The History and Significance of the Goddess Acca Larentia

The gods and goddesses from the Classical world (ancient Greece, Rome and Egypt) are some of the most well known deities in the western world. Indeed, these gods and their myths are taught to western children at a very young age in school and we still refer to some of these mythical characters in our modern society today.

The Romans had very few native deities of their own; the majority of Roman gods were imported from other civilizations, a vast amount from Greece. The gods imported from Greece were given Roman names (i.e. Zeus became Jupiter, Hera became Juno, Athena was known as Minerva, etc) and other deities from around the Roman Empire kept their native names.

The Greek gods were adopted alongside the native Italian gods (also known as the Etruscan gods)and there are instances where it is hard to identify which culture a particular deity is originally from. However, there are some gods who are totally Roman, without any other cultural elements to them.

One of these is Acca Larentia. There are a few different accounts as to who she was, but she was a goddess native to the people of Italy where Rome was built. One accounts says that she was the mother of the Lares (household gods or ancestral spirits), the Arval Brothers (the 12 priests of the field gods) and of Hercules. There are other versions that state that was won by Hercules in a dice game.

She features heavily in the Roman foundation myth of Romulus and Remus. Where the twin boys were laid out in the open and were found and suckled by a she-wolf. In this account, the shepherd Faustulus and his wife, Acca Larentia, adopted them.

From tracing the origins of her name across the Mediterranean and the Middle East, the first part of her name appears to be translated as ‘mother’. “On this showing, Acca would appear to be the Roman equivalent of Mother Earth, the nourishing and life-giving, but also chthonian, divinity. “. 

The second part of her name, Larentia, is a little different but has some similarities. “Now Larentia was connected with the feast of the Larentalia, which fell on December 23rd, as we know from the Maffeian and Praenestine calendars and the evidence of Ovid. On that day the priests offered her publicly mortuary honors … Acca Larentia would then appear to be the mother of the Lares, whose chthonian associations have repeatedly been suspected”.

From this then, it is clear that Acca Larentia was seen to be a mother-goddess, particularly the Mother Earth goddess that is widespread throughout the Mediterranean. In this role of Acca Larentia, scholars have stated that she was “manifesting herself in her usual double aspect as the mnagna parens of mortals and as the great chthonian goddess of death, who mercifully takes men back unto her bosom at the close of their earthly careers”.

Bibliography:

Krappe, Alexander H. (1942) Accia Larentia, American Journal of Archaeology, Archaeological Institute of Archaeology.