Valerius Flaccus, Argonautica 4. 60 ff (trans. Mozley) (Roman epic C1st A.D.) :
"Latona [Leto] and Diana [Artemis] together stood mournful-eyed before Jove [Zeus], and Apollo thus supplicating speaks : `Until what other Alcides [Herakles] come, until what time indeed, great king, dost thou put off the old man of Caucasus [Prometheus]? Grantest thou no end at all of punishment and misery? The whole race of mankind beseeches thee, ay, the very mountains, worthy sire, and weary ridges with their forests supplicate thee. Sufficiently hast thou punished the theft of fire and safeguarded the secrets of the ethereal board.' . . . He [Zeus] moved by the goddesses' tears and Phoebus' [Apollon's] high renown sends down swift Iris on her rosy cloud. `Go,' he says, `let Alcides [Herakles] . . . rescue the Titan from the dreadful Bird.'"
Nonnus, Dionysiaca 24. 94 ff (trans. Rouse) (Greek epic C5th A.D.) :
"All the denizens of Olympos who cared for their beloved oaks, rescued Hadryas Nymphai [when the Indian River Hydaspes tried to drown them with the rest of the army of Dionysos]; and most especially laurel-Apollon appeared and saved the Daphnaiai (Laurel-Nymphs); and Leto his mother stood by her son and helped them [the palm-tree Dryades], for she still honoured the tree which helped her childbirth [the Delian palm]."
Nonnus, Dionysiaca 36. 5 ff :
"The gods who dwell in Olympos ranged themselves in two parties to direct the warfare [between the forces of Dionysos & the Indians] on both sides, these supporting Deriades [king of the Indians], those Lyaios [Dionysos] . . . Hermes rod in hand came to conflict with Leto."
SACRED ANIMALS & BIRDS OF LETO
Aelian, On Animals 4. 29 (trans. Scholfield) (Greek natural history C2nd A.D.) :
"I learn that the Cock is the favourite bird of Leto. The reason is, they say, that he was at her side when she was so happily brought to bed of twins. That is why to this very day a Cock is at hand when women are in travail, and is believed somehow to promote an easy delivery."
Aelian, On Animals 10. 47 :
"The Ichneumon is both male and female in the same individual, partaking of both sexes, and nature has enabled each single same animal both to procreate and to give birth . . . Ichneumons are said to be sacred to Leto and the Eileithyiai (Goddesses of Birth), and the people of Heraklepolis worship them, so they say."
HYMNS TO LETO
Orphic Hymn 35 to Leto (trans. Taylor) (Greek hymns C3rd B.C. to 2nd A.D.) :
"To Leto, Fumigation from Myrrh. Dark-veiled Leto, much invoked queen, twin-bearing Goddess, of noble mien; Koiantis (Daughter of Koios) great, a mighty mind is thine, offspring prolific, blest, of Zeus divine : Phoibos proceeds from thee, the God of light, and Artemis fair, whom winged darts delight; she in Ortygia's honoured regions born, in Delos he, which lofty mounts adorn. Hear me, O queen, and favourably attend, and to this consecration divine afford a pleasing end."
LETO MISCELLANY
Plato, Cratylus 400d & 406d (trans. Lamb) (Greek philosopher C4th B.C.) :
"[Plato constructs philosophical etymologies for the names of the gods :]
Sokrates : Let us inquire what thought men had in giving them [the gods] their names . . . The first men who gave names [to the gods] were no ordinary persons, but high thinkers and great talkers . . . Leto [is named] from her gentleness, because whatever is asked of her, she is willing (ethelêmôn). But perhaps her name is Letho, as she is called by many foreigners; and those who call her by that name seem to do so on account of the mild and gentle (leion, lêthô) kindness of her character."
Sources:
* Homer, The Iliad - Greek Epic C8th B.C.
* Homer, The Odyssey - Greek Epic C8th B.C.
* Hesiod, Theogony - Greek Epic C8th-7th B.C.
* Hesiod, Works & Days - Greek Epic C8th-7th B.C.
* Hesiod, Catalogues of Women - Greek Epic C8th-7th B.C.
* Hesiod, The Astronomy - Greek Epic C8th-7th B.C.
* The Homeric Hymns - Greek Epic C8th-4th B.C.
* Pindar, Odes - Greek Lyric C5th B.C.
* Pindar, Fragments - Greek Lyric C5th B.C.
* Greek Lyric I Sappho, Fragments - Greek Lyric C6th B.C.
* Greek Lyric IV Bacchylides, Fragments - Greek Lyric C5th B.C.
* Greek Lyric IV Praxilla, Fragments - Greek Lyric C5th B.C.
* Greek Lyric IV Scholia, Fragments - Greek Lyric B.C.
* Greek Elegaic Theognis, Fragments - Greek Elegaic C6th B.C.
* Aeschylus, Eumenides - Greek Tragedy C5th B.C.
* Aeschylus, Fragments - Greek Tragedy C5th B.C.
* Aristophanes, Thesmophoriazusae - Greek Comedy C5th-4th B.C.
* Plato, Cratylus - Greek Philosophy C4th B.C.
* Apollodorus, The Library - Greek Mythography C2nd A.D.
* Apollonius Rhodius, The Argonautica - Greek Epic C3rd B.C.
* Callimachus, Hymns - Greek Poetry C3rd B.C.
* Parthenius, Love Romances - Greek Mythography C1st B.C.
* Diodorus Siculus, The Library of History - Greek History C1st B.C.
* Strabo, Geography - Greek Geography C1st B.C. - C1st A.D.
* Pausanias, Description of Greece - Greek Travelogue C2nd A.D.
* Antoninus Liberalis, Metamorphoses - Greek Mythography C2nd A.D.
* Quintus Smyrnaeus, Fall of Troy - Greek Epic C4th A.D.
* The Orphic Hymns - Greek Hymns C3rd B.C. - C2nd A.D.
* Aelian, On Animals - Greek Natural History C2nd-3rd A.D.
* Aelian, Historical Miscellany - Greek Rhetoric C2nd-3rd A.D.
* Hyginus, Fabulae - Latin Mythography C2nd A.D.
* Hyginus, Astronomica - Latin Mythography C2nd A.D.
* Ovid, Metamorphoses - Latin Epic C1st B.C. - C1st A.D.
* Ovid, Fasti - Latin Poetry C1st B.C. - C1st A.D.
* Virgil, Georgics - Latin Bucolic C1st B.C.
* Seneca, Hercules Furens - Latin Tragedy C1st A.D.
* Valerius Flaccus, The Argonautica - Latin Epic C1st A.D.
* Statius, Achilleid - Latin Epic C1st A.D.
* Nonnos, Dionysiaca - Greek Epic C5th A.D.
Other references not currently quoted here : Servius on Virgil's Aeneid 3.72; Orphica Argonautica 975
