ACCA LARENTIA, in Roman legend, the wife of the shepherd Faustulus, who saved the lives of Romulus and Remus. Attempts have been made to explain the wolf-legend by suggest ing that Larentia was called lupa ("courtesan," literally "she wolf") on account of her immoral character (Livy i. 4; Ovid, Fasti, iii. 55). According to another account, Larentia was a beautiful girl whom Hercules won at dice (Macrobius i. lo; Plutarch, Romulus, 4, 5, Quaest. Rom., 35; Aulus Gellius vi. 7). By his advice she married a wealthy Etruscan named Tarutius. She inherited his property and bequeathed it to the Roman people, who instituted in her honour a yearly festival called Larentalia (Dec. 23). According to some, Acca Larentia was the mother of the Lares, and symbolized the fertility of the earth—in par ticular the city lands and their crops.
See Mommsen, "Die echte and die falsche Larentia," in Romische Forschungen, ii. (1879) ; E. Pais, Ancient Legends of Roman History (Eng. trans. 1906), whose views on the subject are criticized by W. W. Fowler in W. H. D. Rouse's The Year's Work in Classical Studies (1907) ; C. Pascal, Studii di antichith e Mitologia (1896).