Larunda (alsoLarunde,Laranda,Lara) was anaiadnymph, daughter of the riverAlmo and mother of theLares Compitalici, guardians of the crossroads and the city of Rome. InOvid'sFasti she is namedLara.^[1]

The only known mythography attached to Larunda is little, late and poetic, in Ovid'sFasti. Ovid names her Lara, an excessively loquacious river-nymph, daughter of the river-god Almo. Ignoring parental advice to curb her tongue, she betraysJupiter's secret, adulterous affair with the nymphJuturna, wife ofJanus, to his own wife,Juno. Jupiter wrenches out Lara's tongue and ordersMercury,psychopomp and god of boundaries and transitions, to conduct her to the "infernal marshes" ofAvernus, the gateway to theUnderworld, the dismal realm ofPluto. Along the way, Mercury rapes her, despite her pleading glances. Mute (Latinmuta) and silent (Latintacita), she thus conceives the divineLares, twin guardians of crossroads and the city of Rome.^[1]

Larunda's original name, according to Ovid, was "Lala", imitative of her garulous speech. Robbed of the power of speech, she is likely identical withMuta "themute one" andTacita "the silent one": nymphs, minor goddesses or aspects of a single deity with semantic connections to the Lares and perhaps theLemures as darker forms of Lares.^[2][3]

Ovid expounds this myth of Lara and Mercury in the context thefestival ofFeralia on February 21,^[1] and an informal, secretive women's folk-cult at the same festival, invoking Tacita ("the silent goddess"). The rite is led by "an old hag" who holds seven black beans in her mouth; it has similarities to the exorcism of hostile, vagrant spirits at theLemuria festival, but is completed when a fish-head is sewn up to "bind hostile tongues to silence". Lara/Larunda is also sometimes associated withAcca Larentia whose feast day was theLarentalia on December 23.^[4]

• Naiads
• Children of Greek river gods
• Women of Hermes
• Mythological rape victims
• Characters in Roman mythology

• Articles with short description
• Short description is different from Wikidata