Hersilia Fossulata
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In Roman mythology, Hersilia was a figure in the foundation myth of Rome. She is credited with ending the war between Rome and the
Sabines The Sabines (; lat, Sabini; it, Sabini, all exonyms) were an Italic people who lived in the central Apennine Mountains of the ancient Italian Peninsula, also inhabiting Latium north of the Anio before the founding of Rome. The Sabines divid ...
.


Battle of the Lacus Curtius

In some accounts she is the wife of
Romulus Romulus () was the legendary foundation of Rome, founder and King of Rome, first king of Ancient Rome, Rome. Various traditions attribute the establishment of many of Rome's oldest legal, political, religious, and social institutions to Romulus ...
, the founder and first King of Rome in Rome's founding myths. She is described as such in both Livy and Plutarch; but in
Dionysius The name Dionysius (; el, Διονύσιος ''Dionysios'', "of Dionysus"; la, Dionysius) was common in classical and post-classical times. Etymologically it is a nominalized adjective formed with a -ios suffix from the stem Dionys- of the name ...
,
Macrobius Macrobius Ambrosius Theodosius, usually referred to as Macrobius (fl. AD 400), was a Roman provincial who lived during the early fifth century, during late antiquity, the period of time corresponding to the Later Roman Empire, and when Latin was ...
, and another tradition recorded by Plutarch, she was instead the wife of Hostus Hostilius, a Roman champion at the time of Romulus. This would make her the grandmother of Tullus Hostilius, the third king of Rome. Livy tells this tale in his work ''Ab urbe condita'': Just like her husband (who became the god Quirinus), she was deified after her death as Hora Quirini, as recounted in Ovid's '' Metamorphoses'': Very little concrete information is known about the deity Hora Quirini. According to Georg Wissowa, Ovid created the story of Hersilia's apotheosis into Hora Quirini. On the other hand, T.P. Wiseman argues that the story comes from an earlier Greek source.Wiseman, T. P. “The Wife and Children of Romulus.” The Classical Quarterly 33, no. 2 (1983): 445–52.


See also

* The rape of the Sabine women * Quirinus


References


External links

{{Commons category, Hersilia
Roman Myth IndexT. P. Wiseman: The Wife and Children of Romulus (The Classical Quarterly, Vol. 33, No. 2, pp 445-452, 1983)
Characters in Roman mythology Roman goddesses Queens of Rome 8th-century BC Roman women