To the Nations 2.10

I hasten to fouler things. Your authors were not ashamed to publish the story of Larentina. She was a hired harlot, whether as the nurse of Romulus, and so called a she-wolf because she was a harlot, or as the mistress of Hercules, and of Hercules already dead, that is, already a god. For they say that his temple-keeper, happening to be alone in the temple playing at draughts, to give himself the partner he did not have, began the game with one hand in Hercules' name and the other in his own person: if he himself won, he would take a little dinner and a little harlot from Hercules' offerings; but if Hercules, that is, the other hand, won, he would provide the same for Hercules. Hercules' hand won. That too could have been added to his twelve labors! The temple-keeper paid the dinner to Hercules and hired the harlot Larentina; the fire, which had dissolved Hercules' own body, dined, and consumed everything on the altar. Larentina slept alone in the temple, and the woman from the brothel's sport boasted that she had served Hercules in her dreams; and she could well have experienced in a dream what she was contemplating in her mind. As she came out of the temple at first light, a certain young man, a third Hercules, as they say, desired her and invited her home. She complied, remembering that Hercules had told her it would be to her advantage; indeed she obtained that they be joined in lawful marriage (for it was not permitted with impunity to have had dealings with a god's harlot); her husband also wrote her down as his heir. Soon afterwards, near death, she bequeathed to the Roman people the fairly large estate which she had gained through Hercules. Thereby she won divinity, and for her daughters too, whom the divine Larentina ought also to have made her heirs. The deities of the Romans were enhanced by her dignity! Of all the many wives of Hercules she alone was dear to him, for she alone was rich; and so she was far more fortunate than Ceres, who pleased a dead man. With so many examples and names among you, who could not be declared a god? Who, in the end, raised any dispute about Antinous's divinity? Was Ganymede more comely, or dearer to his lover? Heaven lies open to the dead among you. You force a road from the underworld to the stars. Harlots go up everywhere, so do not think you do much for your kings.