In ancient Greek mythology and religion, Leto (; , ) is the mother of Apollo and Artemis. She is the daughter of the Titans Coeus and Phoebe, and the sister of Asteria.Hesiod, Theogony 404–409
In the Olympian scheme, the king of gods Zeus is the father of her twins, Apollo and Artemis,Pindar consistently refers to the god Apollo and the goddess Artemis as twins; other sources instead give separate birthplaces for the siblings. whom Leto conceived after her hidden beauty accidentally caught the eye of Zeus. During her pregnancy, Leto sought for a place where she could give birth to Apollo and Artemis, since Hera, the wife of Zeus, in her jealousy, ordered all lands to shun her and deny her shelter. Hera is also the one to have sent the monstrous serpent Python and the giant Tityos against Leto to pursue and harm her. Leto eventually found an island, Delos, that was not joined to the mainland or attached to the ocean floor, therefore it was not considered land or island and she could give birth.Károly Kerényi notes, The Gods of the Greeks 1951:130, "His twin sister is usually already on the scene". In some stories, Hera further tormented Leto by delaying her labour, leaving Leto in agony for days before she could deliver the twins, who proceed to slay her assailants.
Besides the myth of the birth of Apollo and Artemis, Leto appears in other notable myths, usually where she punishes mortals for their hubris against her. After some Lycian peasants prevented her and her infants from drinking from a fountain, Leto transformed them all into frogs inhabiting the fountain. When Niobe boasts of being a better mother than Leto due to having given birth to a greater number of children than the goddess and mocks the appearance of her twins, Leto then asks her children to avenge her, and they respond by shooting all of Niobe's sons and daughters dead as punishment.
Usually, Leto is found at Olympus among the other gods, having gained her seat next to Zeus, or accompanying and helping her children in their various endeavors. She was usually worshipped in conjunction with her children, particularly in the sacred island of Delos, as a kourotrophic deity, the goddess of motherhood; in Lycia she was a mother goddess.
In Roman mythology, Leto's Roman equivalent is Latona, a Latinization of her name, influenced by the Etruscan Letun.Letun noted is passing in Larissa Bonfante and Judith Swaddling, Etruscan Myths (series: The Legendary Past) (British Museum/University of Texas Press) 2006, p. 72.
Etymology
'Leto' is Attic Greek; in the Doric Greek dialect, spoken in Sparta and the surrounding areas her name was spelled Lato with an alpha instead (; ).
There are several explanations for the origin of the goddess and the meaning of her name. Older sources speculated that the name is related to the Greek lḗthē (lethe, oblivion) and lotus (the fruit that brings oblivion to those who eat it). It would thus mean "the hidden one".
In 20th century sources Leto is traditionally derived from Lycian lada, "wife", as her earliest cult was centered in Lycia. Lycian lada may also be the origin of the Greek name Leda. Other scholars (Kretschmer, Bethe, Chantraine, and Beekes) have suggested a pre-Greek origin.
In Mycenaean Greek her name has been attested through the form Latios, meaning "son of Leto" or "related to Leto" (Linear B: , ra-ti-jo), and Lato (Linear B: , ra-to).
Origins Leto was identified from the fourth century onwards as the principal local mother goddess of Anatolian Lycia, as the region became Hellenized.The process is discussed by T. R. Bryce, "The Arrival of the Goddess Leto in Lycia", Historia: Zeitschrift für alte Geschichte, 321 (1983:1–13). In Greek inscriptions, the children of Leto are referred to as the "national gods" of the country.Bryce 1983:1 and note 2. Her sanctuary, the Letoon near Xanthos, predated Hellenic influence in the region, however,Bryce 1983, summarizing the archaeology of the Letoon. united the Lycian confederacy of city-states. The Hellenes of Kos also claimed Leto as their own. Another sanctuary, more recently identified, was at Oenoanda in the north of Lycia.Alan Hall, "A Sanctuary of Leto at Oenoanda" Anatolian Studies 27 (1977) pp. 193–197. There was a further Letoon at Delos.
Leto is exceptional among Zeus's divine lovers for being the only one who was tormented by Hera, who otherwise only directs her anger toward mortal women and nymphs, but not goddesses, thus being treated more in line with mortal women than divine beings in mythology. Zeus had various affairs with goddesses like Metis, Demeter, Dione, Maia, Persephone, Themis, Mnemosyne, Selene, Nemesis and more, which were never harmed by Hera; the sole exception (besides Leto) is found in the Suda, a late Byzantine lexicon which recounts the story of Hera cursing a pregnant Aphrodite's belly, leading to the birth of Priapus.
Moreover, Leto's troubled childbirth bears resemblance to Alcmene's, as both suffered painful extended labours due to Hera not allowing Eileithyia, the goddess of childbirth, to help them, and both stories overall are also thematically linked to the myth of Semele and her son Dionysus, another story of a mortal woman who bore an important son for Zeus and was punished by Hera for that. Yet at the same time Hesiodic tradition makes her the daughter of two Titans, elder gods, and one of Zeus's first seven wives. Leto's peculiar mythology and ontology has led to suggestions that she might be a composite of two figures, an immortal goddess who bore Artemis, and a mortal woman who gave birth to Apollo.
Family and attributes
Leto is the daughter of the Titans Phoebe and Coeus.Hesiod, Theogony 404–408; Gantz, p. 37; Hard, p. 37; Caldwell, pp. 11-12; Grimal, s.v Leto; Tripp, s.v. Leto; Smith, s.v. Leto; Apollodorus, 1.2.2; Diodorus Siculus, 5.67.2; Hyginus, Fabulae Preface; cf. Aeschylus, The Eumenides 5–8. For a genealogical table of the family of Leto, see Grimal, p. 557.Hesiod, Theogony 409–411. Leto is also sometimes called the daughter of Coeus with no mother specified.Ovid, Metamorphoses 6.146 ff.; Orphic Hymn 35 to Leto 1 (Athanassakis and Wolkow, p. 31); Pindar, fr. Processional-Song in Honour of Delos. The island of Kos, in the southeast Aegean Sea, is claimed to be her birthplace.Tacitus, The Annals 12.61 However, Diodorus Siculus states clearly that Leto was born in Hyperborea and not in Kos.Diodorus Siculus, 2.47.1.
Her sister is Asteria, who is, by the Titan Perses, the mother of Hecate. Both sisters captured Zeus's heart; first Leto, and then Asteria, who caught his attention after Leto had already been impregnated with his twins.Servius, Commentary on Virgil's Aeneid 3.73 Unlike Leto, Asteria did not reciprocate his love and escaped his advances by transforming herself into a bird and then a wandering island, later renamed Delos.
In Homeric texts, Leto is shown standing next to Zeus in the absence of Hera almost in the manner of a married wife, and not just one mistress among the many.
Hesiod describes Leto as "always mild, kind to men and to the deathless gods, mild from the beginning," the gentlest goddess in all Olympus.Translation by Hugh G. Evelyn-White. Plato also makes references to Leto's softness when trying to link etymologically her name to the word ἐθελήμονα ("willing", i.e. to assist those asking for her help),Plato, Cratylus 406a. as well as λεῖον ("mild").Plato, Cratylus 406b. Next to Demeter, Leto was the most celebrated mother of the ancient world.Bell, s. v. Leto
Hesiod describes Leto as "dark-gowned"Hesiod, Theogony 406. and the Orphic Hymn 35 to Leto describes her as "dark-veiled" and "goddess who gave birth to twins" (θεός διδυματόκος).Orphic Hymn 35 to Leto 1 (Athanassakis and Wolkow, p. 31). In the Homeric Hymn to Apollo, she is described as golden-haired.Homeric Hymn 3 to Apollo 205; Barker, p. 41
Mythology
Birth of Artemis and Apollo
Earlier accounts Hesiod makes her the sixth out of the seven wives of Zeus, who bore his children before his marriage to Hera,Hesiod, Theogony 912–920; Morford, p. 211. however this element is absent in later accounts, all of which speak of a liaison between the two, that ended up in Leto falling pregnant. When Hera, the goddess of marriage and family, queen of the gods and the wife of Zeus, figured it out, she pursued her relentlessly.
The Homeric Hymn 3 to Apollo is the oldest extant account of Leto's wandering and birth of her children, but it is only concerned with the birth of Apollo, and treats Artemis as an afterthought; in fact the hymn does not even state that Leto's children are twins, and they are given different birthplaces (he in Delos, she in Ortygia). The first to speak of Leto's children being twins is a slightly later poet, Pindar. The two earliest poets, Homer and Hesiod, confirm Artemis and Apollo's status as full siblings born to Leto by Zeus, but neither explicitly makes them twins.Homer, Iliad 1.9 and 21.502–510; Hesiod, Theogony 918–920
According to the Homeric Hymn 3 to Delian Apollo, Leto travelled far and wide to find a place to give birth, but none of them dared be the birthplace of Apollo. After having arrived at Delos, she labored for nine nights and nine days, in the presence of Dione, Rhea, Ichnaea, Themis and Amphitrite.Homeric Hymn 3 to Apollo, 89–97. Only Eileithyia, the goddess of childbirth, was not present; she, unaware of the situation, was with jealous Hera on Olympus.Homeric Hymn 3 to Apollo, 98–102; Gantz p. 38.
Her absence, which was preventing Leto from giving birth, kept her in labor for nine days. According to the Homeric hymn, the goddesses who assembled to witness the birth of Apollo were responding to a public occasion in the rites of a dynasty, where the authenticity of the child must be established beyond doubt from the first moment.
The dynastic rite of the witnessed birth must have been familiar to the hymn's hearers.Greek women, at least among Athenians, gave birth in the midst of a crowd of women from the household. The dynasty that is so concerned about being authenticated in this myth is the new dynasty of Zeus and the Olympian Pantheon, and the goddesses at Delos who bear witness to the rightness of the birth are the great goddesses of the old order.
Demeter was not present and Aphrodite was not either, but Rhea attended. The goddess Dione (her name simply means "divine" or "she-Zeus") is sometimes taken by later mythographers as a mere feminine form of Zeus (see entry Dodona). If that was the case, she would not have assembled there. Then, on the ninth day, Eileithyia was sent for by the messenger goddess Iris, who persuaded her with a necklace and brought her to Delos.Homeric Hymn 3 to Apollo, 103–114; Gantz p. 38.
As soon as Eileithyia arrived, Apollo was finally allowed to be born, and was given ambrosia and nectar by Themis, rather than breastmilk.Homeric Hymn 3 to Apollo, 115–124; Gantz p. 38. Preceding the myth of Apollo's birth, the preface of the hymn begins with the status quo that was then established, namely that Leto is now by the side of Zeus in Olympus, both proudly watching Apollo exercise his archery skills, and she is ever glad for having borne the king of gods such a splendid son and archer.
Later accounts According to the Bibliotheca, "But Latona for her intrigue with Zeus was hunted by Hera over the whole earth, till she came to Delos and brought forth first Artemis, by the help of whose midwifery she afterwards gave birth to Apollo."Apollodorus, 1.4.1; Antoninus Liberalis, Metamorphoses 35, giving as his sources Menecrates of Xanthos (4th century BCE) and Nicander of Colophon; Ovid, Metamorphoses 6.317–381 provides another late literary source.