Latinus (Latin:Latinus;Ancient Greek:Λατῖνος,Latînos, orΛατεῖνος,Lateînos) was a figure both inGreek andRoman mythology. He is often associated with the heroes of theTrojan War, namelyOdysseus andAeneas. Although his appearance in theAeneid is irreconcilable with his appearance inGreek mythology, the two pictures are so different that he cannot be seen as one character.[citation needed]
InHesiod'sTheogony,[1] Latinus was the son ofOdysseus andCirce who ruled theTyrrhenians with his brothers Agrius andTelegonus. According to the Byzantine authorJohn the Lydian,Hesiod, in theCatalogue of Women, considered Latinus to be the brother ofGraecus, who is described as the son ofZeus byPandora, the daughter ofDeucalion andPyrrha.[2] In hisFabularum Liber (orFabulae),Gaius Julius Hyginus recorded the myth that Latinus was a son ofCirce andTelemachus (a son ofOdysseus) That relation possibly dated to the lost epicTelegony ofEugammon of Cyrene.[3] He was also depicted as the son ofOdysseus andCalypso.[4]
In laterRoman mythology (notablyVirgil'sAeneid), Latinus, or Lavinius, was a king of theLatins. He is sometimes described as the son ofFaunus andMarica, and father ofLavinia with his wife,Amata. Dionysius of Halicarnassus, however, claims he was a son ofHeracles who only passed for a son of Faunus.[5] He hosted Aeneas's army of exiledTrojans and offered them the chance to reorganize their life inOld Latium. His wife Amata wished his daughter Lavinia to be betrothed toTurnus, king of theRutuli, but Latinus and the gods insisted that he give her instead toAeneas;[6] consequently, Turnus declared war on Aeneas and was killed two weeks into the conflict.Ascanius, the son of Aeneas, later foundedAlba Longa and was the first in a long series of kings leading toRomulus andRemus, the founders ofRome.
TheEnglish once widely claimed as history,[7] an original peopling of theisle — at the time a land only of fantasticalgiants — by descendants of the above-mentioned Eneas, perhaps via Latinus, and at least with Latinus asstep-family of anancestor, though even in the time of theRenaissance, a non-Englishaudience as well at least one Englishwriter found details of the stories less than convincing.[8]
The island known later asBritain, was also previously known asAlba, similarity of name supporting connection to the city ofAlba in Italy, said to have been built by Alcanius, son of Eneas, and third ruler of the Latins after Latinus, being either his grandson or step-grandson.
Even if one ignored obviously far-fetched elements of thisfoundation myth of Britain,Johannes Rastell writing in1529 questioned, along these lines: Supposing the original Brits were descendants of a line of Latin kings — Brute the son of Silvius, son of Alcanius, son of Eneas who came to theItalian peninsula from Troy — then why should such a fact have escaped record in thewritings ofJulius Caesar when he had personallysurveyed the lands there he had conquered for Rome by48 BC? And indeed, why should the son Brutus have escaped from Latin histories altogether, given they did deal with Silvius and Alcanius, and 'all theyr childera & what became of them & how they endyd that succeeded them as kyngis'?
Other details he found were able to be discounted without resort to factual records, or with only very few facts needed other than everyday experience. Were the early inhabitants of Britain giants, descended fromthe Devil in union with 32 daughters of a kingDioclisian of Syria? To Rastell, if the devil had power to sow such seeds at the earlier time, then why not in his own time? Where were the giants today?
Other fanciful elements he reduced bylogical deduction from intuitivepsychological insights, for example the greatly diminished chance of 32 daughtersmarried to 32 kings on a single day, and all cooperating tokill those 32 husbands in a single night; or in combination with analysis oflogistical realities, such as the suggestedvoyage of all 32 murderouswidows to Britain without dispersion or diversion, over three thousand miles.
One renaissance writer Rastell was further able to discount the likelihood of any factuality to that ancient tale, due to his failure to discover, after diligent research, any authentic record of its origin or explanation as to why such record should be absent.
| Legendary titles | ||
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| New creation | king of the Aborigines 1217–1180 BC | Succeeded by |