Briuton.] OiO [Nov. 4, 



lines; but, as each line is repeated three times, we have a strong 

 check on his vagaries. All critics agree, however^ as to its value 

 as a monument of antiquity, and one of its most recent editors 

 does not go too far when he calls it " by far the most venerable 

 specimen of Latin which we possess."* 



Its interpretation has tasked the ingenuity of the learned; but, 

 before I proceed to that, I will recall some facts about the origin 

 of this priestly sodality. It was distinctly and wholly Etruscan, 

 and was traditionally connected with the woman, Acca Larentia, 

 and her Etruscan husband, Tarrutius. There are many stories told 

 about Acca, and there are, according to some, a false and a true 

 Acca; but those well acquainted with the kaleidoscope of mythol- 

 ogy will find no difficulty in reconciling the beautiful and noto- 

 rious Acca who was chosen, along with a plenteous board and a 

 skin of old wine, to make merry the night with Hercules; the 

 lascivious Acca, whom shepherds called Lupa, for she was as ''salt 

 as wolves in pride; " with the Acca who ruled the Lares, guardian 

 spirits of the virtuous household, as her by-name Lareiiiia indicates. 

 As for her forename, Acca, Ayca, it occurs in Etruscan inscrip- 

 tions, though its form has been doubted by some good scholars. 



The story — or one of the stories, and the most consistent — ran 

 that Hercules, after his joyous rendezvous, gave her the extremely 

 sane and modern advice to marry the first rich man she could cap- 

 ture. This proved to be the worthy Tarrutius, by whom she 

 achieved the noble maternity of twelve sons, all of whom grew to 

 manhood ; and the position in the envied fraternity of the first 

 who died was promptly taken by Romulus, who had already made a 

 name for himself by plowing his furrow around the Palatine Hill, and 

 declaring himself master of the situation. Acca survived her hus- 

 band, inherited all his property, as the Etruscan custom was, and 

 left it all by will to the Roman people, while her sons, along with 

 Romulus, constituted themselves a holy brotherhood, pledged to 

 call upon the ancient gods of their mother's religion once every 

 year, in the springtime, to bless the fields, and send plenteous 

 returns for the farmer's toil. 



Such were the Arval Brethren ; and in the pleasant Maytime of 

 each year they met and fared forth from Rome along the Via 

 Campana for five miles, when they reached the grove and temple 



* F. D. Allen, Remnants of Early Latin, j). 66. 



