A Dictionary of Greek and Roman biography and mythology

the female divinity of the sea among the Romans, and the wife of Neptune. (Varro, De Ling. Lat. 5.72; apud August. De Civ. Dei, 7.22; Serv. ad Aen. 1.144, 10.76.) The name is evidently connected with sal (ἅλς), and accordingly denotes the wide, open sea. Servius (Serv. ad Aen. 1.720) declares the name Salacia to be only a surname of Venus, while in another passage (ad Georg. 1.31) he observes, that Cicero, in hit Timaeus, applied the name to the Greek Tethys, which we cannot wonder at, since the natural tendency was to identify Salacia with some Greek marine divinity. (Comp. Cic. de Univers. 11 ; Gellius, 13.22; August. l.c. 4.10.)

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