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Why are the matrons supposed to have
founded the temple of Carmenta originally, and
why do they reverence it now above all others?
There is a certain tale repeated that the women
were prevented by the senate from using horse-drawn vehicles1; they therefore made an agreement with one another not to conceive nor to bear
children, and they kept their husbands at a distance,
until the husbands changed their minds and made
the concession to them. When children were born
to them, they, as mothers of a fair and numerous
progeny, founded the temple of Carmenta.
Some assert that Carmenta was the mother of
Evander and that she came to Italy ; that her name
was Themis, or, as others say, Nicostratê; and
that because she chanted oracles in verse, she was
named Carmenta by the Latins, for they call verses
carmina.
[p. 93]
But others think that Carmenta is a Fate, and that
this is the reason why the matrons sacrifice to her.
The true meaning of the name is ‘deprived of
sense,’
2 by reason of her divine transports. Wherefore Carmenta was not so named from carmina, but
rather carmina from her, because, in her divine frenzy,
she chanted oracles in verse and metre.3
Plutarch. Moralia. with an English Translation by. Frank Cole Babbitt. Cambridge, MA. Harvard University Press. London. William Heinemann Ltd. 1936. 4.
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