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as a separate people, we meet in Roman writers with the phrase of "nomen Latinum," used not in an ethnical but a purely political sense, to designate the inhabitants of all those cities on which the Romans had conferred "Latin rights" (jus Latinum), – an inferior form of the Roman franchise, which had been granted in the first instance to certain cities of the Latins, when they became subjects of Rome, and was afterwards bestowed upon many other cities of Italy, especially the so-called Latin colonies. At a later period the same privileges were extended to places in other countries also, as for instance to most of the cities in Sicily and Spain. All persons enjoying these rights were termed in legal phraseology "Latini" or "Latinæ conditionis."
For the topography of Latium, and the local history of its more important cities, the reader may consult Sir W. Gell's Topography of Rome and its Vicinity, 2 vols. 8vo., Lond., 1834, 2d ed., 1 vol., 1846, with a valuable map; Nibby, Analisi Storico-Topografico-Antiquaria della Carta dei Dintorni di Roma, 3 vols. 8vo, 1837, 2d ed. 1848; Westphal, Die Römische Kampagne, 4to, Berlin, 1829; Bormann, Alt-Latinische Chorographie und Städte-Geschichte, 8vo, Halle, 1852; Burn's Rome and the Campagna, 4to, Lond., 1871; Hare's Walks around Rome, 2 vols. 8vo, Lond., 1873. An elaborate antiquarian map of Old Latium has been long in preparation by the Cavaliere Do Rossi, but has not yet made its appearance. (E. H. B.)
LATONA is the Latin name of the Greek Leto, mother of Apollo and Artemis. In Greece she belongs rather to the sphere of mythology than of religion; she forms part of the surroundings of these two great deities, but is not usually a goddess to whom worship is paid or temples built. Different forms of the Latona legend are found in the various seats of Apolline religion. Of these seats the chief are Delos and Delphi, and the tradition which has obtained the widest literary currency is a union of the legends of these two places, formed doubtless under the unifying influence of the Delphic oracle. Latona, pregnant by Zeus, long seeks in vain for a place of refuge to be delivered. She wanders from Crete over Athens, the coasts of Thrace and Asia Minor, and the islands; at last the barren desolate isle of Delos offers itself. Pindar and later poets tell that Delos was a wandering rock borne about by the waves, till it was fixed to the bottom of the sea to serve for the birth of Apollo. Hence arose the belief that Delos could not be shaken by earthquakes, a belief that was disproved by several shocks in historical times (Herod., vi. 98; Plin., iv. 66). In the oldest forms of the legend Hera is not mentioned; but afterwards the wanderings of Leto are ascribed to the jealousy of Hera, enraged at her amour with Zeus. In the legend the foundation of Delphi follows immediately on the birth of the god; and on the sacred way between Tempe and Delphi the giant Tityus offers violence to Leto, and is immediately slain by the arrows of Apollo and Artemis. Such are the main facts of the Leto legend in its common literary form, which is due especially to the two Homeric hymns to Apollo. We must turn from mythology to actual religion in order to discover the true character of the myth. Then we shall find that Leto is a real goddess, and not a mere mythological figure. The honour paid to her in Delphi and Delos might be explained as part of the cultus of her son Apollo; but temples to her existed in Argos, in Mantinea, and in Xanthus of Lycia; her sacred grove was on the coast of Crete. In Lycia graves are frequently placed under her protection (see Corpus Inscr. Græc., No. 4259, 4300, 4303, &c.); and she is also known as a goddess of fertility and as (
Greek characters). In these attributes we recognize the earth-goddess. Now, although in the common legends Apollo and Artemis are called the twin children of Leto, yet she appears far more conspicuously in the Apolline myths than in those which grew round the great centres of Artemis worship; moreover, in the older forms of the Apolline myths Artemis is hardly mentioned except as an after-thought, and the Homeric hymn makes them born in different places ((Greek characters)). Facts such as these will be readily explained if one recognizes that the idea of Apollo and Artemis as twins is one of later growth on Greek soil, and that the two religions come from different origins in Asia Minor. Again Lycia, one of the chief homes of the Apolline religion, is precisely the country where most frequent traces are found of the worship of Leto as the great goddess. Etymological considerations point in the same direction. The Greeks always connected the word Leto with the root seen in (Greek characters), &c.; but it is more probable that the resemblance is delusive, and that the origin is to be found in words which are not so distinctively Greek. Leto and Leda are both probably forms of the Lycian word Lada, which means woman or lady; and the island of Lade or Late (Plin., v. 35), the town Lete, the rivers Ladon and Lethteus, were all named from the goddess.
It is clear then that Latona or Leto was the great goddess of a religion which found its way into Greece, where its mythology was harmonized to a certain extent with that of the other religious systems of the country. Everything points to Lycia as the earlier home of this religion. Zeus, by whatever name he was called, and Leto are heaven and earth; their offspring is Apollo, the ever young god of light and of the sun, born afresh every spring. The myth is the same that occurs over and over again with different names in every district of Greece and Asia Minor. But in Greece Hera was recognized as the supreme consort of Zeus, and Latona could only rank with many other goddesses of antique religions as his concubine; though even in Greece the oldest forms of the tradition recognize her as the goddess-consort, (Greek characters), of Zeus. Sappho calls her and Niobe "loving companions." The father of Leto, Cœus, must be a god in the almost forgotten religion to which she belongs.
In Greek art Leto appears usually in company with her children; in vase paintings especially she is often represented with Apollo and Artemis. The statue of Leto in the Letoon at Argos was the work of Praxiteles.
See Mitth. Inst. Ath., i. 168; Hesiod, Theog., 134; Couze, Reisen auf den Griech. Inseln, p. 91.
LATREILLE, Pierre-André (1762-1833), French naturalist, was born in humble circumstances at Brives-la-Gaillarde, now in the department of Corrèze, France, on November 29, 1762. His abilities attracted the attention of the Baron d'Espagnac, who in 1778 placed him at the Collége Lemoine at Paris, where the Abbé Haüy was at that time a teacher. Having chosen the ecclesiastical career, he was admitted to priestly orders in 1786, and in the same year retired to Brives, devoting all the leisure which the discharge of his professional duties allowed to the study of entomology. In 1788 he returned to Paris and found means of making himself known to the leading naturalists there, – Fabricius, Olivier, Bosc, Lamarck; his first important contribution to his special science, a "Mémoire sur les Mutilles découvertes en France," contributed to the Proceedings of the Society of Natural History in Paris, procured for him the honour of admission to that body, and of being made a corresponding member of the Linnean Society of London. At the Revolution he was compelled to quit Paris, and as a priest of conservative sympathies suffered considerable hardship; he lay for some time in prison at Bordeaux, and gained his liberty at last only through the intervention of the naturalists Bory de Saint-Vincent and Dargelas. His Précis des Caractères génériques des insectes, disposés dans un ordre naturel,
appeared at Brives in 1796. In 1798 he became a corresponding member of the Institute, and at the same time was entrusted with the task of arranging the entomological collection at the recently organized "Museum d'Histoire Naturelle" (Jardin des Plantes); in 1814 he succeeded Olivier as member of the Académie des Sciences, and in
