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: