Hersilia

 ( Characters In Roman Mythology ) 

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.

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Battle of the Lacus Curtius In some accounts she is the wife of 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, Macrobius, and another tradition recorded by Plutarch, she was instead the wife of Hostus Hostilius, a Roman champion at the time of Romulus.Dionysius, iii. 1. 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.Wissowa, Georg. Gesammelte Abhandlungen Zur Römischen Religions-Und Stadtgeschichte: Ergänzungsband Zu Des Verfassers’ Religion Und Kultus Der Römer’. CH Beck, 1904 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.

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See also

• The rape of the Sabine women
• Quirinus

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External links

• Roman Myth Index
• Bryn Mawr
• T. P. Wiseman: The Wife and Children of Romulus (The Classical Quarterly, Vol. 33, No. 2, pp 445-452, 1983)

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