Noctes Atticae

On Acca Larentia and Gaia Taracia; and on the origin of the priesthood of the Arval Brethren.

THE names of Acca Larentia and Gaia Taracia, or Fufetia as she is sometimes called, are frequent in the early annals. To the former of these after her death, but to Taracia while she still lived, the Roman people paid distinguished honours. And that Taracia, at any rate, was a Vestal virgin is proved by the Horatian law which was laid before the people with regard to her. By this law very many honours are bestowed upon her and among them the right of giving testimony is granted her, and that privilege is given to no other woman in the State. The word testabilis is used in the Horatian law itself, and its opposite occurs in the Twelve Tables: [*](viii. 22; the date of this privilegium (see x. 20. 4) is uncertain.)

Let him be

v2.p.113

infamous and intestabilis, or 'forbidden to testify.'

Besides, if at the age of forty she should wish to leave the priesthood and marry, the right and privilege of withdrawing from the order and marrying were allowed her, in gratitude for her generosity and kindness in presenting to the people the campus Tiberinus or Martius.

But Acca Larentia was a public prostitute and by that trade had earned a great deal of money. In her will she made king Romulus heir to her property, according to Antias' History; [*](Fr. 1, Peter2.) according to some others, the Roman people. Because of that favour public sacrifice was offered to her by the priest of Quirinus and a day was consecrated to her memory in the Calendar. But Masurius Sabinus, in the first book of his Memorialia, following certain historians, asserts that Acca Larentia was Romulus' nurse. His words are: [*](Fr. 14, Huschke; 1, Bremer (ii, p. 368).)

This woman, who had twelve sons, lost one of them by death. In his place Romulus gave himself to Acca as a son, and called himself and her other sons ' Arval Brethren.' Since that time there has always been a college of Arval Brethren, twelve in number, and the insignia of the priesthood are a garland of wheat ears and white fillets.

Some noteworthy anecdotes of King Alexander and of Publius Scipio.

APION, a Greek, called Pleistoneices, [*](Of many quarrels, a word coined in imitation of the epithet applied to famous athletes: pleistoni/khs, of many victories.) possessed a fluent and lively style. Writing in praise of king

Alexander, he says: [*](F.H.G. iii. 515.)

He forbade the wife of his vanquished foe, a woman of surpassing loveliness, to be brought into his presence, in order that he might not touch her even with his eyes.

We have then the subject for a pleasant discussion—which of the two shall justly be considered the more continent: Publius Africanus the elder, who after he had stormed Carthage, [*](Really New Carthage, captured in 210 B.C.; the story is told by Livy, xxvi. 50.) a powerful city in Spain, and a marriageable girl of wonderful beauty, the daughter of a noble Spaniard, had been taken prisoner and brought to him, restored her unharmed to her father; or king Alexander, who refused even to see the wife of king Darius, who was also his sister, when he had taken her captive in a great battle and had heard that she was of extreme beauty, but forbade her to be brought before him.

But those who have an abundance of talent, leisure and eloquence may use this material for a pair of little declamations on Alexander and Scipio; I shall be satisfied with relating this, which is a matter of historical record: Whether it be false or true is uncertain, but at any rate the story goes that your Scipio in his youth did not have an unblemished reputation, and that it was all but generally believed that it was at him that the following verses were aimed by the poet Gnaeus Naevius: [*](ii. 108, Ribbeck3.)

1. E'en he who oft-times mighty deeds hath done,
2. Whose glory and exploits still live, to whom
3. The nations bow, his father once led home,
4. Clad in a single garment, from his love.

I think it was by these verses that Valerius Antias was led to hold an opinion opposed to that of all

other writers about Scipio's character, and to write, [*](Fr. 25, Peter2.) contrary to what I said above, that the captured maiden was not returned to her father, but was kept by Scipio and possessed by him in amorous dalliance.