Quaestiones Romanae

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 vehicles[*](Cf. Livy, v. 25. 9, and xxxiv. 1 and 8.); 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.

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, [*](That is, carens mente.) 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.[*](Cf.Life of Romulus, xxi. (31 a); Dionysius of Halicarnassus, Roman Antiquities, i. 31; Strabo, v. 33. p. 230; Ovid, Fasti, i. 619 ff.)

Why do the women that sacrifice to Rumina pour milk over the offerings, but make no oblation of wine in the ceremony?

Is it because the Latins call the teat ruma, and assert that Ruminalis[*](Cf. 320 d, infra, and Life of Romulus, iv. (19 d); Ovid, Fasti, ii. 411 ff.) acquired its name inasmuch as the she-wolf offered its teat to Romulus? Therefore, as we call wet-nurses thelonai from thele (teat), even so Rumina is she that gives suck, the nurse and nurturer of children: she does not, therefore, welcome pure wine, since it is harmful for babes.