Aurora (mythology)


In Roman mythology, Aurora was the goddess and personification of the dawn. Aurora is the Latin word for dawn, and she appeared frequently in Latin literature.
Like the Greek Eos and Rigvedic Ushas, Aurora continues the name of an earlier Indo-European dawn goddess, Hausos.

Name

Aurora stems from Proto-Italic *ausōs, and ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *haéusōs, the "dawn" conceived as divine entity. It has cognates in the goddesses Ēṓs, Uṣas, Aušrinė, Auseklis and Ēastre.

Roman mythology

In Roman mythology, Aurora renews herself every morning and flies across the sky, announcing the arrival of the Sun. Her parentage was flexible. The poet Ovid named her as the daughter of the Titan Hyperion, but also referred to her as Pallantis, signifying she was the daughter of Pallas. She has two siblings, a brother— Sol, the Sun— and a sister— Luna, the Moon. Roman writers rarely imitated Hesiod and later Greek poets by naming Aurora as the mother of the Anemoi, who were the offspring of Astraeus, the father of the stars.Most commonly, Aurora appears in erotic poetry with one of her mortal lovers. A myth taken from the Greek by Roman poets tells that one of her lovers was the prince of Troy, Tithonus. Tithonus was a mortal, and would therefore age and die. Wanting to be with her lover for all eternity, Aurora asked Jupiter to grant immortality to Tithonus. Jupiter granted her wish, but she failed to ask for eternal youth to accompany his immortality, and he continued to age, eventually becoming forever old. Aurora turned him into a cicada.

In Roman literature

Ovid's Heroides, Paris names his well-known family members, among which Aurora's lover as follows:
Virgil mentions in the fourth book of his Aeneid:
Rutilius Claudius Namatianus mentions in his 5th century poem De reditu suo:

In popular culture

Aurora has been referenced and depicted frequently in literature, poetry, theater, and music.

Depiction in art

Aurora, fresco by Guido Reni in Palazzo Pallavicini-Rospigliosi, Rome