Galaxy/The codex of Latinus

King of the Latins whom Ovid names son of Faunus, whose daughter Lavinia Aeneas won after war with Turnus — not to be confused with Latinus son of Odysseus and Circe in Hesiod and Hyginus, nor with Odysseus' son Latinus by Calypso in Apollodorus.1

I

When Aeneas came to the Tiber's groves, Ovid says he fell heir to a home and won the daughter of Latinus, Faunus' son, not without war: Turnus, a young chief of a fierce people, fought to hold a promised bride, and with Latium all Etruria was embroiled until Venus saw her son victorious and Turnus fell.2

II

Hyginus preserves a wholly different Latinus in the Returns catalogue: from Circe and Telemachus was born Latinus, who gave his name to the Latin language — the Odysseus strand that must not be merged with the Laurentine king who receives Aeneas in Ovid's Italian books.3

III

Hesiod and Apollodorus likewise know a Latinus born to Odysseus — by Circe in the Theogony's appendix, by Calypso in the Nostoi epitome — figures of the Greek Returns, not the king at Lavinium.4

the spine ignites as you read · hover a bond on the card — every mention of them lights in the story

BEYOND THE POETS

How the centuries since have seen Latinus — art, artifacts and echoes.

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