Caieta

Mythological Greek character

In Roman mythology, Caieta (Ancient Greek: Καιήτη, Cāiēta) was the wet-nurse of Aeneas. The Roman poet Vergil locates her grave on the bay at Gaeta, to which she also gives her name (cf. Caietae Portus).^[1] The poet Ovid, working a generation later, provides an epitaph:

HIC • ME • CAIETAM • NOTAE • PIETATIS • ALVMNUS

EREPTAM • ARGOLICO • QVO • DEBVIT • IGNE • CREMAVIT^[2]

"Here me, Caieta, snatched from Grecian flames, my pious son consumed with fitting fire."^[3] The fourth-century commentator Servius writes that there was some controversy about whose wet-nurse Caieta was: in addition to Aeneas, he offers Creusa and Ascanius as possibilities.^[4]

References

^ Vergil Aeneid 7.1-4
^ Ovid Metamorphoses 14.443-444
^ Ovid, Metamorphoses, trans. Frank Justus Miller, Loeb Classical Library 43 (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1984), 331.
^ Servius In Vergili Aeneidem Commentarii 7.1

Virgil's Aeneid (19 BC)

Characters

Deities	Alecto Crinisus Cupid Hecate Hymen Juno Jupiter Mars Mercury Saturn Tiberinus Venus
Trojans	Achates Aeneads Aeneas Aeolus Aletes Anchises Andromache Antiphates Ascanius Caieta Capys Cassandra Clonius Corynaeus Creusa Dardanus Dares Phrygius Deiphobus Elymus Entellus Euryalus Gyas Helenus Hippocoon Ilioneus Laocoön Mimas Misenus Mnestheus Nisus Ornytus Palinurus Pandarus Panthous Paris Polites Priam Ripheus Sergestus Theano Thymoetes Ucalegon
Phoenicians	Acerbas Anna Perenna Belus Dido Mattan I Pygmalion of Tyre
Others	Acestes Achaemenides Actor Ajax the Lesser Amata Androgeus Automedon Aventinus Butes Camilla Catillus Clytius Cydon Cydonians Diomedes Erulus Evander of Pallene Halaesus Iarbas Juturna Latinus Lausus Lavinia Macar Messapus Metabus Mezentius Neoptolemus Pallas Picus Rutuli Salius Sinon Turnus Ufens Umbro Venulus