View source for Amata

{{short description|Ancient Roman mythological figure}}
{{Other uses}}
{{Infobox noble
| name        = Amata
| image       = <!-- just the filename, without the File: or Image: prefix or enclosing [[brackets]] -->
| alt         =
| title=Queen of [[Latin]]s
| spouse=[[Latinus]]
| issue=[[Lavinia]]
}}
According to [[Roman mythology]], '''Amata''' {{IPAc-en|@|'|m|ei|t|@}} (also called '''Palanto''') was the wife of [[Latinus]], king of the [[Latins (Italic tribe)|Latins]], and the mother of their only child, [[Lavinia]].  In the [[Aeneid]] of [[Virgil]], she commits suicide during the conflict between [[Aeneas]] and [[Turnus]] over which of them would marry Lavinia.
When Aeneas asks for Lavinia's hand, Amata objects, because she has already been promised to Turnus, the king of the [[Rutuli]]ans.  Hiding her daughter in the woods, she enlists the other Latin women to instigate a war between the two. Turnus, and his ally [[Mezentius]], leader of the [[Etruscan civilization|Etruscans]], are defeated by Aeneas with the assistance of the Pelasgian colonists from Arcadia and [[Aborigines (mythology)|Italic natives]] of [[Pallantium]], led by that city's founder, the [[Arcadia (ancient region)|Arcadia]]n [[Evander of Pallene]].   The story of this conflict fills the greater part of the seventh book of [[Virgil]]'s ''[[Aeneid]]''. When Amata believes that Turnus had fallen in battle, she hangs herself.<ref>[[Virgil]], ''[[Aeneid]]'', [https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.02.0054%3Abook%3D12%3Acard%3D593 XII.593-613.]</ref><ref>Dionys. i. 64</ref><ref name="DGRBM">{{cite encyclopedia | last = Schmitz | first = Leonhard | authorlink = Leonhard Schmitz | title = Amata | editor = [[William Smith (lexicographer)|William Smith]] | encyclopedia = [[Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology]] | volume = 1 | page = 137 | publisher = [[Little, Brown and Company]] | location = Boston | year = 1867 | url = http://quod.lib.umich.edu/m/moa/ACL3129.0001.001/152?rgn=full+text;view=image}}</ref>
==In Dante's ''Divine Comedy''==
In Canto 17 of [[Dante Alighieri]]'s ''[[Purgatorio]]'', Amata (along with [[Procne]] and [[Haman]]) is one of the canto's three exemplars of the [[Seven deadly sins|sin]] of wrath ([[anger]]). Dante imagines a mournful Lavinia, reproaching her mother, Amata, for the grief which her suicide has inflicted. Parallels have been drawn between Dante and his representation of Amata in ''Purgatorio''. After his exile from Florence and the [[Guelphs and Ghibellines|Black Guelph]] takeover, Dante may have experienced that same self-recrimination experienced by Amata, which led to her suicide.<ref>{{Cite book|title=Lectura Dantis, Purgatorio : Purgatorio.|publisher=[[University of California Press]]|year=2008|editor-last=Mandelbaum|editor-first=Allen|pages=184}}</ref>
==References==
{{Reflist}}
* {{SmithDGRBM|title=Amata}}
{{Aeneid}}
[[Category:Characters in Roman mythology]]
[[Category:Characters in the Aeneid]]
[[Category:Mythological queens]]
[[Category:Latins (Italic tribe)]]
{{AncientRome-myth-stub}}