In Greek

Greek mythology

Greek mythology is the body of myths and legends belonging to the ancient Greeks, concerning their gods and heroes, the nature of the world, and the origins and significance of their own cult and ritual practices. They were a part of religion in ancient Greece...

 and Roman mythology

Roman mythology

Roman mythology is the body of traditional stories pertaining to ancient Rome's legendary origins and religious system, as represented in the literature and visual arts of the Romans...

, Aura is the divine personification of the breeze. The plural form, Aurae, "Breezes," is often found.

The velificatio

Velificatio

Velificatio is a stylistic device used in ancient Roman art to frame a deity by means of a billowing garment. It represents "vigorous movement," an epiphany, or "the vault of heaven," often appearing with celestial, weather, or sea deities...

, a billowing garment that forms an arch overhead, is the primary attribute by which an Aura can be identified in art. A pair of velificantes (figures framed by a velificatio) that appear on the Augustan Altar of Peace

Ara Pacis

The Ara Pacis Augustae is an altar to Peace, envisioned as a Roman goddess...

 have sometimes been identified as Aurae. Pliny

Pliny the Elder

Gaius Plinius Secundus , better known as Pliny the Elder, was a Roman author, naturalist, and natural philosopher, as well as naval and army commander of the early Roman Empire, and personal friend of the emperor Vespasian...

 describes statues of the Aurae velificantes sua veste, "making a sail with their garment," at the Porticus Octaviae

Porticus Octaviae

The Porticus Octaviae is an ancient structure in Rome.Built by Augustus in the name of his sister, Octavia Minor, at some time after 27 BC, in place of the Porticus Metelli, the porticus enclosed within its colonnaded walks the temples of Jupiter Stator and Juno Regina, next to the Theater of...

 in Rome. Aurae can resemble Nereids, from whom they are distinguishable mainly by the absence of marine imagery.

The Augustan poet

Augustan literature (ancient Rome)

Augustan literature is the period of Latin literature written during the reign of Augustus , the first Roman emperor. In literary histories of the first part of the 20th century and earlier, Augustan literature was regarded along with that of the Late Republic as constituting the Golden Age of...

 Ovid

Ovid

Publius Ovidius Naso , known as Ovid in the English-speaking world, was a Roman poet who is best known as the author of the three major collections of erotic poetry: Heroides, Amores, and Ars Amatoria...

 introduces Aura into the tragic story of Cephalus

Cephalus

Cephalus is an Ancient Greek name, used both for the hero-figure in Greek mythology and carried as a theophoric name by historical persons. The word kephalos is Greek for "head", perhaps used here because Cephalus was the founding "head" of a great family that includes Odysseus...

 and Procris

Procris

In Greek mythology, Procris was the daughter of Erechtheus, king of Athens and his wife, Praxithea. She married Cephalus, the son of Deioneus. Procris had at least two sisters, Creusa and Orithyia...

, playing on the verbal similarity of Aura and Aurora

Aurora (mythology)

Aurora is the Latin word for dawn, the goddess of dawn in Roman mythology and Latin poetry.Like Greek Eos and Rigvedic Ushas , Aurora continues the name of an earlier Indo-European dawn goddess, *Hausos....

, the Roman goddess of the dawn who was the counterpart of Greek Eos

Eos

In Greek mythology, Eos is the Titan goddess of the dawn, who rose from her home at the edge of Oceanus, the ocean that surrounds the world, to herald her brother Helios, the Sun.- Greek literature :...

.

In the Dionysiaca

Dionysiaca

The Dionysiaca is an ancient epic poem and the principal work of Nonnus. It is an epic in 48 books, the longest surviving poem from antiquity at 20,426 lines, composed in Homeric dialect and dactylic hexameters, the main subject of which is the life of Dionysus, his expedition to India, and his...

of Nonnus

Nonnus

Nonnus of Panopolis , was a Greek epic poet. He was a native of Panopolis in the Egyptian Thebaid, and probably lived at the end of the 4th or early 5th century....

 (early 5th century), Aura is the goddess of the breeze and the fresh, cool air that comes in the early morning. She was the daughter of Lelantos

Lelantos

Lelantos, or Lelantus, was the Titan father of Aura by Periboa. He was the son of Coeus and Phoebe and brother to Leto and Asteria.-References:* Davidson, James, The Greeks and Greek Love, Random House, Inc., 2009. ISBN 9780375505164....

 and Periboa

Periboea

In Greek mythology, nine people shared the name Periboea .#Periboea was the daughter of either King Cychreus of Salamis or of Alcathous, her mother in the latter case being either Pyrgo or Evaechme, daughter of Megareus. She married Telamon and became and mother of Ajax...

 and mother of Iacchus

Iacchus

In Greek mythology, Iacchus is an epithet of Dionysus, particularly associated with the Mysteries at Eleusis, where he was considered to be the son of Zeus and Demeter...

 by Dionysus

Dionysus

Dionysus was the god of the grape harvest, winemaking and wine, of ritual madness and ecstasy in Greek mythology. His name in Linear B tablets shows he was worshipped from c. 1500—1100 BC by Mycenean Greeks: other traces of Dionysian-type cult have been found in ancient Minoan Crete...

.

External links

• The Theoi Project, "Aura", gives translated passages of Dionysiaca.