Leto

"Now, now, my children. Never forget, you two are born the prince and princess of Zeus, the proof of my status in the thunderer's eyes, and you deserve your thrones among the Olympians. So always remember: Never embarrassed me like this again."

- Leto to Artemis and Apollo.

Leto is the Greek Titaness of Motherhood and Demurity, who was a lover of Zeus and mother of Apollo and Artemis. She is the Protector of the Youth. Her Roman counterpart is Latona.

Overview
Leto was most commonly seen as a titaness of motherhood. After she gave birth to Apollo and Artemis, she also became a protector of the young like they both were. She is also a goddess of modesty. One of the second generation of Titans, Leto was born to the first generation Titans Phoebe and Coeus. Leto was described as the lawful wife of Zeus, but was merely a concubine.

Her name and iconography suggest she was also a goddess of modesty and womanly demure. Her sister was Asteria, goddess of the night and darkness, so Leto is assumed to either be a goddess of night like her sister, or a goddess of day and light, the opposite of her sister. The only thing that Leto was usually depicted doing was lifting her veil, which was a sign of woman modesty.

Her residing and giving birth in Delos, promised the island wealth from the worshippers who would flock to the obscure birthplace of the splendid god who was to come. As a gesture of gratitude, Delos was secured with four pillars and later became sacred to Apollo.

Appearance
Leto was described to have bronze arms and long golden hair that zigzagged down her back in an elaborate ladder weave. Her skin glowed against her white sundress.

Personality
Leto is always motherly and gentle, but will not tolerate being or having her family disrespected. She is rather determined, just like her daughter Artemis.

Powers and Abilities
Leto presumably possesses the standard powers of a Titaness.
 * Motherhood: As the Titaness of Motherhood, Leto has divine authority and absolute control over fertility.
 * Reproduction Manipulation: She has the power to manipulate and control the process in which parents produce offspring. Her children belonged to a new divine race, the Olympians.
 * Archery: Like her brother Lelantos, Leto is well renowned for her archery skills, a trait her children inherited, though they far surpass her own.
 * Titanic Divine Form: As a Titaness, Leto has the ability to incinerate any being lesser than a god-class being only by being present.
 * Titanic Energy: Like all Titans, Leto has the ability to blast things hundreds of yards away from herself with a yell or a wave of the hand.
 * Enhanced Durability: Despite being heavily pregnant, Leto managed to travel for many months and escape from powerful monsters like Python.

Early life
Leto was born from Coeus and Phoebe, the First Oracle of Delphi. As the Titan Protector of the Young, Leto became the "world's first babysitter". She was very popular with all the Titans since she would help them babysit their children.

Leto's Pregnancy
Centuries after the long war known as the Titanomachy, Leto's great beauty caught the eye of King of the Gods, Zeus. Like most female gods, Leto didn't want to marry her cousin Zeus since he swallowed her previous wife, her cousin Metis. However Zeus came to fall in love with Leto, who was charmed her into having an affair with him, which concluded with her becoming pregnant with twins. Zeus married Hera while Leto was pregnant. While the pregnancy began before the marriage, Hera was still jealous of Leto.

For the duration of Leto's pregnancy Hera created problems with a curse. First Leto was pushed out of Olympus and all the world being afraid of receiving her on account of Hera. While trying to consult the Oracle of Delphi for advice, she caught the attention of the dragon Python who was sent by Hera to chase Leto and barely escaped.

When Leto was going into labor, Hera made all land shun Leto from giving birth on "terra firma", the mainland, any island at sea, or any place under the sun so she could find no place to give birth. Leto wandered about till she came to the new floating island of Delos, still bearing its archaic name of Asterios, which Poseidon, god of the seas, recently created and so was not yet attached to the earth, thus, not yet land. According to some sources, Leto has instead encountered her sister Asteria, who had transformed herself into a floating island in the Aegean Sea in an effort to evade Zeus's amorous intentions.

But when Leto touched it, it suddenly stood still upon four pillars, which was neither mainland nor a real island.

Birth of Apollo and Artemis
Leto went here and laid under a palm tree to give birth. Yet she couldn't give birth because Hera had forbid Eilithyia goddess of childbirth to go to her. Eventually, the other goddesses felt bad for Leto and offered Hera a beautiful necklace to allow Leto to give birth. Hera accepted and Iris took Eilithyia straight to Leto.

Leto, with the aid of a rooster and Eilithyia, with the deathless goddesses Dione, Rhea, Ichnaea, Themis and Amphitrite along with all other goddesses except Hera herself, gave birth to her twins. Leto first gave birth to Artemis and then after another nine days of labor to Apollo with the former's assistant.

Leto's problems continued. But, now she had her two fast developing children, both of whom became powerful archers, to protect her, four days old Apollo was able to kill Python.

Some time after Apollo killed the Python, she was then attacked by a cyclops who was sent by Hera to rape her. However, before she was molested and forced into sexual activities, her children came in time to kill the cyclops and rescue her from him.

Failed Abduction
When she was traveling to Delphi to visit her son, the giant Tityus attempted to abduct her, but Apollo intervened and slew him with arrows and even ensured that Tityos' soul was tormented for all eternity as punishment.

Queen Niobe
When Queen Niobe of Thebes slightly slandered Leto by claiming that she was better than the Titaness for she had fourteen children (seven sons and seven daughters) while Leto only had two, the indignant Apollo and Artemis slew all of Niobe's children, with the exception of the youngest daughter.

Forgiveness
Centuries after the end of the age of the Greco-Roman Pantheons Rule, Hera apparently forgave Leto for lying with her husband, and so the Titaness lived quietly on Mount Olympus.

Myths and Legends
Leto came to establish a reputation that she was a personage to be treated with all reverence, for no one could behave inappropriately towards her without incurring the wrath of her powerful children.

Her cult was fairly widespread but she was usually worshipped as an associate goddess in conjunction with her children Apollon and Artemis. Her main cult centers were the island of Delos, the shrine of Ortygia near Ephesos and the town of Phaistos in Krete.

In Greek vase painting Leto was usually depicted as a woman lifting her veil in a gesture of modesty. She was usually depicted accompanied by her two children. The exact meaning of her name is obscure, some commentators connect it with the word lethô, to move unseen, suggestive of modesty, others derive it from the Lycian word for woman, lada.

Leto's counterparts are the Roman Latona, Palestinian Lat and the Celtic Sirona.

Sacred Animal
Rooster: A rooster was next to Leto all through her birth so she decided that she would take it as her symbol. The rooster was also a symbol of the childbirth goddess, Eilithyia.

Quotes

 * "My mother is a brilliant woman. Kind, intelligent, generous... Though I have to admit, she could be quite, uhm, unstable at times. But still, she is my mother. Me, one of the most esteem Twelve Olympians. She deserves to be praised and worshipped, her altar filled with sacrifices, her name came out in prayers and hymns and songs. Not under house-arrest because of a crazy bitch's jealousy." - Artemis.


 * "I, Hera, curse you. No land with roots in the earth could receive you when it was time for you to give birth, and yet you could only give birth on land." - Hera cursing Leto.


 * "Tityos once assaulted a mistress of Zeus himself, the far-famed Leto, as she walked towards Pytho through the lovely spaces of Panopeus." - Homer, Odyssey 11.580.


 * "Latona for her intrigue with Zeus was hunted by Hera over the whole earth, till she came to the floating island of Delos and brought forth first Artemis, by the help of whose midwifery, with the help of Artemis, nine days later, she afterwards gave birth to Apollo." - Biblioteca of Pseudo-Apollodorus.

Trivia

 * Leto is an old friend of Rhea and Metis.
 * She would also become a good friend with Amphitrite.
 * Her son Apollo mentions that he recalls that she used to call him 'a special snowflake'.
 * Periodically, she would visit Mount Olympus to meet her children again.
 * Callimachus wrote that it is remarkable that Leto brought forth Artemis, the elder twin, without travail.

Image Sources

 * (Artemis Leto.jpg) Artemis by geaspirito
 * (Leto by lordaphaius28 d5zv1zf-fullview.jpg) Leto by lordaphaius28
 * (Leto and her children by lordaphaius28 d64qlgq-fullview.jpg) Leto and Her Children by lordaphaius28
 * (Leto portrait.jpg) Portrait of Leto from The Eros and Psyche Project
 * (Leto givingbirth.jpg) Leto giving birth from The Eros and Psyche Project
 * (Marcantonio Franceschini 002.jpg) The Birth of Apollo and Diana by Marcantonio Franceschini
 * (Leto (Latona). - Engravings on Wood.jpg) Dragon and Leto from A Smaller Classical Mythology
 * (T14.5Leto.jpg) Apollo, Tityus and Leto, Athenian red-figure plate by the Penthesilea Painter
 * (Leto Statue.jpg) The Latona Fountain by André Le Nôtre & Jules Hardouin-Mansart
 * (Leto1.jpg) Latona and Her Children, Apollo and Diana by William Henry Rinehart