Italus

An ancient king of the Pelasgians, Siculians, or Oenotrians, from whom Italy was believed to have derived its name.1 Hyginus2 calls him a son of Telegonus by Penelope. By Electra, the daughter of Latinus, he is said to have become the father of Remus, the founder of Rome, and by Lucania, the father of the heroine Roma, to whom is likewise ascribed the foundation of Rome.

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References

Notes

  1. Thucydides, vi, 2; Dionysius, i, 35.
  2. Fabulae, 127.

Sources

  • Aristotle. Politics vii, 10.
  • Dionysius, i, 72.
  • Plutarch. Romulus, 2; comp. Servius on Virgil's Aeneid i, 6; viii, 328.
  • Smith, William. (1870). Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology. London: Taylor, Walton, and Maberly.

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