After giving birth Latona arrives tired and thirsty in Lycia, but the locals refuse her a drink from their lake, so she turns them into frogs. Critics usually endorse Latona’s justice. This article reexamines the episode to develop a balanced reading and then historicizes that reading in relation to law and Augustus’ aqueduct projects. The conflict between goddess and mortals dramatizes tensions between emperor and citizens with conflicting interests in water. Ovid’s Lycian myth opens new perspectives on these conflicts and, (...) more generally, on the place of law in Augustan Rome. (shrink)