xviii Kal. Feb. (Jan. 15). NP.
KAR[MENTALIA]. (PRAEN. MAFF. PHIL. CAER.)
The full name of the festival is supplied by Philoc. and Silv. There is a much mutilated note in Praen. on Jan. 11 which is completed by Mommsen thus[[1289]]: ‘[Feriae Carmenti ... quae partus curat omniaque] futura; ob quam ca[usam in aede eius cavetur ab scorteis tanquam] omine morticino.’
The first point to be noticed here is that the same deity has two festival days, with an interval of three days between them. There is no exact parallel to this in the calendar, though there are several instances of something analogous[[1290]]. The Lemuria are on May 9, 11, 13; but here are three days, and no special deity. Kindred deities have their festivals separated by three days, as Consus and Ops (Aug. 21, 25); and we may compare the Fordicidia and Cerealia on April 15 and 19, and the Quinquatrus and Tubilustrium, both apparently sacred to Mars, on March 19 and 23. All festivals occur on days of uneven number; and if there was an extension to two or more days, the even numbers were passed over[[1291]]. But the Romans did not apparently consider the two Carmentalia to be two parts of the same festival, but two different festivals, or they would not have tried to account as they did for the origin of the second day. It was said to have been added by a victorious general who left Rome by the Porta Carmentalis to attack Fidenae[[1292]], or by the matrons who had refused to perform the function of women, in anger at being deprived by the Senate of the right of riding in carpenta; and who, when the decree was withdrawn, testified their satisfaction in this curious way.
It does not seem possible to discover the real meaning of the double festival. It has been suggested[[1293]] that the two days represent the so-called Roman and Sabine cities, like the two bodies of Salii and Luperci. This guess is hardly an impossible one, but it is only a guess, and has nothing to support it but a casual statement by Plutarch that the Carmentalia were instituted at the time of the synoikismos of Latin and Sabine cities[[1294]].
There is fortunately little doubt about the nature of Carmenta and the general meaning of the cult. In all the legends into which she was woven[[1295]] her most prominent characteristic is the gift of prophecy; she is the ‘vates fatidica,’ &c.,
Cecinit quae prima futuros
Aeneadas magnos et nobile Pallanteum.
So Ovid, at the end of his account of her:
At felix vates, ut dis gratissima vixit,
Possidet hunc Iani sic dea mense diem.
The power is expressed in her very name, for carmen signifies a spell, a charm, a prophecy, as well as a poem. Now there is clear evidence that either women alone had access to the temple at the Porta Carmentalis, or that they were the chief frequenters of it; and they are even said to have built a temple themselves[[1296]]. Where we find women worshipping a deity of prophecy we may be fairly sure that that deity also has some influence on childbirth. ‘The reason,’ writes the late Prof. Nettleship[[1297]], ‘why the Carmentes are worshipped by matrons is because they tell the fortunes of the children’—and also, surely, because they tell the fortunes of the women in childbirth[[1298]].
I am inclined to agree with my old tutor that the Carmentes may originally have been wise women whose skill and spells assisted the operation of birth. I do not think we can look for an explanation of the titles Porrima and Postverta elsewhere than in the two positions in which the child may issue from the womb, over each of which a Carmentis watched[[1299]]; and there is in fact no doubt that Carmenta was a birth-goddess[[1300]]. The argument then would be that the spiritual origin attributed to superior knowledge transforms the owner of the knowledge into a divine person. As Sir A. Lyall says[[1301]] (of the genesis of local deities in Berar), ‘The immediate motive (of deification) is nothing but a vague inference from great natural gifts or from strange fortunes to supernatural visitation, or from power during life to power prolonged beyond it.’
Of the cult of Carmenta we know hardly anything. She had a flamen of her own[[1302]], like other ancient goddesses, Palatua, Furrina, Flora. His sacrificial duties must have been confined to the preparing of cereal offerings, for there was a taboo in this cult excluding all skins of animals—all leather—from the temple.
Scortea non illi fas est inferre sacello[[1303]],
Ne violent puros exanimata focos.
Varro writes ‘In aliquot sacris et sacellis scriptum habemus: Ne quid scorteum adhibeatur ideo ne morticinum quid adsit.’ We could wish that he had told us what these sacra and sacella were[[1304]]; as it is we must be content to suppose that a goddess of birth could have nothing to do with the slaughter of animals.
The position of the temple was at the foot of the southern end of the Capitol, near the Porta Carmentalis[[1305]], where, according to Servius, she was said to have been buried (cp. Acca Larentia, Dec. 23). It is noticeable that the festivals of this winter period are connected with sites near the Capitol and Forum; we have already had Saturnus, Ops, and Janus.
If the reader should ask why a goddess of birth should be specially worshipped in the depth of winter, he may perhaps find a reason for it after reading the third chapter of Westermarck’s History of Human Marriage. As far as we can judge from the calendar, April was the month at Rome when marriages and less legal unions were especially frequent[[1306]]; during May and the first days of June marriages were not desirable[[1307]]. In January therefore births might naturally be expected.
Ovid tells us (1. 463) that Juturna was also worshipped on Jan. 11[[1308]]; but whether in any close connexion with Carmenta we do not know. They are both called Nymphs; but from this we can hardly make any inference. Juturna was certainly a fountain-deity: I can find no good evidence that this was one of Carmenta’s attributes. The fount of Juturna was near the Vesta-temple[[1309]], and therefore close to the Forum: its water was used, says Servius, for all kinds of sacrifices, and itself was the object of sacrifice in a drought. All took part in the festival who used water in their daily work (‘qui artificium aqua exercent’). But the Juturnalia appears in no calendar, and Aust is no doubt right in explaining it only as the dedication-festival of the temple built by Augustus in B.C. 2[[1310]].
Feriae Sementivae[[1311]]. Paganalia.
Under date of Jan. 24-26, Ovid[[1312]] writes in charming verse of the feriae conceptivae called Sementivae (or -tinae), which from his account would seem to be identical with the so-called Paganalia[[1313]]. Just as the Compitalia of the city probably had its origin in the country (see on Jan. 3-5), though the rustic compita were almost unknown to the later Romans, so the festival of sowing was kept up in the city (‘a pontificibus dictus,’ Varro, L. L. 6. 26) as Sementinae, long after the Roman population had ceased to sow. In the country it was known—so we may guess—by the less technical name of Paganalia[[1314]], as being celebrated by the rural group of homesteads known as the pagus.
As to the object and nature of the festival, let Ovid speak for himself:
State coronati plenum ad praesaepe iuvenei:
Cum tepido vestrum vere redibit opus.
Rusticus emeritum palo suspendat aratrum[[1315]]:
Omne reformidat frigida volnus humus.
Vilice, da requiem terrae, semente peracta:
Da requiem terram qui coluere viris.
Pagus agat festum: pagum lustrate, coloni,
Et date paganis annua liba focis.
Placentur frugum matres, Tellusque Ceresque,
Farre suo, gravidae visceribusque suis.
Officium commune Ceres et Terra tuentur:
Haec praebet causam frugibus, illa locum.
Ceres and Tellus, ‘consortes operis,’ are to be invoked to bring to maturity the seed sown in the autumn, by preserving it from all pests and hurtful things; and also to assist the sower in his work in the spring that is at hand. This at least is how I understand the lines (681, 682):
Cum serimus, caelum ventis aperite serenis;
Cum latet, aetheria spargite semen aqua.
Or if it be argued that both these lines may very well refer to the spring, it is at least certain that the poet understood the festival to cover the past autumn sowing:
Utque dies incerta sacro, sic tempora certa,
Seminibus iactis est ubi fetus ager[[1316]].
Varro tells us[[1317]] that the time of the autumn sowing extended from the equinox to the winter solstice; after which, as we have seen, the husbandmen rested from their labours in the fields, and enjoyed the festivals we have been discussing since Dec. 17 (Consualia). The last of these is the Paganalia, i. e. the one nearest in date, if we may go by Ovid, to the time for setting to work at the spring sowing, which began on or about Feb. 7 (Favonius).[[1318]] It would thus be quite natural that this festival should have reference not only to the seed already in the ground, but also to that which was still to be sown. If Ovid lays stress on the former, Varro and Lydus seem to be thinking chiefly of the latter[[1319]].
Ovid has told us what was the nature of the rites. According to him, Ceres and Tellus were the deities concerned, and with this Lydus agrees. We need not be too certain about the names[[1320]], considering the ‘fluidity’ and impersonality of early Roman numina of this type; but the type itself is obvious. There were offerings of cake, and a sacrifice of a pregnant sow; the oxen which had served in the ploughing were decorated with garlands; prayers were offered for the protection of the seed from bird and beast and disease. If we may believe a note of Probus’[[1321]], oscilla were hung from the trees, as at the Latin festival, &c., doubtless as a charm against evil influences.