Amata

The wife of king Latinus and mother of Lavinia, who, when Aeneas sued for the hand of the latter, opposed him, because she had already promised Lavinia to Turnus. At the same time she was instigated by Alecto, who acted according to the request of Juno, to stir up the war with Turnus. This story fills the greater part of the seventh book of Virgil's Aeneid.

When Amata was informed that Turnus had fallen in battle, she hanged herself.

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References

Sources

  • Dionysius of Halicarnassus. Roman Antiquities i, 64.
  • Smith, William. (1870). Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology. London: Taylor, Walton, and Maberly.
  • Virgil. Aeneid xii, 600.

This article incorporates text from Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology (1870) by William Smith, which is in the public domain.