daughter of Deucalion and Pyrrha.

Roman mythology

In later Roman mythology (notably Virgil's Aeneid), Latinus, or Lavinius, was a king of the Latins. He is sometimes described as the son of Faunus and Marica, and father of Lavinia with his wife, Amata. He hosted Aeneas's army of exiled Trojans and offered them the option of reorganizing their life in Latium. His daughter Lavinia had been promised to Turnus, king of the Rutuli, but Faunus and the gods insisted that he give her instead to Aeneas; Turnus consequently declared war on Aeneas and was killed two weeks into the conflict. Ascanius, the son of Aeneas, later founded Alba Longa and was the first in a long series of kings leading to Romulus and Remus, the founders of Rome.

This version is not properly compatible with the Greek one: the Trojan War had ended only eight years earlier, and Odysseus only met Circe a couple of months later, so any son of the pair could only be seven years old, whereas the Roman Latinus had an adult daughter by this time.

References

See also

• Latium

Sources

Wikisource has original text related to this article: Theogony

• Virgil, Aeneid, VII, 45, 52, 69, 96.
• Livy, Ab urbe condita, 1:1-2