Nonnus' tells the story of the rape of Aura, by Dionysus, in the final book of his epic poem the Dionysiaca. In this account, Aura is the nymph daughter of the Titan Lelantos. Nonnus seems to imply that Aura's mother was the wife of Lenatos, the Oceanid nymph Periboia, although elsewhere, he calls Aura the "daughter of Cybele". Aura was a resident of Phrygia and companion of the goddessArtemis. She was "Aura the Windmaid", as fast as the wind, "the mountain maiden of Rhyndacos", a "manlike" virgin, "who knew nothing of Aphrodite", and huntress, who "ran down the wild bear" and "ravening lions", and "kept aloof from the notions of unwarlike maids". Nonnus describes Aura as follows: One day, angry at Eros and "Sleep" and "Dream" for forcing upon her an unchaste dream, Aura goes hunting with Artemis. For relief from the midday heat, the hunting party stops for a swim. Aura then teases Artemis, saying that her breasts were better than Artemis's, since hers were small and round like a man's, while Artemis's were large and voluptuous like a woman's, and so belied Artemis' supposed "unviolated maidenhood". Deeply offended, the angry Artemis goes to Nemesis, the goddess of divine retribution, who arranges for Aura to be raped. Dionysus is made mad with desire for Aura, by an arrow from the bow of Eros. But knowing that he will never be able to seduce the obdurately virginal Aura, Dionysus drugs Aura with wine, ties her up, and rapes her while she is unconscious and unmoving. When Aura awakes, discovering she is no longer a virgin, but not knowing who is responsible, enraged, she proceeds to slaughter every man she finds. When she realizes she is pregnant, she tries to kill herself but is unable. Aura finally gives birth to twins boys. She gives them to a lioness to eat, but it refuses. So Aura seizes one of the boys, flings it high into the air, and after it falls back to hit the ground, she eats it. However, Artemis spirits the other child safely away. Aura then drowns herself in the riverSangarios, where Zeus turned her into a spring: According to Nonnus, Aura's surviving child by Dionysus, is Iacchus, a minor deity connected with the Eleusinian mysteries, although other accounts have Iacchus, when not identified with Dionysus himself, the son of Demeter or Persephone.
The Augustan poet Ovid, in the Ars Amatoria and again in the Metamorphoses, introduces Aura into the tragic story of Cephalus and Procris, perhaps playing on the verbal similarity of Aura and Aurora, the Roman goddess of the dawn, who was Cephalus' lover. In the Metamorphoses, Ovid has Cephalus tell how it was his habit, that after finishing a hunt, he would seek out the cooling breeze: But one day, as Cephalus tells: "Some one overhearing these words was deceived by their double meaning; and, thinking that the word ‘Aura’ so often on my lips was a nymph’s name, was convinced that I was in love with some nymph." When Cephalus' words were reported to his wife Procris, she was stricken with grief and fear, over, according to Cephalus, a "mere nothing" and "an empty name". The next day after a successful morning's hunt, Cephalus cried out again: "Come, Aura, come and soothe my toil" but when he said this Cephalus thought he heard a groan and called out: "Come, dearest". Then hearing the rustle of leaves, he threw his javelin, at what he thought was some animal, but was instead Procris, who had come to spy on her husband. With her dying breath Procris says: "By the union of our love, by the gods above and my own gods, by all that I have done for you, and by the love that still I bear you in my dying hour, the cause of my own death, I beg you, do not let this Aura take my place." And Cephalus says: "And then I knew at last that it was a mistake in the name".
Iconography
Extant images of Aura from antiquity are rare. There are only two which can be identified as Aura by inscription. The oldest is a fifth-century BC skyphos from Taranto, now in the Nicholson Museum, University of Sydney, which shows a figure labeled "Aura", seated on a rock by the sea, with velificatio, a billowing garment that forms an arch overhead. The other is found on a volute-krater funerary vase, now in the British Museum. Depicted on its neck is a polos-crowned head with curls, and the inscription "Aura" above the polos crown. Pliny describes two statues of Aurae with velificantes sua veste, "spreading their cloaks like sails", at the Porticus Octaviae in Rome. Influenced by Pliny's description, a pair of velificantes that appear on the Ara Pacis Augustae have often been identified as Aurae, although this identification has been criticized, and many other identications have been proposed. Aurae can resemble Nereids, from whom they are distinguishable mainly by the absence of marine imagery. The female figures with wind-blown drapery, which adorned the Nereid Monument at Xanthos, though usually identified as Nereids, have sometimes been identified as Aurae. Aura is sometimes identified as the female figure carried by Zephyr in Sandro Botticelli's painting The Birth of Venus.
