Abstract

Latona enters the Ovidian spotlight in two episodes in Metamorphoses 6, confronting first Niobe and then some rude Lycian farmers. This essay begins by drawing attention to two features of these episodes: first, Ovid’s reshaping of the tradition to highlight Latona’s peculiar susceptibility to eviction, and second, the way the Lycian story in particular not only reenacts the disrespect the story warns against but, more startlingly, brings Latona’s very divinity into question. The essay ends by linking these humiliations to Latona’s anomalous status as a goddess who is also a fully embodied mother.