LATINUS, in Roman legend, king of the aborigines in Latium, and eponymous hero of the Latin race. In Hesiod (_Theogony_, 1013) he is the son of Odysseus and Circe, and ruler of the Tyrsenians; in Virgil, the son of Faunus and the nymph Marica, a national genealogy being substituted for the Hesiodic, which probably originated from a Greek source. Latinus was a shadowy personality, invented to explain the origin of Rome and its relations with Latium, and only obtained importance in later times through his legendary connexion with Aeneas and the foundation of Rome. According to Virgil (_Aeneid_, vii.-xii.), Aeneas, on landing at the mouth of the Tiber, was welcomed by Latinus, the peaceful ruler whose seat of government was Laurentum, and ultimately married his daughter Lavinia. Entry: LATINUS
These early fortifications of the Acropolis, ascribed to the primitive non-hellenic Pelasgi, must be distinguished from the Pelasgicum Or Pelargicum, which was in all probability an encircling wall, built round the base of the citadel and furnished with nine gates from which it derived the name of Enneapylon. Such a wall would be required to protect the clusters of dwellings around the Acropolis as well as the springs issuing from the rock, while the gates opening in various directions would give access to the surrounding pastures and gardens. This view, which is that of E. Curtius, alone harmonizes with the statement of Herodotus (vi. 137) that the wall was "around" ([Greek: peri]) the Acropolis, and that of Thucydides (ii. 17) that it was "beneath" ([Greek: hypo]) the fortress. Thus it would appear that the citadel had an outer and an inner line of defence in prehistoric times. The space enclosed by the outer wall was left unoccupied after the Persian wars in deference to an oracular response apparently dictated by military considerations, the maintenance of an open zone being desirable for the defence of the citadel. A portion of the outer wall has been recognized in a piece of primitive masonry discovered near the Odeum of Herodes Atticus; other traces will probably come to light when the northern and eastern slopes of the Acropolis have been completely explored. Leake, whom Frazer follows, assumed the Pelasgicum to be a fortified space at the western end of the Acropolis; this view necessitates the assumption that the nine gates were built one within the other, but early antiquity furnishes no instance of such a construction; Dörpfeld believes it to have extended from the grotto of Pan to the sacred precinct of Asclepius. The well-known passage of Lucian (_Piscator_, 47) cannot be regarded as decisive for any of the theories advanced, as any portion of the old _enceinte_ dismantled by the Persians may have retained the name in later times. The Pelasgic wall enclosed the spring Clepsydra, beneath the north-western corner of the Acropolis, which furnished a water-supply to the defenders of the fortress. The spring, to which a staircase leads down, was once more included in a bastion during the War of Independence by the Greek chief Odysseus. Entry: I
CIRCE (Gr. [Greek: Kirkê]), in Greek legend, a famous sorceress, the daughter of Helios and the ocean nymph Perse. Having murdered her husband, the prince of Colchis, she was expelled by her subjects and placed by her father on the solitary island of Aeaea on the coast of Italy. She was able by means of drugs and incantations to change human beings into the forms of wolves or lions, and with these beings her palace was surrounded. Here she was found by Odysseus and his companions; the latter she changed into swine, but the hero, protected by the herb _moly_ (q.v.), which he had received from Hermes, not only forced her to restore them to their original shape, but also gained her love. For a year he relinquished himself to her endearments, and when he determined to leave, she instructed him how to sail to the land of shades which lay on the verge of the ocean stream, in order to learn his fate from the prophet Teiresias. Upon his return she also gave him directions for avoiding the dangers of the journey home (Homer, _Odyssey_, x.-xii.; Hyginus, _Fab._ 125). The Roman poets associated her with the most ancient traditions of Latium, and assigned her a home on the promontory of Circei (Virgil, _Aeneid_, vii. 10). The metamorphoses of Scylla and of Picus, king of the Ausonians, by Circe, are narrated in Ovid (_Metamorphoses_, xiv.). Entry: CIRCE