Latinus or Latinos was a figure in both Greek and Roman mythology.

Greek mythology

In Hesiod's Theogony, he was the son of Odysseus and Circe who ruled the Tyrsenoi, that is 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 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, Latinus is sometimes the son of Faunus and Marica and father of Lavinia with his wife, Amata. In Roman mythology, Latinus, Lavinius or Latium was a king of the Latins. He hosted Aeneas's army of exiled Trojans and let them reorganize their life in Latium. His daughter Lavinia had been promised to Turnus, king of the Rutuli, but Latinus preferred to offer her to Aeneas; Turnus consequently declared war on Aeneas (at the urging of Juno). The outcome was that Turnus was killed and his people captured. Ascanius, the son of Aeneas, founded Alba Longa and was the first in a long series of kings.

References

See also

• Latium

Sources

• Virgil. Aeneid. VII, 45, 52, 69, 96.