During the reign of Romulus or possibly of Ancus Martius, the keeper of the temple of Hercules in Rome invited the god to join in a game of dice on a feast day, the winner to give his opponent a feast and a beautiful girl. Hercules accepted the invitation and won the match: the keeper offered him a feast in the temple and the favours of Acca Larentia, the loveliest girl of the period in Rome. When Hercules gave Acca up he advised her, by way of compensation, to put herself at the disposal of the first man she should meet. This man happened to be an Etruscan named Tarutius, who married her. He was extremely rich and shortly afterwards died; Acca Larentia inherited his large eastates near Rome, which she bequeathed to the Roman people on her death. This version of the legend was clearly devised to give full legal entitlement to the ownership of areas claimed by Rome. In her old age Acca vanished without a trace to Velabria where another Larentia, wife of Faustulus, was buried.

Another legend tells of an Acca Larentia, the wife of a shepherd named Faustulus. She had twelve children, as well as Romulus and Remus whom she adopted. The college of the twelve Arval Brothers was said to have been constituted in memory of the twelve children of Acca Larentia.

{E2 DICTIONARY OF CLASSICAL MYTHOLOGY}

Table of Sources:
- Plutarch, Quaest. Rom. 35, 272
- Lact. 1, 20, 5
- Cato quoted in Macr. Sat. 1, 10, 16
- Varro L.L. 6, 23
- Plutarch Rom. 4ff.
- See H J. Rose, The Roman Questions of Plutarch, 1924, on the passage cited.