Fraus is the Goddess of fraud and guile in Roman myth; Her name has meanings of fraud, trickery, and deceit, as well as those of crime or delusion. She doesn’t have much mythology of Her own and She seems to have been lifted nearly whole from Greek myth, where She is called Apate, the spirit of deceit, fraud, and deception. Apate is either one of the many children of primordial Nyx (Night) and Erebos (Darkness), or a child of Nyx alone. In Roman thought Fraus is said to be the daughter of Nox (Night) and either Erebus (Erebos) or Orcus, an early Roman God of the Underworld. Cicero, in his De Natura Deorum or, On the Nature of the Gods, written in the mid first century BCE, shortly after Julius Caesar’s assassination and not long before Cicero’s own (on the orders of Mark Antony), lists the children of Nox and Erebos; it is clear he is drawing on a Greek source, and simply translating Their names into Latin. Besides Fraus (Greek Apate, Fraud), he gives Her siblings as Aether (Greek Aithir, Light, the Upper Air of the Heavens), Amor (the Greek primordial Eros, not Aphrodite’s mischievous son), Dolus (Dolos, the male counterpart of Apate, also a Deity of trickery and cunning), Fatum (Moros, Doom, one’s fated death), Gratia (Philotes, Friendship, Kindness or Affection), Hemera (he uses the Greek name, meaning Day), Invidentia (Nemesis, Resentful Envy), Labor (Ponos, Toil), Metus (Deimos, Terror or Dread-Fear), Miseria (Oizys, Misery or Suffering), Mors (Thanatos, Peaceful Death), the Parcae (Moirai, the Fates), Pertinacia (no Greek equivalent apparently, meaning Obstinancy), Querella (Momos, Mockery, Scorn, or Complaint), Senectus (Geras, Old Age), the Somnia (the Oneiroi, the Dream spirits), and Tenebrae (the Keres, Violent or Cruel Death). This generally accords with the Greek versions of the children of Nyx, though Hesiod also adds Eris, (Latin Discordia, Discord) to the list.

As a child of fruitful Night Apate/Fraus is one of a primeval generation of Deities Who came into being long before the Olympians (or even the Titans) did. As such She may be said to represent an idea considered basic to the workings of the world, at least in Greek thought. Which means that deceit (twice over, as Her brother Dolos/Dolus is also a God of trickery) came into being even before the world was created, as in some myths (not Hesiod, though) the Earth Goddess Gaia is the daughter of Hemera and Aither, siblings of Apate.

In Greek legend Apate is said to own a belt or sash that, like Aphrodite’s famous magical belt, granted powers to whoever wore it; in Aphrodite’s case, the power of seduction and inspiring passion, while Apate’s belt caused others to be easily deceived. Hera borrowed it once, in order to trick Her son Ares into coming back to Olympos, or at least that’s what She told Apate; She also used it to deceive Semele (mother of Dionysos) into asking Zeus to appear in His full glory, which killed Her.

Fraus is mentioned in Martianus Capella’s sole work, the allegorical De nuptiis Philolgiae et Mercurii, or On the Marriage of Philology and Mercury, written in the early 5th century CE. In it, Martianus speaks of the Divine wedding guests as living in the heavens, which is divided into sixteen parts very much like the old Etruscan way of dividing the heavens into regions overseen by specific Gods (as shown on the famous bronze model of a sheep’s liver from Piacenza, used as a teaching tool for haruspicy). Fraus is said to live in the seventh region of the sky, with Liber (God of wine and freedom) and ‘Pales of the second rank’ (Pales is the shepherd Deity, so perhaps Faunus or Fauna is meant here). Jupiter, Who is arranging the invitations, invites Fraus because She has always been such a friend to Mercury (the groom), as the two were known to scheme together.

Note: there is an oft-repeated (or oft cut-and-pasted) description of Fraus going around that states She was depicted as a great serpent with the (sometimes two-faced, Janus-like) head of a woman, with a scorpion’s sting in the end of Her tail; I have not been able to track down any kind of original source for that.