Acca Larentia was the wife of the shepherd, Faustulus, who found the abandoned twins, Romulus and Remus, being suckled by a she-wolf and adopted them. Because lupa can mean both 'she-wolf' and 'prostitute', some writers rationalized the boys' legend by claiming that Acca Larentia herself had saved their lives by suckling them.

A very different story is told of her by Plutarch (Moralia 272f-273b). The keeper of Hercules' temple at Rome once invited his god to a game of dice. When Hercules won, the temple servant rewarded him with a fine dinner and the services of Larentia, the most beautiful prostitute in Rome, for the night. In the morning, on Hercules' advice, she made advances to the first man she met on leaving the temple- a wealthy Etruscan named Tarrutius- and became his wife. He left her all his money, and she in turn bequeathed her estate to the Roman people.

Coeus. One of the TITANS, son of Uranus (Heaven) and GAIA (Earth). By his sister-Titan PHOEBE (1) he was father of LETO and ASTERIA.

[Hesiod, Theogony 132-6, 404-10]

(Jenny March, Classical Mythology [Cassel & Co: London, 1998])