Leto

Leto is the daughter of the Titans Koios and Phoibe and the mother of Apollo and Artemis by Zeus. Pregnant and pursued by Hera's anger, she is refused by every land in turn until the small floating island of Delos agrees to receive her, on the promise that her son will build his temple there.

By Mythographia Editorial Team Reviewed by Mythographia Editorial Team Updated 2026-09-01

Core Myth

Hesiod places Leto among the children of the Titans Koios and Phoibe and calls her the gentlest in Olympos, mild to men and to the immortals. He records the essential fact in two lines: she lay with Zeus and bore Apollo and Artemis, the loveliest children of all the sky-dwellers. The long version is the Homeric Hymn to Apollo. Leto, heavy with child, travels the islands and the mainland asking for a place to give birth, and every one refuses her out of fear: the child will be a great god, and no ordinary rock wants him. Only Delos, poor and floating and with nothing to lose, considers it, and even Delos asks for a promise first. Leto swears a great oath that Apollo will build his first temple there. After nine days and nights of labour, holding a palm tree, she gives birth. Hera is the pressure behind the story. In later tellings she is the one who forbids the earth to receive Leto and sends the serpent Python after her. What the Hymn describes is the refusal itself, land after land, rather than the machinery behind it, and the effect is to make Delos the centre of Apollo's cult by an act of hospitality rather than of power.

Why could Leto not find a place to give birth?

Every land refused her. The Homeric Hymn to Apollo has her travel from island to island and along the mainland asking for a birthplace, and each one is afraid: the god she carries will be powerful and demanding, and no poor rock wants that. Only Delos agrees, and only after Leto swears that Apollo will build his temple there. Later authors attribute the refusals to Hera forbidding the earth to receive her.

Homeric Hymn to Apollo 89-126

Who were Leto's parents?

Hesiod makes her the daughter of the Titans Koios and Phoibe, which puts her in the generation before the Olympians and makes Apollo and Artemis grandchildren of Titans on their mother's side. This matters for how the two are described: they belong to the Olympian order through Zeus while carrying Titan descent through Leto, and Hesiod calls her the gentlest of those on Olympos.

Hesiod, Theogony 404-410

Where was Apollo born, Delos or Ortygia?

The sources disagree, and some try to hold both. The Homeric Hymn to Apollo places the birth on Delos after nine days of labour. Other accounts separate the twins and put Artemis on Ortygia and Apollo on Delos, which conveniently explains two competing cult claims. Ortygia is itself identified with several different places in antiquity, including Delos itself, so the disagreement is partly about geography and partly about which sanctuary got to claim the event.

Later Traditions

Later authors expand the persecution. Ovid tells of Lycian peasants who refuse the thirsty Leto a drink from their pond and are turned into frogs, and of the Niobids, killed by Apollo and Artemis after Niobe boasts of having more children than Leto. Callimachus makes the wandering the centre of his Hymn to Delos. In Rome she is Latona, and her cult is largely attached to her children rather than held on her own account.

Lineage

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4 recorded relations, each with the ancient line behind it.

Parents

Coeus Hesiod, Theogony 404-411
Coeus and his sister-wife Phoebe are Leto's parents.
Phoebe Hesiod, Theogony 404-411
Leto later bears Apollo and Artemis to Zeus, making Phoebe their great-grandmother.

Children

Also Connected

1 recorded connection, each with the ancient line behind it.

Connected

Eileithyia Homeric Hymn to Apollo 89-101
Hera detains Eileithyia to delay Leto's labor on Delos until Apollo can finally be born.

Where Accounts Differ

birthplace of Artemis
Hera's role in the refusals

The Homeric Hymn puts both births on Delos. Other accounts separate the twins and place Artemis on Ortygia, an island identified differently by different authors.
Hera's role in the refusals is explicit in later authors and only implied in the Homeric Hymn, which describes the fear of the lands without naming its cause.

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Mythology

Mythology Greek Mythology

Referenced By

Term Bow and Arrow

Sources

Primary sources

Hesiod, Theogony 918-920
Hesiod, Theogony 404-410
Homeric Hymn to Apollo 89-126