FAUSTULUS - For a type of the royal shepherd of the Roman |legend|, the bringer-up of Quirinus, with the wolf-suckled twins, under the Ruminal fig tree. See FOSTULUS, Pompeia gens.
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In Roman mythology, Faustulus was the shepherd who found the infants Romulus and Remus, who were being suckled by a she-wolf, known as Lupa, on the Palatine Hill. He, with his wife, Acca Larentia, raised the children. In some versions of the myth, Larentia was a prostitute (known in Latin as lupae, or 'she-wolves '). The name Faustulus was later claimed by a Roman family, one of whom minted a coin showing Faustulus with the twins and she-wolf. Sextus Pompeius Fostlus issued a silver denarius in about 140 BCE that showed, on the reverse, the twins being suckled by a dangerous wolf with the shepherd Faustulus to their left.