Roman mythology Roman mythology is the body of myths of ancient Rome as represented in the literature and visual arts of the Romans. One of a wide variety of genres of Roman folklore, ''Roman mythology'' may also refer to the modern study of these representa ...

, Caeculus (meaning "little blind boy", from ''caecus'' "blind")Grimal
p. 83
/ref> was a son of Vulcan, and the legendary founder of Praeneste (modern

Palestrina Palestrina (ancient ''Praeneste''; grc, Πραίνεστος, ''Prainestos'') is a modern Italian city and ''comune'' (municipality) with a population of about 22,000, in Lazio, about east of Rome. It is connected to the latter by the Via Pre ...

). King Caeculus appears in Book VII of

Virgil Publius Vergilius Maro (; traditional dates 15 October 7021 September 19 BC), usually called Virgil or Vergil ( ) in English, was an ancient Roman poet of the Augustan period. He composed three of the most famous poems in Latin literature: th ...

's ''

Aeneid The ''Aeneid'' ( ; la, Aenē̆is or ) is a Latin epic poem, written by Virgil between 29 and 19 BC, that tells the legendary story of Aeneas, a Trojan who fled the fall of Troy and travelled to Italy, where he became the ancestor of ...

'' as an ally of

Turnus Turnus ( grc, Τυρρηνός, Tyrrhênós) was the legendary King of the Rutuli in Roman history, and the chief antagonist of the hero Aeneas in Virgil's ''Aeneid''. According to the ''Aeneid'', Turnus is the son of Daunus and the nymph Ve ...

against

Aeneas In Greco-Roman mythology, Aeneas (, ; from ) was a Trojan hero, the son of the Trojan prince Anchises and the Greek goddess Aphrodite (equivalent to the Roman Venus). His father was a first cousin of King Priam of Troy (both being grandsons ...

and the

Trojans Trojan or Trojans may refer to: * Of or from the ancient city of Troy * Trojan language, the language of the historical Trojans Arts and entertainment Music * ''Les Troyens'' ('The Trojans'), an opera by Berlioz, premiered part 1863, part 189 ...

, where he is said to be the "founder of Praeneste" and described as "the son of Vulcan, born among the rural herds and found upon the hearth". The myth concerning the birth of Caeculus and his divine parentage is of great interest for the study of Latin religion. In the myth he is the nephew of two

divine twin The Divine Twins are youthful horsemen, either gods or demigods, who serve as rescuers and healers in Proto-Indo-European mythology. Like other Proto-Indo-European divinities, the Divine Twins are not directly attested by archaeological or writte ...

brothers (''divi fratres'') called the Depidii (or Digidii). They had a younger sister. One day while she was sitting by the hearth, a spark landed on her and she was impregnated. When the child was born, she exposed him near the temple of

Jupiter Jupiter is the fifth planet from the Sun and the largest in the Solar System. It is a gas giant with a mass more than two and a half times that of all the other planets in the Solar System combined, but slightly less than one-thousand ...

, where he was found, lying next to a fire, by a group of girls (one version says that these girls were also sisters of the Depidii), who had come to fetch water from a nearby spring. The girls took the child to his uncles, the Depidii, who reared him. After spending his childhood among shepherds, he gathered a band of youngsters of his age, and founded the city of Praeneste. Caeculus was unharmed by a fire, caused by his casting doubt on the divinity of his ancestry. He also showed mastery over fire by starting and extinguishing another at his will. The smoke though damaged his eyes, which remained smaller than normal, hence his name, Caeculus, ''little blind one''. His story is reminiscent of the practise of ver sacrum and similar to that of

Romulus and Remus In Roman mythology, Romulus and Remus (, ) are twin brothers whose story tells of the events that led to the founding of the city of Rome and the Roman Kingdom by Romulus, following his fratricide of Remus. The image of a she-wolf sucklin ...

the founders of

Rome , established_title = Founded , established_date = 753 BC , founder = King Romulus ( legendary) , image_map = Map of comune of Rome (metropolitan city of Capital Rome, region Lazio, Italy).svg , map_caption ...

. Caeculus was claimed as the eponymous ancestor of the Roman ''

gens In ancient Rome, a gens ( or , ; plural: ''gentes'' ) was a family consisting of individuals who shared the same nomen and who claimed descent from a common ancestor. A branch of a gens was called a ''stirps'' (plural: ''stirpes''). The ''gen ...

'' Caecilia, and also perhaps by the lesser known ''gens''

Caesia ''Caesia'' is a genus of herbs in the family Asphodelaceae, subfamily Hemerocallidoideae,Stevens, P.F. (2001 onwards)"Hemerocallidoideae" ''Angiosperm Phylogeny Website''. Retrieved 2016-06-10. native to Australia, New Guinea, Madagascar and ...

.Farney
p. 63
/ref>

Notes

References

* Mandelbaum, Allen (translator). ''The Aeneid of Virgil'', New York: Bantam Books, 1981. . * Grimal, Pierre
''The Dictionary of Classical Mythology''
Wiley-Blackwell, 1996,
"Caeculus"
* Farney, Gary D.,''Ethnic Identity and Aristocratic Competition in Republican Rome'', Cambridge University Press, 2007. . * Paschalis, Michael, ''Virgil's Aeneid: semantic relations and proper names'', Oxford University Press, 1997. {{ISBN, 978-0-19-814688-9. * Smith, William; ''

Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology The ''Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology'' (1849, originally published 1844 under a slightly different title) is an encyclopedia/ biographical dictionary. Edited by William Smith, the dictionary spans three volumes and 3,700 ...

'', London (1873). Demigods in classical mythology Characters in Roman mythology Children of Vulcan (mythology) Mythological city founders