Lara
Lara is a naiad who, after being raped by Mercury, becomes mother to the Lares. Tacita was identified by Ovid with Lara.
↻ synthesized from 2 sources
When
- First attested
- 100 BCE
- Attested period
- -100 – 100
- Historical notes
- Mentioned by Ovid in the 1st century CE.
Relationships
- consort of
- Mercury
- co occurs with
- Lemures, Lares Praestites, Prestota, Juturna
- serves
- Juno
- parent of
- Lares
- child of
- Almo
- syncretized with
- Muta, Dea Tacita
Mentioned by
Sources
Source passages
“Ovid also describes a story in which the naiad Lara, after being raped by Mercury, becomes mother to the Lares. The classicist T. P. Wiseman connects this legend to a scene on a Praenestine mirror that depicts two infants suckling the breasts of a she-wolf. Wiseman interprets this scene as a representation of the story of the foundation of Rome”
#9995 · extracted by google/gemini-2.0-flash-001
“Ovid names her Lara, an excessively loquacious river-nymph, daughter of the river-god Almo. Ignoring parental advice to curb her tongue, she betrays Jupiter's secret, adulterous affair with the nymph Juturna, wife of Janus, to his own wife, Juno. Jupiter wrenches out Lara's tongue”
#12753 · extracted by google/gemini-2.0-flash-001