Lavinia, the subject of our upcoming book chat (Lavinia by Ursula Le Guin), is a minor character in the Aeneid and the daughter of the King Latinus.
N.S. Gill covers him today: Who Was Latinus?
Vergil
(Virgil) introduces King Latinus, in Aeneid
7.45-49, as the aged king of Latium,
a peaceful rural and urban kingdom. Latinus is the son of Marica, his
mother, and his father, Faunus [see Bona
Dea], whose father was Picus
and whose mother may have been Circe,
daughter of Sol (sun). Out of jealousy, Circe turned Picus into a
woodpecker. The father of Picus was Saturn [Moorton].
read on
Courtesy Wikimedia Commons.
