in mythology, a pagan goddess, whose history is very obscure. Hesiod makes her the daughter of Titan Coeus and Phoebe his sister. She was admired for her beauty, and celebrated for the favours which she granted to Jupiter. Juno, always jealous of her husband's amours, made Latona the object of her vengeance, and sent the serpent Python to disturb her peace and persecute her. Latona wandered from place to place in the time of her pregnancy, continually alarmed for fear of Python. She was driven from heaven; and Terra, influenced by Juno, refused to give her a place where she might rest and bring forth. Neptune, moved with compassion, struck with his trident and made immoveable the island of Delos, which before wandered in the Aegean, and appeared sometimes above, and sometimes below, the surface of the sea. Latona, changed into a quail by Jupiter, came to Delos; where she resumed her original shape, and gave birth to Apollo and Diana, leaning against a palm tree or an olive. Her repose was of short duration: Juno discovered the place of her retreat, and obliged her to fly from Delos. She wandered over the greatest part of the world; and in Caria, where her fatigue compelled her to stop, she was insulted and ridiculed by the peasants of whom she asked for water while they were weeding a marsh. Their refusal and insolence provoked her, and she intreated Jupiter to punish their barbarity. They were all changed into frogs. She was also insulted by Niobe; who boasted herself greater than the mother of Apollo and Diana, and ridiculed the presents which the piety of her neighbours had offered to Latona. At last, Latona, though persecuted and exposed to the resentment of Juno, became a powerful deity, and saw her children receive divine honours. Her worship was generally established where her children received adoration; particularly at Argos, Delos, &c., where she had temples. She had an oracle in Egypt, celebrated for the true and decisive answers which it gave. Latona, Venus, and Diana, were the three goddesses most in veneration among the Roman women.

LATTRIA, in theology, a religious worship due only to God. See ADORATION.

The Romanists say, "They honour God with the worship of latria, and the saints with the worship of dulia." But the terms, however distinct, are usually confounded.

The worship of latria, besides its inner characters, has its external marks to distinguish it; the principal whereof is sacrifice, which cannot be offered to any other but God himself, as being a solemn acknowledgment or recognition of the sovereignty of God, and our dependence on him.

Mr Daille seems to own, that some of the fathers of the fourth century allowed the distinction between latria and dulia.

LATRINÆ, were public houses of office, or necessaries, amongst the Romans. We do not find, in the writings or buildings that remain of antiquity, that they had any privies in their dwellings. The latrines were public places where the slaves washed and emptied their master's close-stools. We are pretty well assured that the Romans had public places of convenience, which were covered over, and had a sponge hanging up in them for cleanliness. Rich men had close-stools, which were taken away occasionally to the common shores.