Hersilia
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- Hersilia is also a spider genus (Hersiliidae).
In Roman mythology, Hersilia was the wife of Romulus. The principal source for her is Livy, I.11:
Whilst the Romans are achieving these exploits, the army of the Antemnates, taking advantage of their absence, makes an incursion into the Roman territories in a hostile manner. A Roman legion being marched out in haste against these also, surprise them whilst straggling through the fields. Accordingly the enemy were routed at the very first shout and charge: their town taken; and as Romulus was returning, exulting for this double victory, his consort, Hersilia, importuned by the entreaties of the captured women, beseeches him "to pardon their fathers, and to admit them to the privilege of citizens; that thus his power might be strengthened by a reconciliation." Her request was readily granted. |
Just like her husband (who became the god Quirinus), she was deified after her death as Hora, as recounted in Ovid, Metamorphoses, Bk XIV:829-851:
His queen, Hersilia, wept continually, regarding him as lost, till regal Juno commanded Iris to glide down along her curving bow and bring to her these words: “O matron, glory of the Latin race and of the Sabines, worthy to have been the consort chosen by so great a man and now to be his partner as the god Quirinus, weep no more. If you desire to see your husband, let me guide you up to a grove that crowns the hill of Quirinus, shading a temple of the Roman king.” Iris obeyed her will, and, gliding down to earth along her tinted bow, conveyed the message to Hersilia; who replied, with modest look and hardly lifted eye, “Goddess (although it is not in my power to say your name, I am quite certain you must be a goddess), lead me, O lead me until you show to me the hallowed form of my beloved husband. If the Fates will but permit me once again to see his features, I will say I have won heaven.” At once Hersilia and the virgin child of Thaumas, went together up the hill of Romulus. Descending through thin air there came a star, and then Hersilia her tresses glowing fiery in the light, rose with that star, as it returned through air. And her the founder of the Roman state received with dear, familiar hands. He changed her old time form and with the form her name. He called her Hora and let her become a goddess, now the mate of Quirinus. |