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In Greek mythology Leto' ( Greek: Λητώ) ("hidden one") is known to be a daughter of the Titans Coeus and Phoebe, and in the Olympian scheme of things, Zeus is the father of her twins, Apollo and Artemis. Still, Leto is scarcely to be conceived apart from being pregnant and finding a suitable place to be delivered of Apollo, the second of her twins. This is her one active mythic role: once Apollo and Artemis are grown, Leto withdraws, to remain a dim, benevolent matronly figure upon Olympus, dark and mild, her part already played.

In Roman mythology her equivalent, as mother of Apollo and Diana, is Latona.

The people of Cos claimed Leto as their own. A measure of what a primal goddess Leto was can be recognized in her Titan father, whose name "Coeus" links him to the sphere of heaven from pole to pole, and her mother "Phoebe," who is precisely the "pure" and "purifying" epithet of the full moon.

When Hera, the most conservative of goddesses — for she had the most to lose in changes to the order of nature — discovered that Leto was pregnant and that Zeus was the father, she realized that the offspring would cement the new order. She was powerless to stop the flow of events, but she banned Leto from giving birth on "terra firma", on the mainland, or any island at sea, or any place under the sun ( Hyginus, Fabulae, 140). Some mythographers hinted that Leto came down from the land of the Hyperboreans in the guise of a she-wolf, or that she sought out the "wolf-country" of Lycia for her denning. But most accounts agree that she found the barren floating island of Delos, which was neither mainland nor a real island, and gave birth there, promising the island wealth from the worshippers who would flock to the obscure birthplace of the splendid god who was to come. The island was surrounded by swans. As a gesture of gratitude, Delos was secured with four pillars and later became sacred to Apollo.

It is remarkable that Leto brought forth Artemis, the elder twin, without struggle or pain, as if she were merely revealing another manifestation of her self. For Apollo, Leto labored for nine nights and nine days, according to the Homeric Hymn to Delian Apollo in the presence of all the first among the deathless goddesses as witnesses: DioneDione in Greek mythology is the goddess considered to be the mother of Aphrodite. This name comes from Book V of Homer's Iliad Aphrodite journeyed to Dione's side after she is wounded in battle while protecting her favorite and son Aeneas. In this episode, RheaRhea was the giantess daughter of Uranus and of Gaia. She was both sister and wife to Cronus and mother to Demeter, Hades, Hera, Hestia, Poseidon, and Zeus. She was strongly associated with Cybele. In Roman mythology, she was Magna Mater deorum Idaea., IchnaeaNemesis (called Rhamnusia the " goddess of Rhamnus" at her sanctuary in Rhamnus), in Greek mythology, is the spirit of divine retribution, vengeful fate personified as a remorseless goddess. Such harsh divine justice is a major theme in the Hellenic world and ThemisIn Greek mythology, among the six brothers and six sisters of whom Cronos made one, Hesiod mentions Themis among the children of Gaia with Ouranos, Earth with Sky. Among these Titans of primordial myth, few were venerated at specific sanctuaries in classi and the sea-goddess "loud-moaning" AmphitriteHerculaneum depicting Neptune and Amphitrite Amphitrite in ancient Greek mythology, was a sea-goddess, and wife of Poseidon, identified with the Salacia the wife of Neptune in Roman mythology. She was daughter of Nereus and Doris according to Hesiod's The. Only Hera kept apart, and perhaps she kidnapped IlithyiaIlithyia was the Greek goddess of childbirth and midwives, daughter of Zeus and Hera. She was later identified with Hera and Artemis. According to Homer, there were several called Eileithyiai while Hesiod and Pausanias always claimed there was only one, k, the goddess of childbirth, to prevent Leto from going into labor, but Artemis was born first and then assisted with the birth of Apollo. Another version states that Artemis was born one day before Apollo, on the island of Ortygia , and that she helped Leto cross the sea to Delos the next day to give birth to Apollo.

Leto was threatened and assailed in her wanderings by chthonic monsters of the ancient earthFor other uses of the term "chthon", see chthon. In mythology chthonic (from Greek χθονιος-pertaining to the earth; earthy) designates, or pertains to, gods or spirits of the underworld, especially in Greek mytholo and old ways, and these became the enemies of Apollo and Artemis. One was the Titan Tityos, a phallic being who grew so vast that he split his mother's womb and had to be carried to term by Gaia herself. He attempted to waylay Leto near Delphi, but was laid low by the arrows or Apollo— or possibly Artemis, as another myth-teller recalled.

Another ancient earth creature that had to be overcome was the dragon Pytho or Python which lived in a cleft of the mother-rock beneath Delphi, beside the Castalian Spring. Apollo slayed it but had to do penance and be cleansed afterwards, since Python was a child of Gaia. Sometimes the slaying was said to be because Python had attempted to rape Leto while pregnant with Apollo and Artemis, but one way or another, it was necessary that the ancient oracle pass to the protection of the new god.

A Queen of Thebes and wife of Amphion, Niobe boasted of her superiority to Leto because she had fourteen children ( Niobids), seven male and seven female, while Leto had only two. For her hubris, Apollo killed her sons as they practiced athletics, with the last begging for his life, and Artemis her daughters. Apollo and Artemis used poisoned arrows to kill them, though according to some versions a number of the Niobids were spared ( Chloris, usually). Amphion, at the sight of his dead sons, either killed himself or was killed by Apollo after swearing revenge. A devastated Niobe fled to Mount Sipylus in Asia Minor and turned to stone as she wept, or committed suicide. Her tears formed the river Achelous. Zeus had turned all the people of Thebes to stone and so no one buried the Niobids until the ninth day after their death, when the gods themselves entombed them.

Leto was intensely worshipped in Lycia, Asia Minor. In Delos and Athens she was worshipped primarily as an adjunct to her children. Herodotus reported hearsay of a temple to her in Egypt attached to a floating island called "Khemmis" in Buto, which also included a temple to Apollo. However, Herodotus apparently didn't believe in the existence of either temple.