Hersilia

• the wife of Romulus, Ov. M. 14, 830 sq.; Liv. 1, 11, 2; Macr. S. 1, 6.

the wife of Romulus, according to Livy (1.11) and Plutarch (Romul. 14) but, according to Dionysius (2.45, 3.1), Macrobius (Macr. 1.6), and one of the accounts in Plutarch (l.c.), of Hostus Hostilius, or Hostus, grandfather of Tullus Hostilius, fourth king of Rome. Those who made Hersilia wife of Romulus, gave her a son Aollius or Avillius, and a daughter Prima (Zenodotus of Troezene, apud Plut. Romul. 14); those who assigned her to Hostus, called her son Hostus Hostilius. [Hostilius Hostus.] Hersilia was the only married woman carried off by the Romans in the rape of the Sabine maidens, and that unwittingly, or because she voluntarily followed the fortunes of Prima her daughter. In all versions of her story, Hersilia acts as mediator--in Livy (l.c.) with Romulus, for the people of Antemnae--in Dionysius and Plutarch (ib. 19), between the Romans and Sabines, in the war arising from the rape of the women. Her name is probably a later and a Greek addition to the original story of Romulus. As Romulus after death became Quirinus, so those writers who made Hersilia his wife raised her to the dignity of a goddess, Hora or Horta, in either case, probably, with reference to boundaries of time (Ὥρα) or space (ὅρος). (Gel. 13.22 ; Ennius, Ann. i.; Nonius, s. v. Hora; Augustin. de Civ. Dei. 4.16.) [W.B.D]

One of the Sabine women carried away by the Romans at the celebration of the Consualia. She was given to Romulus as a wife, and, after his death, became herself a divinity, under the name of Hora (Youth) (Livy, i. 11; Gell.xiii. 22; Romul. 14). Others make her the wife of Hostus Hostilius, grandfather of king Tullus Hostilius of Rome (Macrob. Sat. i. 6).