ACCA LARENZIA. — According to various ancient authors, but chiefly Macrobius, she was a virtuous woman who lived in the time of King Ancus Marcius. The keeper of time for Hercules one day invited the god to a game of dice, with the agreement that the loser would offer the winner a dinner and a woman. The god won, and spent the night in the temple with A. L., who, in gratitude, was warned by him not to miss the first opportunity that presented itself to her upon leaving: that was his gift. Indeed, a rich Etruscan, Tarutius, struck by her beauty, married her and left her shortly after with many riches. A. L., in turn, upon her death left the Roman people as her heir; and the king ordained that annual funeral sacrifices be performed at her tomb in the Velabrum, near the Via Nova. These sacrifices, Larentalia (v.) or Larentinalia, were held on December 23 by the pontiffs and the flamen Quirinalis.
From this legend of a popular and evidently very ancient type—since it is connected with a tomb located in the area closest to the primitive nucleus of the city and linked to state-owned lands—other legendary details of clearly learned origin must be distinguished. Some wished to make A. L. the wife of Faustulus and the nurse of Romulus and Remus, and thus to explain in a rationalistic manner the legend of the singular suckling of the twins (for *lupa* also means "prostitute"). Since one of her own sons had died, she is said to have adopted Romulus in his place and to have founded the college of the Arval Brothers; and finally, upon her death, she left Romulus as heir to her estate, which had been inherited from Tarutius, her second husband.
Various hypotheses have been advanced to explain symbolically the figure of A. L., but each encounters serious difficulties. So that, after so much learned wandering, the wiser course seems to be to return to the starting point and be content with what the ancients believed, namely that A. L. was simply a courtesan who actually existed—perhaps a couple of centuries after Ancus Marcius—who, having no relatives, wished to leave her goods to the state on condition that funeral rites be celebrated at her tomb, a practice common in all ages and especially in antiquity.