Latinus’s Family Tree

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Family

• Amata(spouse),Lavinia(child)— Marriage

  King Latinus and Queen Amata ruled Latium together and were parents of the princess Lavinia, whose hand in marriage became the cause of war between the Trojans and the Latin peoples in Virgil's Aeneid.

• Bona Dea(parent),Faunus(parent)— Consort

  Faunus and Fauna are the parents of Latinus, king of the Laurentines who welcomed Aeneas to Italy.

  ⚠ Virgil (Aeneid 7.47) names the nymph Marica as Latinus's mother rather than Fauna. Macrobius (Saturnalia 1.12.21) and Varro record the Fauna tradition.

• Faunus(parent),Marica(parent)— Consort

  Faunus lay with the nymph Marica at her sacred grove near the Liris, and she bore him Latinus, who would one day rule the Laurentine people and welcome the Trojans to Italian shores.

  ⚠ Varro (via Augustine, City of God 18.15) and Macrobius (Saturnalia 1.12.21) name Fauna rather than Marica as Latinus's mother.

Allied with

• Aeneas

  King Latinus received Aeneas as the foreign son-in-law foretold by Faunus's oracle, offering him Lavinia's hand and alliance against the resistance that Juno and Turnus would soon ignite across Latium.

Rules over

• Latium

  Latinus ruled Latium as an aged king whose long peace was shattered when fate brought Aeneas to his shores, forcing him to surrender his daughter and his kingdom's future to the Trojan stranger.

Associated with

• Alecto(Greek)

  After poisoning Amata and inflaming Turnus, Alecto engineered the final spark of war by driving Ascanius's hunting dogs to flush Silvia's sacred deer into his path, provoking the first bloodshed between Trojans and Latins that shattered the peace Latinus had decreed.

• Lavinium

  King Latinus welcomed the Trojan refugees and gave his daughter Lavinia to Aeneas, co-ruling from Lavinium until his death. His hospitality made the city's founding possible.

• Mezentius

  Mezentius, the exiled Etruscan tyrant, demanded the first-fruits of the Latin wine harvest as tribute from the people Latinus ruled, provoking the conflict that would end with his death at Aeneas's hand.

• Turnus

  Latinus had promised Lavinia to Turnus before the oracles demanded a foreign husband. Turnus's rage at Latinus's reversal, giving Lavinia to Aeneas instead, ignited the war in Latium.